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ELO 2013

Chercher le Texte: Locating the Text in Electronic Literature

Agnieszka Przybyszewska

Department of Theory of Literature

Institute for Contemporary Culture at the University of Lodz (Poland)

LIT(B)ERACY BETWEEN THE BOOK, THE PAGE AND THE SCREEN

– ON BETWEEN PAGE AND SCREEN BY AMARANTH BORSUK AND

BRAD BOUSE

I. When the words are changing their skin

Dick Higgins in Aphorisms for Rainy Day wrote that: “the word is not dead, it is

merely changing its skin” (Higgins 1979: 66). The one who coined a term intermedia could

not be oblivious to the fact that there is semantically important relation between a word and

its skin, between the signifié and the significant. So, he certainly knew that this provisioned

change would deeply influence the art of words.

In case of the print literature, the metaphoric word’s skin could be seen also as the way

it is typographically written and arranged on the pages or in the volume’s space (when we

consider many words’ skin). So, the form of the book could be described as the highest-level

word’s skin. Therefore, traditional (by what I mean: worked out by centuries of tradition)

word’s skin is neutral, speechless, as the form of so-called “classic” book should not disturb

during the act of reading, it should be possibly invisible and at the same time comfortable.

Completely different situation can be seen in case of electronic literature, because there many

times the words’ skin (understood as a way of their appearance on the computer’s screen, any

other device or in the real space as a projection) seems to be as attention-riveting as it only

can. Of course, in thousands years of the literature’s history there were many “exceptions”

breaking this dominant rule, but they always were – exactly – only “exceptions”. And also the

theories to describe them remained – as underlined by Hayles – “the exception rather than the

rule” (Hayles 2002: 19).

As Johanna Drucker has shown, from its beginnings the print had a possibility to give

the text the semantically important skin. But for literature the text’s aesthetic described by

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Druckner as unmarked text (stripping the words from its skin) was chosen. As she explains:

“The aspirations of typographers serving the literary muse are to make the text as uniform, as

neutral, as accessible and seamless as possible” (Drucker 1994: 95). Paradoxically, parallel

non artistic texts (e.g. advertisements) used all of the print’s possibilities, creating what

Drucker called marked texts and what now slowly becomes (if not the main part of the literary

production) at least its important part. In this case, as Drucker pointed out, the typographical

arrangement of a text is non-neutral and unimportant and authors use “the capacity of

typographic representation to manipulate the semantic value of the text through visual means”

(Drucker 1994: 95). All this visual aspects described by Drucker could be broaden to material

aspects in the sense that was given to the term by Katherine Hayles (Hayles 2002)1.

What is the most important, nowadays mainstream printed texts often abandon the

tradition of the invisible word’s skin, undermining the opposition described above,

revolutionizing the way of book publishing and questioning readers’ habits. The literary

word’s skin has evidently changed and now is sparkling with all the colors: nowadays this

word’s skin very often is not invisible and should be noticed as an important part of a work of

art. So, surrounded by literary text which we can (or have to) touch in act of reading2, which

we can play as a game or on which we even have to blow to see the text (like in Toucher), we

cannot ignore this fact.

Neither it has been ignored by scientists and many theories have been (and still are

being) constructed to describe this new situation and the new kinds of reading experience.

Using Hayles’ term we can describe all of them as parts of a discourse of the materiality of

literature (Hayles 2002), but it is important to underline that they come from two different

fields. Part of them – as for example the cybertext theory formulated by Espen Aarseth

(Aarseth 1997) or the Hayles’ theory of technotext – was born rather from a reflection over

electronic literature when it turned out that in print the same goals could be achieved (what

proves that the analogue form do not limit the literature). The others theories – like the Jessica

Pressman’s concept of aesthetic of bookishness (Pressman 2009) or the Polish conception of

liberature formulated by Zenon Fajfer in 1999 (Fajfer 2010) – had their starting points in

analogue (not electronic) literature and often came to conclusions that print does not have to

1 It is proved also by later Drucker’s publications.

2 I refer here not only to the literary interactive installations (instrumental texts) like Text Rain, but also to much

more popular literary applications on mobile devices in which you can interact with illustrations (like Pinochhio

for iPad which remediates a classical fairy tale) and printed books which speak to readers by its texture (like

containing a real stone inside itself Świątynia kamienia by Polish author Andrzej Bednarczyk).

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be so neutral and boring medium as we used to think about it and that many novelties brought

by new media could be successfully realized without them – in print. Expanding the

bookishness of the book is seen as a response to e-literature. Then, as we can see, looking

from one perspective leads to the other and in reverse. The reason of it is that relation between

the most recent verbi-voco-visual-kinetic texts (as we can broaden the term proposed by

concret poets) and the literary tradition (or its side branches) proves to be really deep when

we realize that there have always been literary texts with non-invisible skins.

Because of it, many times both mentioned currents of reflection recall the same artists,

works or phenomena as examples or its precursors and inspirations. To name some of them:

the 20-th century avant-garde artists, concrete poetry or visual literature of more than

thousands years of tradition, Stéphane Mallarmé, Laurence Sterne… Therefore, we can

assume that the main aim of theoreticians is not only to describe the present reconfiguration of

book’s materiality under the impact of e-literature but also to reinterpret the literary tradition.

The current need for the first one could be explained by the increasing appearance of many

printed books questioning all former print conventions. The crucial change is that now they

form a part of the mainstream, what could not be said about previous examples of the text

with no-neutral skins. As examples of well-sold mainstream stories of this kind (all of them

awarded) could be enumerated among others: The Raw Shark Texts (2007) by Steven Hall –

the repeatedly commented novel for the form of which the readers were not prepared 10 years

ago (as debuting author says in an interview), The Invention of Hugo Cabre (2007) and

Wonderstruck (2011) by Brian Selznick, the novels in which the story is told not only by

words, but also by images (and in every case there is a special, literary reason to use this

convention), the series of “Griffin & Sabine” by Nick Bantock (started in 1991) – uncommon

books of correspondence, incorporating material letters inside the volumes or Mark Haddon’s

“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” (2003), in which there are many images

in substitution for descriptions of those images (what we can call a liberary quotation). As

this and many other examples show – the reconfiguration of the material form of the print

literature (connected with the expansion of the e-literature) provokes the readers to start being

receptive and sensitive to the literary interfaces, also to the material form of print literature: to

the book.

As was underlined, there is a group of texts and artists often mentioned in many of the

theories recalled in this paper and between them we can find avant-gardes of the principles of

the 20-th century. This reference does not surprise, because the beginning of the past century

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was the period in which the print for long time had been prepared to all innovations we can

think about even today, but – till the works of the Russian or Italian futurists or other avant-

garde writers – those had not been earlier used by literary artists (Drucker 1994). To say it in a

different way – works of avant-garde poets who utilized forgotten or unrevealed print

possibilities could give us a very good lesson of constructing multimedia (or better:

multimodal) literary communicates3.

Also the literary theory of the first decades of the 20-th century, owing a lot to the

linguistics, could be inspiring. Theoreticians of the time, interested in the recalled art works,

asked many questions similar to those formulated today in front of new forms of literature.

They were looking for characteristics of literacy (as nowadays we ask if e-literature without

words could still be called literature or whether a novel made by words and images is still a

literary book) and the specific character of literary material and signs (as actually we redefine

the book and literary code, what is clearly visible in all text category redefinitions, like in the

one proposed by Aarseth). Assuming that Russian futurist books, Italian futurist typography,

Apollinaire’s calligrammes were not more revolutionizing than the current publications I will

propose looking back at some issues brought up by the Russian formalists and their

continuators.

The first category important in my deliberations: the text’s interface (metaphorically

called the word’s skin) will be closely interlaced with the second one: the category of literary

text or rather actual redefinitions of this category (which bear fruits like terms: cybertext or

technotext). We can observe that majority of them (if not all of them) lead us to understanding

the fact that becomes obvious in context of e-literature: that the book is only one of many

modes of presenting the literary text. Furthermore, what is often missed, the book’s history

shows that there had been many books’ formats before the volume we are nowadays familiar

with and accustomed to received its crucial position. And there had been also many ways of

reading, as the act of reading has not always been silent, alienating and move-uninvolving

(not connected with moving in the real space) (see e.g.: Rothenberg and Clay 2000,

Drucker1994, Manguel 1996). When Hayles underlines that the print is “a medium and not a

3 As I am comparing the new media literary practice with print ones it might be better use in this context instead

of category multimedial the multimodal one, in sense which gives this term (proposed by Gunther Kress and

Theo van Leeuwen in Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication, 2001)

Grzegorz Maziarczyk in his The Novel as Book. Textual Materiality in Contemporary Fiction in English (2013).

Multimodality seems much useful form transmedial characteristics, because it enables describing usage of

different levels of text materiality (ex. words, images, photos, page typographic arrangement or book

construction) in one medium (as print) whereas they could also been used (even in the same configuration) in the

other medium.

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transparent interface” (Hayles 2002: 43), we can add that there are many kinds of

nontransparent literary interfaces and the (“un-common”) material book is only one of them.

Therefore, I consider the metaphorical Higgins term “word’s skin” and the category of

interface equal, pointing out that although in the case of neutral “skin” we are not accustomed

to talk about a book as a literary interface (because it is so neutral and its convention is so

much interiorized by us that we even do not notice it’s presence), it could be useful to adopt

the term “interface” to talk about literary communication, as we do it automatically

considering e-literature. All text redefinitions recalled by me point out that every text needs

and has its interface and that this interface is not (or does not have to be) neutral to the text

semantics – in Aarseth’s words: “(1) a text cannot operate independently of some material

medium, and this influences its behavior, and (2) a text is not equal to the information it

transmits” (Aarseth 1997: 62).

The kind of the book in which we can see the most clearly that the material form of the

book could be (or serve as) an interface of literary text is augmented reality book. In the part

of my paper I will examine AR-poetry book “Between Page and Screen” by Amaranth Borsuk

and Brad Bouse as an inspiring example of this kind of artistic practice. I find this work

interesting mainly in two aspects. Firstly, it is an intriguing example of literature exploring its

medium and created as a literary communication that uses the possibilities of its text

materiality (real and virtual at the same time). Secondly, this book has also a metatextual

dimension and is an important voice in discussion about the bookishness in 21-st century

(seen in whole bookishness tradition’s context). Interpretation of this work will also permit to

see more clearly the connection not only between the artistic works of the 20-th century

avant-garde and the actual publications but also between the theoretical problems formulated

by the literary theorists of those times and the ones we made today.

II. Augmented reality of the book(ishness)

The one thing is that AR-books by definition use material books as its interfaces, the

other that its form (I consider here the majority of AR-books which are now on the market)

seems to continue mainly the tradition of illustrated and pop-up books in the word of new

media. It can be seen in synonymous to “AR-books” names they are given: “virtual 3D pop-

up books” (Carlton’s publications) or “a virtual interactive popup books” (Popar’s

publications). In this part of my paper I would like to show why this observation is important

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and to underline what is really enhanced by the AR technology implementation. The crucial

question will be whether in the case of AR-books using a book form as an interface for

literary communication always employs the not semantically neutral interface. In other words,

I would like to examine if in the case of AR-books taking the interface into consideration

during analysis and interpretation is really crucial to read and to understand the sense of the

work.

1. The fascinating idea…

The idea of an AR-book born from the observation that the readers are not bored with

book materiality (which, moreover, does not have to be conventional, as we can see

nowadays). Raphaël Grasset, Andreas Dünser and Mark Billinghurst explained from 2008

year’s perspective:

[…] users still love the physicality of a real book which offer a broad range of advantages:

transportability, flexibility, robustness, etc. These factors support research into another future for

books: digitally augmenting and enhancing real books. This combines the advantages of physical

books with new interaction possibilities offered by digital media (Grasset, Dünser, Billinghurst

2008).

When we think about the possibilities that the new media technology offers to the

literary art (like technology of virtual reality which promises to enable real immersion into the

literary word) it seems truly inspiring. So it is logical that some projects joining the books

with VR (like AR-books) were proposed. Commenting on one of them (the MagicBook

elaborated by Mark Billinghurts and presented for the first time on Siggraph conference in

Singapore in 2000), Billinghurst himself and Hirokazu Kato and Ivan Poupyrev who were

collaborating with him on some next AR-book projects, explained:

Young children often fantasize about flying into the pages of a fairy tale and becoming part of the

story. The MagicBook projects makes this fantasy a reality using a normal book as the main

interface object (Billinghurst, Kato, Poupyrev 2001a: 6).

In another article, commenting on a few literary projects using the MagicBook

technology (because it was mainly used in education and entertainment fields or in scientists

or architectural visualizations) they add that:

These MagicBook applications explore new literary ground where the reader can actually become

part of the story and where the author must consider issues of interactivity and immersion

(Billinghurst, Kato, Poupyrev 2001b).

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If the technology has been prepared for many years, it is high time to ask: can we really

read this kind of books? Sometimes we can come across any presentation on art festivals or

scientific conferences, examine some (often awarded) scientific projects (case of Caitlin

Fisher’s works, e.g. Andormeda included in 2 volumen de ELC or awarded with Best

European Diploma work Le monde des montagnes of Camille Scherrer), but in the

mainstream of literary production (by what I mean: offering a wide distribution) the AR-

books so far enter mainly the field of children’s literature. In the moment of “Between Page

and Screen” publication (I mean the publication by Siglio, because the “Between Page and

Screen” project had been earlier shown at festivals) there were at least two publishing houses

offering AR-books for children, both just mentioned in this paper: British Carlton Books

(with the series advertised by a slogan: “books come alive”) and American PoparToys whose

books attract with a description: “Read it. See it. Be it”. This main promise of the AR-

technology to literature: the possibility of making the literary word alive and entering into our

reality, remains the most attractive aspect of it and is still used in advertisements. The new

series of AR-book, put on the market in April 2013 (booksARalive by Baibuk) is described as

a series “where the magic happens”.

2. … and the (not so fascinating?) practice

But, although there are illustrations which become alive in reader’s eyes (the first

popular and wide-distributed AR-books used a big black-and-white markers, the newest ones

– like those produced by Baibuk – use only colorful images, which change to 3D projections),

they do not form any important-from-the-literary-point-of-view part of the work. Despite

using the new media technologies, they are often illustrations understood in the old text-image

dialectic (re-calling Bolter’s Writing Space): they only double the information just given in

the analog mode (text or image), they are subordinate to the printed work.

It could be amazing to see how an animal we are reading about looks, how it reacts,

what sounds it emits. All it promises to the reader: “Dinosaurs Alive!” (Carlton), the book that

“really bites back” (as said on the front cover)4. But on the AR-projections in this publication

we can observe mainly the actions that have been described earlier. E.g. we can see how the

blood vessels in Stegosaurus’s plates are filled with blood, what provokes the color change (to

4 And you always can close the paper covers if you are too much horrified by the dinosaurs (as is explained in

the advertisement of the book).

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red), but the whole metamorphosis is also described in details on the page previous to the one

with a marker enabling the projection. Has the information be given to the readers twice?

Why some action/piece of information could not be trans-written between new-media images

and sounds and analogue text and illustrations? This is what could be called the lack of

liberacy, if as the last one we define an ability to use all medium possibilities to build the

semantic of the work without doubling the information but on the way of constructing it

through different modes (like in this case: illustration, sound and text).

In another book of the series – “Fairyland Magic” – we do not see the doubled

information, but sometimes there is nothing in common between the text and the AR-

projection or they are even contradictory. The last one is the case of the a woodland fairy.

When the text about this shy kind of fairies collecting petals to make perfumes finishes with

the sentence: “When winter is over and the blue bells appear the woodland fairies celebrate

the arrival of spring”, on the next page we find “Fairy Magic Zone” with the marker and its

description warning the reader to be quiet because the fairy is asleep. But the AR-projection

shows us an awaken fairly and we can make her fast asleep (as the instruction informs), and

only then wake her up. Furthermore, if you wake up the fairy one time, you cannot make her

go to sleep. But you can wake her up (from being awake…) again and again. The last

interaction provided for this page is the possibility to make a woodland fairy play her flute

(we can do it by pressing the down arrow key5). Should it be understood as a part of the

spring’s arrival celebration (mentioned earlier in the text) or is it just the illustration of what

the woodland fairy does after waking up? Hard to say…

“Be it” mode and mobile devices give us other interaction possibilities (what can be

clearly seen in the case of PoparToys’ publications): they enable to grab a part of the fictional

world and make it a part of our surroundings. We can take a tarantula from the “Bugs 3D”

book, put it on our friend’s arm and take a photo of them together. Using AR-cards included

in the book (which also could be bought separately), we can play with all story’s heroes. We

can even see ourselves with a face of an ant or any other book’s protagonist (using “Be It”

card). But, is this somehow connected with the act of reading? Is this play something more

than a play? Are the virtual puppets really different from the material puppets we could buy

when there were the Harry Potter’s stories in bookshops and cinemas? I do not think so. They

only seem to be other examples of the convergence culture’s products (here it should be added

5 Actually the most popular form of interaction with AR-projections – used also in newest Carlton Books

publications – are AR-cards, so we do not have to use a keyboard what is a little inconvenient.

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that a part of the AR publications I have examined are connected with cinematic production –

like “Ice Age”).

But it is hard to underestimate actual AR-publications. They are something new. And

there is always someone who claims that they are so amazing. Scott Jochim, Popar Toys’

president, explained that children really “love” them:

because not only can they read a book, they can see the book come alive. They can become the

book. At a half or a third of the price of a video game. The parents like to buy it because, again,

it’s a book (Haley 2012).

It is true – the AR publications are magical, fascinating and make the bookish world

alive. And in consequence they provoke the “wow-effect”. They offer the readers a truly new

kind of experience. But this is because of technology, the new technology, not because of its

implementation to deepen a literary dimension. In many cases this technology does not serve

to deepen the literary aspect and it is rather involved to make the illustrations more attractive,

to present the information given in the book in more attention-riveting mode (so – to double

it). It is a good moment to remind the other AR-books descriptions just mentioned in this

paper: they are “interactive pop-up books”.

When we start playing with augmented reality, we rather stop reading. Cannibalism

understood as proposed Funkhouser in 2007 (what has been widely discussed since that time)

in this case is not creative and the technology devours the literary wor(l)d (Funkhouser 2007).

Or – as aptly pointed out by John McKenzie and Doreen Darnell – the technology serves

rather to enhance the illustrative aspect of the work, not the literary one (McKenzie, Darnell

2003). It certainly makes the pop-up book more new-media and attractive to actual readers.

But at the same time it limits the work literacy. Underlining this fact I do not want to shatter

the potential the AR technology can offer to literature. I only want to emphasize that we

witness the birth of books that are starting to use this technology and that there are still many

things to be found out.

3. Augmented and/or killed literacy

John McKenzie and Doreen Darnell in 2003 were looking for the same as I was in my

little research on AR-books on the market: they were trying to find out how to tell a story with

this technology. One of their conclusions was the same as mine: enhancing storytelling with

AR technology is still the challenge (McKenzie, Darnell 2003: 6). Majority of books I came

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across does not use a narrative potential neither of the literary book nor of the AR technology,

because they were rather informative books, AR-illustrated encyclopedias: “Bugs 3D”

presenting the facts about various species of bugs, “Dinosaurs alive” – about dinosaurs. The

ones that present a fictional world (as “Fairytales Magic”) use the same format. So, it is

logical that there is no narration. And that we do not enter into the story’s world – because

there is no story.

Furthermore – even in those still few AR-publications that try to abandon the

encyclopedia modus and enter (at least partially) the storytelling world (as could be described

latest Carlton or PoparToys publication as “Disney Princess” or “Princess and her Pale”) the

AR technology does not serve to tell a story. When we are invited to interact and – for

example – we can help Rapunzel decorate her hair it does not matter in the princess’ world, it

has no later impact on the story (in “Disney Princess”). In AR-publications I have read one

can interact with its heroes but does not have a possibility to influence the story, the literary

world or even to see a hero changed by her as a part of the literary world.

McKenzie and Darnell examined also the project of the AR book created (with

collaboration with writer Gavin Bishop) by a group working with Billinghurst in Human

Interface Technology Laboratory New Zeland. This project, titled Giant Jimmy Jones, is an

example of a literary application of MagicBook6, which as the theoretical project seemed so

fascinating and promising.

But despite the fact that this books is a classical narrative story, it turns out that it has

the same problems as the books previously described – AR-presentations only double

information given in text. And what is more: we get the same piece of information even three

times, because the text is also read aloud. Therefore, the most problematic aspect of Giant

Jimmy Jones’s literacy is the fact that when we see (like in the cinema) a movie-like story

which is at the same moment read aloud, reading as such seems absurd. The AR technology in

this case is very danger to the words: it really devours them – they (and either reading at all)

become completely unnecessary, as have pointed out also McKenzie and Darnell (McKenzie,

Darnell 2003: 27). Giant Jimmy Jone’s seems more like a movie presented on the specific

kind of screen. When we use the special goggles (part of MagicBook interface) – the paper

book changes into the screen and we can see a movie (based on the story which possibly

could be read from the book when we do not use the goggles). We even can read the credits. I

6 Full documentation of the project (sufficient to observe some puzzling aspects) can be seen on Youtube

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7bZxZXy2o8).

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am far from claiming that in the world of post-medial aesthetic there are clear borders

between (for example) literature and film, and I dedicate my research to what could be called

transmedia literature. But if there is any border to be crossed, Giant Jimmy Jones has crossed

it. In the form of AR-book it has lost its literacy.

4. AR-books and AR-literature

So, to sum it up, it should be said that currently we already have some AR-books on the

market and every new one is better than the previous ones. Many of technological problems

(due to the topic and the size limitations not described in this paper) making AR-books

irritating7 are now resolved. Reading that kind of books becomes also more natural, intuitive:

the instructions – characteristic for the first AR publications – are often omitted now and the

interaction is not as complicated as it used to be8. In many cases publishers choose to add the

interaction cards to the book (instead of print markers on pages) in order to eliminate the need

for moving the book during the interaction (what not always was comfortable)9. All these

technological improvements are necessary, especially if you think about creating a popular,

widely-available-on-the-market AR-book series and the people working on AR-technology

know it.

The development of augmented book prototypes still requires extensive time investments of very

specialized experts – claimed Billinghurst in 2008. –Therefore these books are generally one-offs

and the development times and costs hinder their wider distribution. Added to that, the

modification of the standard publishing methods would be needed because of the integration

different content types (e.g. auditory content, 3D graphics, etc.). Analyzing further, the

development process of visually augmented books will contribute favourably to their production

and to provide real accessibility to the end-user (Grasset, Dünser, Billinghurst 2008).

Now we are witnesses of AR-books entering the market. We can see as the technology

is improved and perfected. And we rather are technologically prepared for entering the new

book technology. Thanks to all the technotexts, the liberary texts which appeared in the

literature we are also prepared as the readers for the new literary experiences. But we still

have to wait for AR-literature: stories, narrations, other artistic texts (dramas and poetry

7 Like incoherent illustrations (in “Dinosaurs Alive” for example there was a dinosaur which does not open its

jaws during roaring). 8 Sometimes it can be easier achieved with mobile devices.

9 This fact seems important as Billinghurst (working with AR technology almost 20 years) underlines that good

AR-technology implementation offer to the user experience which is intuitive and in which there is no training

necessary (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-1CdrFxT8k).

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besides the prose) which use the AR-technology to tell something, not only to visualize it10

.

What is lacking in the AR-books we now have that we cannot call them AR-literature?

First of all, these kind of publications have to learn how to use their interfaces. How to

use it not (only) to make the book more attractive and the act of reading more amazing, but

also to complete, co-create the semantic dimension of literary work. And (as also pointed out

McKenzie and Darnell) the good lesson of creating this kind of literary communication could

be given by analogue literary tradition: by the books which are more or less liberary, which

interfaces are not transparent and neutral, by the technotexts, by the books expanding its

bookishness. What is more – in this kind of literature the interface not only is no-neutral, but

even participates in creating the sense of the work: the form in which the text is given does

not double the information, but present the part of it and this party could not be seen in other

way. Liberature’s theoreticians explain it by underlying that we cannot change any part of a

book format, omit any image (or even empty space on the page) because it could change the

sense. As we can see – there is nothing similar to this relation in AR-books discussed in this

paper till now: they use the AR-technology to enhance the illustrations, the visual aspect of

the book, to make reading more fun. Therefore, in this cases omitting of AR-elements would

not change anything in our understanding of the literary communication.

Describing the actual situation of the AR-literature we can state that many projects on

AR-technology’s application in literature or – more widely: in the storytelling are now in

progress (e.g. Caitlin Fisher’s projects) and various publishing houses which just work with

AR-books (which will be better described as AR-pop-up books) give us promises of

forthcoming AR-classical tales (e.g. booksARalive by Baibuk). So, we are in a beautiful

moment of expectation for great literary AR-storytelling which probably is not only possible

but is to come. The described situation on the publishing market (enhancing by AR

technology the visual aspect of books, not their literary potential) created an important context

to “Between Page and Screen” publication. So, it is also worth to be mentioned that this book

(which analysis will be the main topic of the next part of this paper) was published by Siglio,

the publishing house specialized not in AR pop-up books but in “uncommon books”. I mean

that Siglio offers mainly the books exploring their materiality. All this seems important as the

book created by Borsuk and Bouse is totally different than other AR-books published in the

same time: it gives us diametrically different example of AR technology applied in literature

and the differences can be seen at the first glance.

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It is worth to be marked that in quoted excerpt Billinghurst use the phrase “visually augmented book”.

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III. Dialogs between the book, the page and the screen

1. The best form for each specific story

While the main charge addressed to described the above AR-books was that they double

the analogue text and image information with AR projections, when we take material book of

“Between Page and Screen” in our hands – we cannot read it. Only black and white markers

are visible on the pages of this little square book – images which do not give any information

to the human reader because they can be “read” only by the computer. So, firstly, we cannot

accuse this work of doubling analogue information (as there is no analogue information

understandable for us). Secondly – when we invite a machine (computer) to co-reading with

us and after all we can see the AR projections and discover the literary text, it becomes clear

that this time the AR projections could not have only an illustrative character also because

they are images built with words or sometimes they constitute even “a normal text”. In both

situations we rather read the AR elements than only watch them or play with them, although

the ludic aspect of the work had been considered by its authors as an important one.

Despite that heady background, the book is supposed to be fun – explains Borsuk in one of

interviews. – We did spend a lot of time thinking about the form and content, but we don’t want to

beat the reader over the head with it. If we did our job right, the theoretical underpinnings buoy up

the text and provide a second level of enjoyment beyond the reading experience (Shook 2011).

In the same interview Bouse underlines that “making the book delightful for the

reader was the most important part of development for him” (Shook 2011). But – what

should be emphasized in the context of the previously mentioned AR-books – in this case the

enjoyment was projected in such a way to not obscure the work’s legibility. Its interface was

projected to be possibly the most intuitive: “I wanted the casual user to pick up the book,

hold it to the camera, and immediately understand how it worked” – explains Bouse (Shook

2011). But at the same time there were many restrictions put on the literary texts appearing in

the projections: in order to maintain them legible and understandable (no matter in what

moment the reader starts), many of Borsuk’s ideas had to be discarded (Shook 2011).

It is clearly seen that there are many important characteristics making “Between Page

and Screen” unique, different from the previously analyzed works and especially interesting

to read in the context of technotexts, liberary works etc. I consider two aspects of this work

particularly important in my deliberations. Firstly, from the beginning “Between Page and

14

Screen” was projected as a work in which the technological aspect was not simply added to

the text which just had been written, but elaborated simultaneously with the textual part of the

work in order to create the communicate in which both of this dimensions together would give

us the meaning. It was emphasized by the authors in the interviews that this aspect of their co-

operation (many discussions about possibilities of the medium and continuously verifying the

attained effects to have the chance of changing the solution if it would not function as well as

it had been predicted) had been very important in their work. Bouse recollects: “We

discarded a number of animations because they weren’t legible or workable” (Shook 2011).

Borsuk explains that there were no idea of the book at the beginning and then looking

for technology. And the chosen technology was not chosen only because “it looks really cool”

(Shook 2011). There had to be an important reason to use this one and not the other. So, even

Borsuk and Bouse had been thinking about co-creating any project earlier, they decided to

cooperate in case of “Between Page and Screen” because this time the digital aspect was

deeply connected with the poems, not only added to them.

The content and the construction arose together out of our conversations about augmented reality

(AR) and the way it puts text between the page and screen – emphasizes Borsuk. – In thinking

about the relationship this sets up between print and digital objects, we got the idea for an artist’s

book that explores that between space. […] We wanted there to be a reason to use new media, and

AR provided us the perfect marriage of print and digital that wouldn’t privilege one over the other,

and that would highlight the importance of the reader in activating any book’s text (Poole 2012).

In my further interpretation of “Between Page and Screen” the reason for the AR

technology implementation, for choosing the particular form of the book will be one of the

most important aspects. As Zenon Fajfer and Katarzyna Bazarnik explain in the case of the

liberary work – every story need a special form: the only one which is suitable to this unique

story11

. Similar emphasis on the role that book form could play in literary communication we

can find in Borsuk’s statements, who claims that “the book has some reason for the form it

takes” (Poole 2012) and does not hide that Drucker and Hayles were her guiding spirits in

thinking of the book form (Shook 2011). Aware of the fact that there are thousands of

“normal” books which as the only reason for theirs form have the convention, Borsuk declares

that when it is needed she is “ready to turn to whichever apparatus best helps […] to tell the

11

So, in case of “Oka-leczenie” (called the key liberary work) they chose the invisible text form to tell about

what had not been seen by anyone. They also chose to make a book of three volumes joined in the way that the

one which describes what is between the death (topic of the first volume) and birth (topic of the third volume) is

situated exactly between the other ones. But, as this part of our lives (time between death and birth) is not

considerate as a “normal” part of our life and we often do not notice it, the second volume describing this period

is not seen at the first glance due to the fact that it is opened from the opposite side.

15

story I want to tell or explore the themes I want to explore” (Poole 2012). And she did it in

case of “Between Page and Screen”.

In this book, relation between the print and the digital objects (mentioned by Borsuk)

is presented in form of the communication which happens exactly between the page/es (of the

book) and the screen (of used computer). At the same time, emotional relation between

protagonists (Page and Screen as lovers), which is described, can be read (and therefore

exists) only between page and screen. Furthermore, lovers’ relation has additional dimension

– the meta-textual one, because the work is also an analysis of the condition of book,

bookishness and literacy nowadays (what also will be underlined in my further analysis of

Borsuk and Bouse’s work).

2. Lovers’ skirmish is not a war

At the first level “Between Page and Screen” assumes a form of lover’s story: the

word skirmish with slight erotic tinge, partially presented in the form of letters. It parallel

alludes the epistolary literature tradition (by its subject and form) and the canonical e-

literature works (like “Text Rain”12

, “Screen” or “Still Standing”), in which by playing with

text we co-create and complete the meaning. On the other hand, at the metatextual level,

Borsuk and Bouse’s work describe the relation between two different media of literary texts:

page (as representation of the print literature) and screen (as representation of the electronic

one). Cryptic letters substituting the lovers’ names (P and S) quickly turn out to be the

abbreviations of the words “page” and “screen” what is also suggested by the title of the

work. In the tenth poem paper is mentioned as something connected to the “P” and in the

twelfth one the word “Page” is used instead of the abbreviation. So as the letters are read and

more characteristics of the heroes are given, it becomes obvious who the lovers are.

Using the dialog between title protagonists, “Between Page and Screen” points out

that the remediation of print does not has to combine with logic of liberating from the old

media, what was underlined by Bolter and Grusin (Bolter, Grusin 2000). It shows not only

that the new media have many in common with the oldest ones, but also that they influence

each other. Furthermore, this message is transferred by various dimensions of the literary

work: by the verbal text, by its aural and visual aspects and by the book’s form. Referring to

McLuhan and others we can say that in this case the whole book (the literary text’s interface)

12

This one was quoted as an example of inspiring work also by Borsuk (Poole 2012).

16

is the medium and – consequently – is the message. Or – alluding McLuhan’s publication of

year 1967 which due to its form and collaboration between McLuhan and Fiore could be

called technotext – we can even say that the book’s form is in this case the massage, the

“extension of the eye” (McLuhan, Fiore 1967: 36-37) which can influence on all human

senses.

Page and Screen correspondence is cryptic, almost incomprehensible because it is a

truly mysterious maze of puns, homophones and word plays in which deciphering the

knowledge of Indo-European heritage in English is very useful. Each hero uses in its letters

many words build on the base of the same root as her name, what is used to create an image of

each personality.

At the beginning Page seems to be the more peaceable and calm one. Its letters to

Screen, full of the words with the same Indo-European root as the word “page” has (pag- or

pak- which meaning is: to fasten or to join together), depict a character who does not want to

fight and whose goal is to find shared characteristics with Screen13

. Page declares directly: “I

always wanted to fit a need” (projection 1), “my origin’s to join” (projection 5) and parallel

all of the key, sometimes repeated words in its disquisition (often used also as a base to

different – aural and visual – word plays) have the same Indo-European root, highlighting the

mentioned aspects of hero’s personality. To deeper this interpretation one should think also

about the root’s form *păk-, derived from Latin pāx (which gives us words like: PACE,

PEACE, APPEASE, PACIFIC, all used in Page’s letters) or Latin pacīscī, meaning “to agree”

(from which are derived words PACT or PATIO, also used as a part of Page’s letters)

(Watkins 2000: 61). So, all this etymology-based word plays emphasize Page’s peaceful

personality.

Screen seems to be the opposite of Page and describes itself with words: “My best

subject was always division; I like partition” or “I own both sword and plowshare”

(projection 7). It also declares: “I am that Scaramouch”, evoking the traditional hero of

commedia dell’arte who certainly could not be told to be peaceful and quiet14

. Generally, the

hero characterizes itself with words connected with fighting and all opposite to joining. All of

them have the root –(s)ker (or its variations), which means: to cut (Watkins 2000: 77-78),

what simply underline the non-pacific character of the lover. Quoting the whole passage from

13

This way Page wants also to define the relation between the heroes. 14

Here could be add that in Italian Scaramuccia (Eng. Scaramouch) means skirmish and exactly by this word the

Page and Screen’s correspondence is described in the Borsuk and Bouse’s work. The name, of course, has the

same PIE root as the hero’s name.

17

“The American Heritage of Indo-European Roots” by Calvet Watkins (Watkins 2000: 78),

Screen reminds that its Old French (eskermir – to fence), Old Italian (mentioned

scaramuccia) or Old High German (skirmen – to protect) roots of its name also lead to words

connected with fight. As well it emphasizes that word SCREEN came from Middle Dutch

scherm (Eng. shield). All this words about protection and defense are reminded to depict the

Screen and to show that it is different than peaceful, attempting to join Page.

But, as the puns are read it becomes clear that the Page and Screen personalities are

more complicated and that they are not the simple opposites. Just in the first projection Page,

shows its more aggressive personality’s part. It says: “It’s my character to pin, impinge, a

twinge of jealously (that fang tattoo)” (also this time referring to the common words’ roots)

and in one of subsequent projections declares: “Paper cuts too”. This aspect is also seen in

one of the earlier quoted sentences, when the words sharing the root with Page’s name are

used as the negation of what it wanted to do (phrase: “I didn’t mean to impale you with my

pin – my origin’s to join”).

So, the etymological word plays deeper the meta-textual level of Borsuk and Bouse’s

work by showing that even the etymology emphasizes similarities between page and screen,

shows that there are some things that join them. Their relation is characterized as more

complicated than simply being the opposites. Page describes its double personality saying

“that root, PALUS, leads both ways: to palisade and pole, but also travel and travail” (fifth

projection) and that way points out its less static, peaceful and placid character. It also

declares to Screen, who had confessed that as always-fighting one it had had many scars and

scabs (second projection), that “scabs can be peeled back” (fifth projection). By indicating

that page’s root leads also to words naming aggressive acts (peeling away), associated rather

with Screen, Page proves that the lovers are not so diametrically different.

From the other hand, Page explains to Screen: “A screen is a shield, but also a vail –

it’s sheer and can be shorn”. Therefore, the other side of Screen’s personality is also shown

and the roots of its name are used to underline that duality. Screen turns out to be at least

partly delicate and sensitive, potentially not always attempting to be cruel. Either the Screen’s

own words emphasize this aspect – at the beginning (third projection) it admits: “I didn’t

mean to cut, but it’s my stripe, my type, I’d rather shear than share. I wear a scarf to hide my

scars”.

Moreover, Page – attempting to define itself, the other lover and their relation –

analyzes their mutual impact. In the first projection we read a confession addressed to Screen:

18

“I fast, I fasten to become compact, but listen, that’s only part your impact”. Therefore, for

Page – to define itself – it seems important distinguish which its characteristic are connected

with culture of print and which are consequences of print’s transformation under the influence

of the electronic literature with its screens substituting paper pages. It means that it defines

itself in relation to the screen. Evoked in Page and Screen’s dialog characteristics of media

prove (also thanks to etymological word plays) that they are still in close relation, influencing

one on the other. Moreover, the heroes’ words prove that they even define themselves in

mutual relation (underlying the differences, what could be clearly seen also in Screen’s words

in twelfth projection).

As lovers, Page and Screen take into account their feelings. Although their love plays

have a character of skirmish, they do not intent to be cruel, to hurt each other. The irony

covers the real affection; the goal is to join, not to divide. That is why Page bothers how its

words affect on the Screen and worries: “You blanch. I didn’t mean to impale you with my

pin” (fifth projection). Moreover, it explains that all it does (the actions showing both sides of

its personality, different but described with words derived from the same root), does without

intention to fight or hurt Screen. The promise of peeling away Screen’s scabs is preceded by

request: “Let it [Page unintentionally impaling Screen – AP] lapse” (fifth projection), as Page

does not want to leave any mark of negative emotions on their relation.

3. The text as a fruit of the media’s intercourse

In letter presented in fifth projection some deeper reasons for this intention of not

hurting are explained. Ironic love plays do not eliminate a need of closeness and affection.

Page confesses that it wants “to plait our letters, keeping pace”, and that “plait of letters”

could be seen as a symbol of the lovers’ unity, the moment in which two different media join

to create one text and become one (text’s) body. It could be read as the lovers’ intercourse.

That way, the lovers’ dialog in letters gives us finally the description of what is

between them (what Page urgently tried to define and what for Screen was not so important to

name it). And this description concerns the literal and the metaphorical aspect of their

relation. Both lovers admit that the text is what joins them. But whereas Page names it “rows

of lines or vines that link us together” (tenth projection), Screen remarks: “We share text’s

fleshly network – your trellis and my tendency to excoriate, your fang and my carnassials”

(twelfth projection). Those declarations have a double meaning.

19

From one point of view, the new “incarnation” of the text and the play between the

written and the virtual text is exactly what is between Page and Screen as the book’s heroes.

Protagonists of Borsuk and Bouse’s book attempt to describe a form of the text born between

the covers of material book and the screen. Just in the first projection the co-creation of the

text by Page and Screen is described. Page begins it with words: “Let’s spread out the pentup

moment”, pointing out the slight magical way in which each projection appears. And then

calls the same a “pact”, emphasizes the mutual (Page and Screen) engagement. Their relation

is a real co-operation in creating (presenting?) a text of “Between Page and Screen”. “There’s

a neat gap between these covers – remarks Page to Screen, – a gate agape, through which

you’ve slipped your tang”, what I just have read as a metaphorical description of the lovers’

intercourse. In subsequent projections Screen is described as “currier” (twelfth projection),

“apport” (fourteenth projection) – the one that somehow transmits the text, permits it to exist.

But the Page is also needed.

The text emerging from that what is between Page and Screen (what is: between

media, between the lovers and between the paper covers and electronic screen) is born in co-

operation but could not be born without the third element’s co-operation: without the reader.

“Between Page and Screen” would not function if there was no paper page, neither it would

appear when there was no screen to appear on. But anything would happen if there was no

reader to initiate the whole process. As described by Thimoty David Orme: “Between Page

and Screen is a collaborative project between Amaranth Borsuk (poet) and Brad Bouse

(developer). It’s also a collaborative project between the book and the reader and a

computer” (Orme 2012).

From the other point of view, the same excerpt from the text gives us some meta-

textual observations. The text joins also page and screen as media – both use it. And the page

in case of the printed text could be – as confirms Watkins’ dictionary – metaphorically

described as “trellis to which a row of vines is fixed”. Therefore – in lovers’ dialog it is

emphasized that while page needs material form and ties a text to paper, screen excoriates it,

makes its flesh unconnected to the materiality. But although the electronic text is flesh-less,

the etymology of word screen shows that many words describing corporeality share its root

with the word “screen”, particularly if we take into consideration the variant form *kar- (e.g.:

carnage, carnal, carnassial, carnation) (Watkins 2000: 78).

So, the new-created text, the text between the materiality and the virtuality (the

augmented reality text), the text of “Between Page and Screen” is an example of the new

20

materiality (which is nowadays the topic of many theoretical debates, as was pointed out).

Although it is immaterial, as every text (no important in what medium presented) has its own,

potentially meaningful materiality, what is also underlined by evoking the etymology.

The last expression in the first projection (“our story’s spinto – no more esperanto”)

gives us one more context. By evoking spinto, powerful and dramatic lyrical voice, capable of

handling large climaxes, it leads us to thinking about the aural aspects of the text. From the

other hand, the subsequent projection (which is a comment on the previous one15

) takes form

of spinning round ring in which we can decipher some merging words with the same root:

spin, spinto, pin into. This animation creates at the same time the aural and the visual words’

plays. So, the story which is spun in the “Between Page and Screen”, the lovers’ story, is told

from the beginning with form in with the aural and visual aspects of the text are not neutral:

the text itself is spinning and we cannot read it without paying attention to the aural aspects of

looped phrase. What is more, the reader from the beginning (with this very simple example) is

introduced in the strategy of the etymological word plays.

But the reason of mentioning the Esperanto by Page also should be explained here,

especially because it gives us the next interesting context of interpretation. Esperanto is rather

not popular, difficult language and – as every artificial one – not intuitive. So, if the lovers

declare “no more esperanto”, it could be understood as a confirmation that the text co-created

by them will have not artificial, difficult to understand form but rather the intuitive one.

Especially, if we remember that intuitive interaction with “Between Page and Screen” was so

important for Bouse.

But, the form in which the text is presented in “Between Page and Screen” is not

“normal”, as the publication breaks (at the same time) with the classic and electronic book’s

format. Despite the fact that it is intuitive, it provokes the reader to find the new way of

reading, to give up with the convention. I mean that Borsuk and Bouse’s publication does not

use artificial convention of the literary text’s interface (and literary communication in general)

which is intuitive for us and refresh the book format, showing that the volume can be as

powerful and interactive as the electronic screens16

. We even could say that by

defamilarization of book’s format (as well as by underlying the aural and visual aspects of

language) the publication brings back questions formulated by theorists of literature and

15

This is a rule in the whole book: the animations develop the letters presented in classic way. 16

Pressman talks here about the bookishness.

21

language from the first part of the 20-th century: questions about the literacy, about the

literature’s code, about the literary signs and structures.

IV. Materiality, literacy & liberacy

1. The material narratives and the defamiliarization of the book

Aural and visual words’ plays and puns of “Between Page and Screen” could be read

in context of the linguistic turn which paid attention to the duality of the sign. The paradoxical

impact (as described by Drucker17

) of Ferdinand de Saussure should be mentioned here

because it was continuators of his thought who gave up with the arbitral (so artificial) relation

between signifiant and signifié by exploring the role of the aural aspects of words. The next

ones, mainly Jan Mukařovský, did the next step by calling attention to the fact that the aural

aspect of the text is clearly connected with the material one. That way Mukařovský

emphasized the real and not only virtual, materiality, corporality of the sign (also the literary

one).

Backing to the Russian formalists’ analysis of the literary texts, we can remind the

term of the spoken narrative (skaz) by which Boris Mikhailovich Eikhenbaum described for

example Nikolai Gogol’s “The Overcoat”. The essence of Gogol’s prose is that it could not be

told in any other way and that it could not be read without taking into account its aural aspects

(and puns) which construct one of the most important text’s levels. Neither could any literary

forms mentioned in this paper (as: technotexts, cybertexts, liberary texts, texts characterized

by the aesthetic of the bookishness and “Between Page and Screen”) be read without paying

attention to their material aspects. Therefore, they could be described as material narratives,

not only as the reference to Hayles’ conception, but also as a reference to the previous,

formalist theory. In all this cases the play between (aural, material or both of them at the same

time) signifiant and signifié is a clue to understand the literary work. The essence and the

meaning of what I have called matterial narratives is elusive if we do not look at the material

form of the used signs.

Many times even the material form of the upper level signs, the dynamic structures (as

called them Jan Mukařovský) should be taken into consideration. It is worth to be pointed out

17

Drucker points out: The peculiar construction of the materially insignificant but materially based nature of

signifier is essential to the paradoxical structure of Saussure’s sign (s. 22). And she adds: De Saussure created a

difficult-to-resolve paradox between a sign independent of all materiality and also dependent upon it (s. 27).

22

here that the book form, the literary interface, could be – in my opinion – considered as this

kind of sign. And, as underlined by mentioned scholar, we should remember that all elements

of all levels of the sign defined in that way are significant and connected. In other words –

there is no words’ skin (no book form, no interface) without connection to: the words, their

meaning and to the meaning of the whole communicate created with them. All this arguments

– not always said directly – we can also find in works of theoretician cited in this paper or

derive them from the mentioned works18

.

If we are heading in this context of interpretation, also the other statements of formalists

and their successors should be reminded. Eikhenbaum wrote that the possibility of feeling the

form of literary work (and the similar phrase was used by Roman Osipovich Jakobson) made

the poetic function. In (just cited in this paper to introduce the formalistic context) words of

Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky: the main device (technique) of literature is defamiliarization.

In “The Resurrection of the Word” he wrote a lot about the “dead words”, lamenting: “now

words are dead, and language is like a graveyard”. The main reason of this state is the fact

that people (when using words) treat them only as a rather simple symbols and actually do not

notice them, do not pay attention to their form and, consequently, are guessing the meaning

and not deriving it from what they have read or heard. The reflection over the word and its

form seems not necessary because the symbols are thought to be arbitral. And, consequently,

it is omitted, even when is really essential.

When words are being used by our thought-processes in place of general concepts, and serve, so to

speak, as algebraic symbols, and must needs be devoid of imagery, when they are used in everyday

speech and are not completely enunciated or completely heard, then they have become familiar,

and their internal (image) and external (sound) forms have ceased to be sensed – wrote Shklovsky.

We do not sense the familiar, we do not see it, but recognise it. We do not see the walls of our

rooms, it is so hard for us to spot a misprint in a proof — particularly if it is written in a language

well known to us, because we cannot make ourselves see and read through, and not

‘recognise’ the familiar word (Shklovsky 1975)19

.

So-called defamiliarization (estrangement) breaks with the automatic process of reading

and understanding (guessing the meaning) which kills the words and the literature. It is

achieved by giving to the reader something which could not be perceived automatically (or

what perceived this way has no sense and provokes to stop for a moment and think).

18

From Polish theory of liberature could be quoted here Radosław Nowakowski, who claims that we have to

remember about the corporality of the letters which are not speechless (Nowakowski 2002). And it is worth to be

stresses that the liberary sign was described by Katarzyna Bazarnik as the one which joined and used in process

of communication all levels of signifiant and signifié (Fajfer 2010: 162-163). 19

One can find more about the automatization in our lifes in Shklovsky’s essay Art as Device.

23

And here should be reminded that I have started this paper with Higgins’ phrase about the

words which “are not dead”. Is the process of “changing the words’ skin” the kind of

implementation the device of defamiliarization? Could we say that still reminded in this paper

texts with no neutral interfaces are just breaking with the automatization of the interface? And

is “Between Page and Screen” an example of the estrangement? In my opinion, the answer for

all this question is “yes”.

I would say that in “Between Page and Screen” defamiliarization could be seen at

every mentioned by Shklovsky level of the work. What is more, this category efficiently

describes also some other aspects of the publication which are consequences of considering

the book form (the literary text’s interface) as a (upper level) sign. All this leads to important

conclusions about the p- and e-literacy.

So, firstly – the literary images presented in the Borsuk and Bouse’s work employ the

device of estrangement. Presented vision of two diametrically different media which are

lovers and not opponents is strange. The fact that they co-operate and that the newest one does

not want to substitute the elder one also seems odd. And Screen, who evokes the tradition of

printed visual literature to implement it in self-description, is the other defamiliar element.

Secondly, the aural form of the texts of which the “Between Page and Screen” consists

(here the all words’ plays with etymology previously described in this paper should be taken

into consideration) is a clear example of what estrangement can be. It seems important that

this level of the text is really “Gogol-like”. Because the words do not sound as “normal” and

the puns and other words-tricks stop the fast act of perception, the text cannot be read

automatically. We cannot “guess” or “recognize” the meaning – we have to deduce it from the

whole form of the literary communication. For example, as was shown in this paper, we can

understand the whole complexity of the heroes’ characteristics only by this kind of not

automatic reading.

Thirdly, it could not be doubted that the defamiliarization was applied to create the

visual and the material form of the book. Neither the animated poems nor the material book

(which cannot be “normally” read) could be perceived automatically. One has to stop, think

about the whole process of reading and find the way to link the moving, transforming or just

spread in the space letters or even to discover the words20

. And this leads us to the last but not

least thing – to the defamiliarization of the act of reading.

20

The intuitive reception about which Bouse was dreaming is certainly something difrent that automatic

reception.

24

In case of “Between Page and Screen”, even that: the simple act of reading is

unconventional. As was shown, it is a kind of human-machine co-reading and there are three

necessary elements: paper pages of the material book (which as a book cannot be read by the

human eyes), the screen of the computer (on which we cannot see any text without the

markers printed in the book) and the reader (who joins the elements, who initiates the text

projections). The reflection about media-text relation which is one of the topics of Page and

Screen conversation enters into the reader world. And she has to stop automating the “natural”

act of reading.

2. From literature to liberature and from literacy to liberacy

Let remind here that first published Fajfer’s manifesto of liberature’s theory started

with the statement that “the literature has exhausted itself” (Fajfer 2010:23), which clearly

echoes the famous Barthes’ words. For Fajfer liberature could be seen as a remedy for – let

use here the other mentioned in this paper phrase – the “death” of the literature, which is in

Fajfer’s opinion caused by “the split between the structure of the text and the physical

structure of the book, and identifying literature only with the text” (Fajfer 2010:23). The so-

called “total literature” could become the “resurrection” of the words. As Fajfer explains:

I believe that the crisis of contemporary literature has its roots in its focus on the text (in negligence of

physical shape and structure of the book), and within the text, the focus on its meaning and euphony. It

is indeed extremely difficult to come up with something original when one pays attention only to the

above-mentioned aspects of a literary work. Even then, however, it is not impossible. There are still

areas that have been hardly explored and others where no littérateur has ever set foot – true literary El

Dorados (Fajfer 2010:23).

The similarity with Shklovsky’s essay and with other mentioned in this paper theories

is clearly seen.

Furthermore, we can observe that no matter in what medium the literary text is

presented, the same metaphors to describe what Hayles called not neutral interface return and

Coleridge’s words are echoing in them. Loss Pequeño Glazier, who describes electronic

literature as a continuation of some experimental practices in printed literature (Glazier 2002)

and – as pointed out Hayles – “makes a strong case for electronic literature as an experimental

practice grounded in the materiality of the medium” (Hayles 2008:18), recalled that problem

with words:

25

Does the poem (or the prose) treat language as a transparent bearer of meaning? [...]It is realized through

an investigation of the material elements of writing in the given medium. In other words, from the

viewpoint of innovative practice, “literature” is not a heavenly liquid drunk from a crystal goblet. It is a

struggle with the goblet that presents the problem – its smoothness, its temperature, the way the concept

of the liquid is changed by being in the goblet (Glazier 2002: 171).

Similarly, Fajfer talks about “the book understood not as an indifferent word-holder

external to the literary work, but as an organic component of the work” (Fajfer 2010: 94),

what is also elaborated by Bazarnik in words:

The book is not, as Milton called it, „a transparent violl”, or, as Ingarden insisted, a negligible

material foundation, but an integral part of the literary work, a visible and palpable text occupying

a certain physically delimited space (Bazarnik 2007: 192).

Therefore, there is something what joins some electronic and analog texts and even

“Between Page and Screen”, the AR-book, which is over mentioned medial divisions. It is

exactly what I called after Higgins: the not invisible and not imperceptible words’ skin. And

the fact that there are (and always were) texts which words have visible, tangible and palpable

or buzzing “skins” is truly over-medial. This aspect was pointed out in many theories of

literacy and e-literacy and in all of these perspectives its description is really close to the

definitions of the literacy or poetic function formulated in formalism and structuralism.

Literary works which could be characterized with this over-medial aspect are the ones in

which signifiant is used to create the important part of the meaning and in which the signifiant

of the highest level sign (as the whole text form is seen21

) is deeply involved in text’s

semiotic.

This kind of texts, of course, could be described by some mentioned in this paper terms,

like technotexts, but I would like propose to call them liberary texts or better (capturing the

essence of the problem): the texts of liberary aspect. I propose this because of the fact that

liberary theory, formulated on Polish ground parallel or quite parallel with other theories cited

in this paper, started with the – unnamed directly by Fajfer and Bazarnik – revolution in

understanding the whole process of literary communication. The pointed out by Fajfer in 1999

strong need of redefinition of categories like for example the true material or CODE of

lit/berature or the true medium or CHANEL of lit/berary communication, clearly shows that

in front of some texts we cannot see a literary communication as we used to see it. As was

shown, we cannot do it because even we are used to the neutral, speechless forms of printed

21

E.g a book form in case of print literature.

26

text which were dominating in history of the print for centuries, in some cases they are not

speechless. Neither are many of electronic interfaces.

If we do not notice this new formula of the artistic communication, our reading will be

as cruel as skinning the words alive. Furthermore, without analyzing the meaning of those

meaningful skins, we would not understand the message, because – as was told many years

ago – the medium/the interface/the skin is the message.

The theory of liberature is applied to material books. As there were seen many

similarities between what was called liberature and the e-literature, the term of e-liberature

was also proposed. Although I was the one of those who opted for use the new term, now I am

convinced that it was not a good idea – mainly, because in this way we make the boundaries

of the term “liberature” less visible, less clear. In my opinion, it will be much more useful if –

instead of it – we derive the terms: “liberacy” or “liberary aspect” from the theory proposed

by Fajfer and use them to describe analogue texts and – if it is needed – also the electronic

ones.

Firstly, then we will not be obligated to decide if something is liberature or not and this

partition always has been difficult, because always there were text more or less liberary. The

gradable and adjectival form of the term permits us to compare different texts, even to

compare them across the media, what leads to the second, more significant merit of this

perspective.

Because proposed category is transmedia, it enables to capture the essence of what was

described in this paper: the non-neutral interfaces of literary text written in every media, “the

visible skins of words”. And as underlined by many researchers – nowadays in every media a

literary piece can assume this character also because different media are influencing each

other. What is more, the problem joins not only the e-literature and p-literature (especially the

part of this one described by Pressman by “bookishness” category). Also the works which –

as AR-books – integrate the material, printed book with the electronic text need a term to

describe their specific literacy and materiality. I have not found nothing better than category

of “liberacy” to deal with this need. This playing with etymology term22

seems also perfect to

describe “Between Page and Screen”

22

“Liberature” (and “liberacy” or “liberary”) openly plays with “literature” (and “literacy” or “literary”),

underlining that every liberary work is to be read because is an example of literary work. But also three Latin

roots of word “Liberature” should be marked: 1. lĭběr, lĭbri: a book (because it is a central element of all

liberature theory) 2. līběr, līběră, līběrŭm: free (because the liberary author should be free from all conventions,

also the convention of book form), and 3. lībră, lībrae: balance (because every element of liberary text, even of

its book form, is scrupulously weighted).

27

I am convinced that AR-books should be considered in discussion of the literary

materiality. If the last one we call by metaphor borrowed from Higgins, it could be seen that

those books are really “changing their skins” in front of the reader and because of the reader.

Of course, they do it when they use the AR technology to deeper the literary (not only

illustrative) aspect of the work, as certainly does the Borsuk and Bouse’s publication. This

kind of books also needs to be described by terms determining their unique literary and

material characteristics. I am not quite sure if “Between Page and Screen” is a good example

of liberature. But I am sure that it is a great example of AR-(literary) book and of the

over/trans-media literature of liberary aspect.

Here we can also add something to abundant commentaries and supplements to the

elaboration of “cannibalistic tendency” in e-literature proposed by Funhouser and just

mentioned in this paper. If we apply the proposed category to AR-books or even printed

books, the “book-cannibalism” also could be mentioned and described. The print also can be

seen as a technology which could creatively devour the part of literacy, becoming the

important part of literary communication which cannot be omitted, passed over23

. And the

works of liberary aspects, among others: AR-books as “Between Page and Screen” are the

best illustrations of this claim.

23

It could be illustrated by Fajfer’s words from 2002: “The physical object ceases to be a mere carrier of

text;/the book does not contain a literary work, but/ i t i s i t s e l f t h e l i t e r a r y w o r k ” (Fajfer 2010:

44).

28

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