The Future of Books

I wanted to create a physical response to the current issue regarding digital technology and the Internet, and the effect if is having on the way we source information. As with the current issue in the music industry with downloads taking over from CD's, books have an uncertain future too. We are becoming far more virtual and less tactile with the way we entertain and educate ourselves. Search engines on the internet are a great way of finding out specific information fast, but are not always reliable. Books on the other hand are clunky, but are considered to be far more informative and dependable. Books also have personality - they have textures and smells which the internet can't offer (yet). I wanted to challenge myself with creating a physical hybrid of a book and a laptop to illustrate this current issue.

The object itself is made entirely out of an old charity shop book that I purchased for about £1.50, and a few electrical components to light the screen. It has a CD-Rom drive complete with CD, a detachable keyboard to access the battery, and a switch which turns off the light when you close the book.

I used the existing pages and re-covered the book so I could add the title on the spine. I wanted the object to look genuinely like a regular book on the outside, until you open it.