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Hollowbound Book

Interactive companion to N. Katherine Hayles' book Writing Machines in which the user performs the monologue of a captive book binding seeking to escape its confinement.

Year 2003
Format
Website
Recognition
Featured in the 2003 California Design Biennial
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Hollowbound Book is an interactive response to N. Katherine Hayles’ book Writing Machines, in which a newly liberated book binding testifies to its liberation at the hands of Hayles’ theories.  Commissioned for Peter Lunenfeld’s Mediaworks pamphlet series.

Video Documentation

Hollowbound Book from Erik Loyer on Vimeo.

The piece opens with a poetic invocation of N. Katherine Hayles’ book Writing Machines.
The text of the project is the monologue of a book binding come to life.
At each stage in the text, the user is presented with an animated (and often interactive) composition illustrating the point being made.
At the end of the piece, the user can literally reshape Hayles’ text within the confines of a virtual book.