Living Book

December 10, 2011—January 28, 2012

In the Project Room, Carrie Secrist Gallery presents Living Book (2011) created by Plural and The Center for Book Technology. Influenced by Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, this project examines the functional distinction between author (writer) and public (reader). Living Book transforms the gallery space into an automated book production facility. Using custom-software, viewers in the space are captured in-real-time (every 60 seconds) from an overhead camera and projected onto the wall. Each capture is then printed onto single pages of a book in production. In addition, a keyboard allows viewers to author their own page(s), creating a spontaneous performance environment where a database of individual choices becomes a collective narrative.

The Living Book Production Facility will be open 5 hours a day, printing a single page every 60 seconds, resulting in a 300-page book at the end of each business day. Each week will become a collection of 5 books. Living Book (2011) will become a collection of 25 books.