The future of the book is folded with the future of the image but what is the current state reading? My paper explores the intricate relation between texts and images and the richness of their layering.What does it mean for reading when the world that has become a picture transforms into a world of readable images and legible (be it by humans or machines) texts (or codes, or meta-data) that are all interconnected?

1. The Present and Future of Reading -
The Shortening of Distances and the
Word/Image Bind
Dr. Romi Mikulinsky
Book Live! Symposium –
8 June 2012

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• -“Either the books must go, or they must swallow us
up. I calculate that, take the whole world over, from
eighty to one hundred thousand books appear every
year; at an average of a thousand copies, this makes
more than a hundred millions of books, the majority
of which contain only the wildest extravagances …
Our social condition forces us to hear many stupid
things every day. A few more or less do not amount
to very great suffering in the end; but what
happiness not to be obliged to read them, and to be
able at last to close our eyes upon the annihilation of
printed things!”

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The Shortening of Distances
• Reading and Writing
• Writing and Publishing
• Reader and Writer
• Man and Machines (Literary Machines, Semantic
Web, automated data)
• Word and Image
• The Senses (Senses conversion)

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The Present and Future of Reading
A Poem from “The Day” BY KENNETH GOLDSMITH
Metropolitan Forecast
D8 L THE NEW YORK TIMES TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
Metropolitan Forecast
today Less humid, sunshine
High 79. Noticeably less humid air will filter into the metropolitan
region on.
Brisk winds from the northwest. High pressure building east from the
Great Lakes will promote mainly sunny skies. Daytime readings will
peak in the lower 80’s.
tonight Clear, lighter winds
Low 62. Skies will be clear overnight as high pressure crests near the
Middle Atlantic Coast. Humidity will remain low, and temperatures
will fall to around 60 degrees in many spots.
tomorrow Mainly sunny
High 76. Sunshine and just a few clouds will fill the sky. Breezes will
turn and blow from the south ahead of a cold front approaching
from Canada.

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| | This is a faded picture | |
| | of a dilapidated | | | |
| | building. It seems to be | | | |
| | run down and in the | | | |
| | need of repirs. | | | | |
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| | Looks like a cupboard | |
| | which is ugly and old | |
| | having name plates | |
| | on it with a study lamp| |
| | attached to it. | | | | | | |
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| | Corner of a wood floored |
| | room with a tool chest, | |
| | bike, stack of books, box | |
| | leaning against the wall, | |
| | an open door with a bag | |
| | hanging off the doorknob| |
| | and a pair of closed double|
| | doors with cables | | | | | |
| | hanging on the handles. | |
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http://vertigious.tumblr.com
The End