Don’t get me wrong, I think Book Art is sick!
Any kind of creative art that implores artists to think in an abstract way only serves the audience, the artist, and art in general. Book Art requires using books to create various beautiful works. As the picture above shows, the results are often fantastic.
They even force the audience to think in an abstract way. We ask ourselves, what is this piece? What is the artist trying to say? And how in the hell did he create this? (Seriously, the time and thought process required to make some of these pieces is nuckin futs!)
But, as a writer such work inevitably makes me a bit melancholy.
Is this what books have been relegated to? Are they losing their inherent artistic value? Do they have to be altered and obfuscated in order to be appreciated? With the growing popularity of digital media, no one appreciates the traditional value of the printed book anymore.
Even as a 22 yr old, technologically savvy male, I practice an ardent self-proscription to the digital book. I’ll take a hardcover and hot coffee over a Nook any day of the week.
Digital copy is hard to read, it hurts my eyes and… and… to hell with it, I don’t need a reason. It may be arbitrary, but I stubbornly refuse to hop on the bandwagon. The motto is: Printed books all day; digital can suck one.
More on the place of printed books in modern media in this Huff Post article:
There has been a long tradition of art about the book, of art representing books, of artists’ books, and even altered books; however, in the last five years I have noticed a huge rise in practicing artists and a more interested audience. Most of this book work has emerged as a result of, or a response to, the rise of the Internet and the fact that the role of books has dramatically changed in our current information ecology.
Read More: ‘Art Made From Books’: 7 Stunning Pieces Of Book Art.
The Boston Harbor Picayune 
Mjollnir
August 23, 2013
00110101000101101010010011 no thanks! Books are rockin’! 😀
Frances D
August 23, 2013
I couldn’t pin it quickly enough.
Mano
August 23, 2013
Lol, thank you. Glad you enjoyed it. Which do you prefer, print or digital?
Frances D
August 23, 2013
There is nothing like being in a bookstore and seeing shelves and shelves of books. Leather bound, trade paperback, old used ones, boxed sets. The Kindle is convenient, and I have quite a number of “books” on mine.
Mano
August 23, 2013
There are a few books that I like to have with me wherever I go – Sun Tzu’s “The Art Of War,” Aristotle’s “Politics,” and Ben Franklin’s “The Quintessential American” among others.
But I don’t like the feeling of reading a book from a screen. I can’t get into it as much. Not the same experience…
Mano
August 23, 2013
Agreed. Print over digital til I die…