Illuminated Manuscript

Ok, sorry for the delay. I really did forget.


This is very cool and might help spark some inspiration for those of you that are thinking about "The Future Book"

1.Concrete and visual poetry in print

One of the projects shown at Documenta 2002 in Kassel, Germany, was an over sized empty book. The book was ‘written’ by David Small who entitled it: The Illuminated Manuscript (www.davidsmall.com). Of course, the 26 pages did not remain empty. If one moved one’s hand over it, sensors wired around the book caused a projector from high above to send down text according to the page the viewer had opened and according to the movement the viewer’s hand undertook at each page. The text was revealed in an unusual, astonishing manner. It ran from one side to the other, it overwrote itself like a palimpsest, or it circled around on a transparent 3 D tube[1] In any case the text’s appearance was quite impressive, more so because it was initiated by the integration of the viewer’s finger movements.

David Small: Illuminated Manuscript (2002)

The title of David Small’s book installation is in itself suggestive because it aptly and succinctly describes what is happening: writing with light. This includes both the projection from above as well as the plastic pages illuminated from inside and initiated by viewer contact signaling to the projector the number of the current page. However, the title not only marks a technologically innovative method of text presentation, it also leads us back to the past. Illuminated Manuscript is the technical term for handwritten books from the Middle Ages, which are embellished with brilliant inks and dyes. The technique of illumination – elaborately conceived initial letters, ornamental borders and gilded illustrations – sought to let the light shine through the text, which did not mean so much to illustrate the text as to reveal its inner qualities. The light was intended to release the truth of a text from within. Illumination and ornament served the purpose of the message rather than just to illustrate the text.

www.brown.edu/Research/dichtung-digital/2003/parisconnection/concretepoetry.htm

How very cool is this! Any thoughts?