PROGRAM THIRTEEN: WONDER BOOKS (A SUITE OF WORKS ONLY ON PC)
Is it a paradox to celebrate the CD-Rom for enlivening the culture of the book? While libraries and classrooms profit from the dense memory and portability of the CD-Rom, their budgets for the purchase of books and print materials give way to sizable investments in hardware and software. Yet, the format of the CD-Rom with its rich textures and multimedia interactives could well be said to renew the public’s sensivity to the wonder of the book. This program reminds us how books resonate with the lyrical voice of rhetoric, how early modern texts blended the figures of print and image in a fashion that energized reading in something of a three-dimensional space. Here the CD-Rom activates a deep well of cultural interface that ushers the private reader into the wondrous “dark cabinet” of the computer, its sound interface, and its libidinal zones.

Michael BUCKLEY, The Good Cook, 2000 (Australia)

Michiel KNAVEN, Nachtmusik (Holland)
Aarre KÄRKKÄINEN/Hilkka OKKONEN Divine ComedyDigital, (Finland)
Calin MAN, Das Wanderbuch (Romania)