Re: <nettime> Water-shedding

[Jonathan <jd.conroy@student.qut.edu.au>]

> Perhaps because you don't need anything else to read a book, except a
> knowledge of the language it is written in. A cdrom needs a cdrom
> drive, computer and software, all of which must be compatible with the
> cdrom. It also needs electricity and the technology that produces it.
> In short its usefulness requires an *entire* infrastructure which is
> itself changing rapidly. I'll go with the book.
>
> Roberto Verzola

Nice point, a CDROM is a product of the systems, organisation and
technology of idustrialised society, and as such, work produced on CDROM
can never be considered craft.

Books, on the other hand, can go either way, and so even books produced by
industrialised means (as most are)  retain some of the cultural and
aesthetic attachments we have for craft, and the idea of a unique work.

Finally, books age in a visible, tactile and olifactory way.  An important
part of the attachment and intimacy we develop with artifacts is that they
embody some notion of having a soul.  Age and wear give character and soul
to what are otherwise tools.





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