PSA: Book as Multimedia Interface ‘Kill’ the Authors and ‘Give Birth’ to the Readers

Partially Powered by Chat GPT

What is a book? What is the definition of a book? The answer can vary as technology keeps challenging the conventional idea of a book. It does not have to be physical; it can be audio and electronic stored in the “cloud.” Our electronic devices allow us to access books from different formats and media easily. Amaranth Borsuk, an American poet and scholar, is curious about the evolution of books, and she wonders how books as interfaces will lead us in the future. Borsuk, therefore, wrote The Book to explore the book's history, technology, and future as a physical and conceptual object. The Book itself is a physical representation of this exploration, with its pages containing a mix of traditional printed text, digital images, and interactive elements such as pop-up pages and QR codes that link to online content. The Book is divided into five sections, each of which focuses on a different aspect of the book's evolution. These sections cover topics such as the earliest forms of writing, the development of the printing press, the rise of digital media, and the potential future of the book in an age of rapidly advancing technology.

The last chapter of Amaranth Borsuk's The Book, titled Colophon or Incipit, is a reflection on the book as a physical object and the role that it plays in our lives and culture. The title of the chapter refers to two traditional elements of a book: the colophon, which is a statement at the end of a book that provides information about the book's production and publication, and the incipit, which is the opening words or phrase of a text. In this chapter, Borsuk reflects on the many ways in which books have been used throughout history, from sacred texts to works of literature to scientific manuals. She notes that while books have traditionally been associated with authority and permanence, they are also mutable objects that can be transformed by their readers and the contexts in which they are read. Borsuk also considers the future of the book in an age of digital media and explores the ways in which digital technologies are changing the way we interact with texts. She argues that while digital media have certainly had an impact on the way we read and write, the book as a physical object remains an important and valuable part of our cultural heritage.

Brosuk’s Colophon or Incipit examines the idea of books as interfaces in the future. With technology, readers can now interact with the book with multimedia to enhance the experience of understanding the books’ ideas. As Brosuk points out, “consumers of books have never been passive…both we can the texts we read have bodies, and it is only when they come together that book takes shape” (43). Technology’s flexibility allows readers to interact with books actively more than ever which reminds me of Roland Barthes’s essay The Death of the Author. The essay is a theoretical exploration of the relationship between the author, the reader, and the meaning of a text. He argues that the author's intentions do not solely determine the meaning of a text but rather emerge through a dynamic interaction between the reader and the text. Barthes's essay is a dense, philosophical work that is primarily concerned with ideas and concepts rather than with the physical form of the book itself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9iMgtfp484

Overall, Both Barthes and Borsuk deal with similar themes related to the meaning and interpretation of literature. Books as multimedia interfaces “kill” the author because “book” or “text” can exist in various formats of multimedia for readers or consumers to enjoy. Consumers interact with “text” differently; therefore, the meaning of the “text” vary depending on how consumer interact with multimedia which further prove Barthes’s theory of “the death of the authors,” it can also interpret as the birth of the readers or consumers.

Works Cited:

• Borsuk, Amaranth. The Book, MIT Press, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central,https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/west/detail.action?docID=5376610.

• Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” Image, Music, Text, translated by Stephen Heath, Hill and Wang, 1977, pp. 142–48.