In my sociology class we are reading a book called: PRESENT SHOCK: When Everything Happens Now, wherein Rushkoff introduces the phenomenon of presentism. Rushkoff argues that we no longer have a sense of a future, of goals, of direction at all. We have a completely new relationship to time; we live in an always-on “now,” where the priorities of this moment seem to be everything. He talks about how in our current culture we have learn to distinguish between data flows (like Twitter) that can only be dipped into, and data storage (like books and emails) that can be fully consumed. The artist books seemed to be a step backward from this technological progression which was refreshing. Instead of perhaps blogging about their interpretations of a book or poem these artists were able to use their ideas to make a new book form.

The was something to say about the tactile quality of many of the books. I felt as though I really had to immerse myself in the books because I wanted to fully understand what they were all about. As opposed to my traditional scanning on a webpage or quick view of a momentary status or tweet.