Indie Photobook Library

Open Books

Title: Open Books

Photographer/s: Matt Kowal

Date of publication: 11/25/2010

Place of publication: Portland, Oregon

Dimensions: 12″x9″

Edition size: 15

Type of binding: Hardcover, Leporello Binding System

Number of pages: 26

Type of paper: Fuji Crystal Archive Photo Paper

Number of pictures: 13

Type of printing: Digital C-Print

Printer: AdoramaPix

Publisher: Matt Kowal

Designer: Matt Kowal

Editor: Matt Kowal

Language: English

Category: Artist Book

Price: $62

Summary: Open Books
It is the dawn of the third millennium and Google Book Search, the Gutenberg Project, Open Content Alliance, and other educational and cultural institutions maintain projects to digitize, archive, and distribute literary works. These digital books become text or images displayed on 2-D computer screens. They become representations of their printed version.

The book, its cover, dust jacket, blank pages, and index are parts of the physical container. They ease transportation, standardize features, and encourage production. During digitization, a translation occurs; book-container-words transform into representative format, code, and symbols. The book has been unbound and reformed as a container consisting of information wrapped in computer code. This process pertains to the informatics of electronic literary distribution. The archived digital texts portray an order and flatness that is inherent to the printed word. Similar to books, they allow for non-sequential viewing, albeit at a much faster rate with high searchability. This transformation streamlines and expands dissemination.

I am dealing with the perceived flattening of these books into essential file and format. The information and the container become intermixed, resulting in a composite of imagery, literature, and function. The book as an object, becomes free from its boundaries and contextual meanings. It becomes a printed production.

The container has become part of the message. The book: the story.

Date and place of birth of photographer/s: 11/03/1981 – Oberlin, Ohio

Website: http://www.mattkowal.net

Book link: http://www.adoramapix.com/mattkowal/book/open-books-12×9-edition-of-15

Donated by: Matt Kowal

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Published on January 28, 2011 6:02 pm.
Filed under: Books Tags: 2010, AdoramaPix, Matt Kowal, Open Books, USA

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The Indie Photobook Library is TWO!

This past weekend, the Indie Photobook Library celebrated its 2nd Anniversary. Thank you to all the photographers/artists/bookmakers that have made the collection what it is today! I’d also like to thank Advisory Board members Darius Himes, Andy Adams, Shane Lavalette, and Gabe Reed and all the venues that have welcomed the iPL. In the last two years, the collection has grown to almost 1000 books. The iPL continues to promote and showcase the books in the collection through international pop-up and feature-length exhibitions, articles, conferences, guest lectures, and also preserves them as a non-circulating public library. Having a specific collection dedicated to this contemporary movement in publishing allows for the development of future discourse on trends in self-publishing, the ability to reflect on and compare books in the collection, and for scholarly research to be conducted years, decades, and centuries to come. I am looking forward to continuing the iPL mission.

Cheers,
Larissa Leclair
Founder, Indie Photobook Library