Thinking about the impact and evolution of language, literacy, the written word, printed word and digital word, continually leads us back to Marshall McLuhan’s notion that new technologies turn old technologies into art forms. We discussed the idea that Plato had a fear that writing would cause people to become lazy, to become more forgetful, less precise…. However, when looking back, writing just made speaking less precise and turned speech into more of an art form. For example, the ability to use many types of rhetoric has been lost since the time of Plato. This loss has resulted from the use of a different ratio of our five senses, which extend from our central nervous system. We are perhaps enhancing our ability to record things, yet our spoken language has suffered in turn. Issues such as these exemplify the vast complexities and limitless possibilities offered through the artist book. Other pertinent issues include: the history of papermaking, the history of ink production, the history of typography, the history of printing, the cultural function of language, the history of writing, the history of the book, Livre De Artist, Fluxus, Bauhaus… the list goes on an on. These issues, which are inherent to the field of the artists’ book, provide a boundless depth of intellectual curiosity unmatched by any other art form.

When asked what is unique about the artists’ book as opposed to other artistic disciplines,
Matt Cohen often likes to explain it like this: “You can physically put a painting, a
drawing, or a photograph into a book, but you cannot physically place a book into
any of these. The book has thus been a vehicle to express our interest in all areas
of art, whether it is print, photography, sculpture, painting, drawing or digital media.
The book represents a powerful and stimulating way to combine the different artistic
mediums that are often disparate and simultaneously opportune for interaction.”