Warren Ellis has found my ramblings about his Digital Shadows Ministry column, where I blather about how a comic book could be used as a paper nexus to hold together world-building information, software to build more things like it, and a history of the project.
Thought I’d put up some links to more ideas along those lines, just while I’m about to head out somewhere…
Pasta and Vinegar linked to an awesome paper about the role played by artifacts in cognition. Which is sort of tangentially related to this idea, if you squint.
Also, if:book has been working over the idea of the networked book, the theory of which they explore in more detail here.
In the comments to the latter entry, Adam Greenfield says:
I’ve become all but unable to think of the objects around me except in terms of Actor-Network theory, as sort of depositions or instantiations of a great deal of matter, energy and information moving through the world. And of course, a book is nothing but a snapshot in that regard; you have to do a lot of extra work if you want to prise out and examine the flows it is a part of, or even those it has set up.
And, because they’re actually brilliant people who do things, rather than blogging dilettantes like myself, if:book is experimenting with a networked book, GAM3R 7H30RY 1.1.
Add in the fact that new Nokia phones come with 2d barcode reading software built in, and it looks like maybe paper books with digital shadows aren’t such a far-fetched idea, after all.
Just a thought.
(Edited to fix horrible sloppy writing… this is why I try to do first drafts on paper.)