Post- Digital Print - Monoskop

experimenting with a very different kind of e-paper: Marcelo Coelho
and Pattie Maes, in collaboration with Joanna Berzowska and Lyndl
Hall, are creating what they call “Pulp-Based Computing”. 244 This consists
of “integrating electrically active inks and fibers during the papermaking
process”, creating sensors and actuators that behave, look, and
feel like paper.
Clearly, traditional print is increasingly being called into question –
but is this really a direct consequence of the ongoing development of
digital technologies? Or has the digital revolution merely exposed the
printed medium’s own basic vulnerability? Whatever the case, the future
of the traditional print/publishing model (the act of applying ink
to cellulose, massively and at some fixed location – as opposed to simply
switching the temporary state of some magnetic storage, perhaps
halfway across the world) seems more uncertain that ever.
4.7 print and online: friend or foe?
conceptual differences and similarities
between print and blogs.
There are currently hundreds of thousands of individuals writing and
publishing in the ‘blogosphere’. From early blogging platforms such as
LiveJournal (founded in March 1999 by Brad Fitzpatrick) to contemporary
content management systems (such as the currently popular
Wordpress), the blog has imposed a radical turn on the way information
is being produced and consumed online, empowering individuals while
confronting readers with a massive increase in the amount of potentially
interesting information (as well as uninteresting noise). Arguably,
the blog platform is already past its peak – at least, as a candidate to
supplant traditional news and information platforms, which actually
seem to be in a process of regaining the (digital) initiative. Only time
will tell.
A blog (‘web log’) is usually defined as a regularly updated website,
mostly produced by one single person, and usually reflecting this person’s
perspective on a chosen topic or topics. This approach may be
traced back to the pre-Internet world of the zines, more specifically
the ‘perzines’ or personal zines. Gareth Branwyn, in his 1997 book
Jamming the Media offered the following definition: “Personal zines
(perzines) shamelessly flaunt their makers. They detail the lives of
their publishers through intimate stories, anecdotes, comics, photos,
and pieces about them written by others. A perzine is like an
elaborate letter from a friend (that you happen not to know).” 245 The
perzines remained a marginal segment of the zine world, with a few
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