 Loyer, Hollowbound Book. |
| Perhaps it is nothing more than a reversal of "the standard orders." After all, those were the only orders I had ever known. They were orders that rendered me invisible to you, the avid book reader. You cared more for the two-dimensional script on my pages than you ever did for me, the solid, three-dimensional object you held in your hands. I was so invisible that all the notice you ever gave might have been to crack my spine upon first opening me, to dog-ear my pages or to remove my jacket. This was the only materiality that you knew or cared about. |
 Loyer, Hollowbound Book. |
| What Hayles gave me was space. Between her arguments, through her arguments, she made space for my real and spatial existence: for the materiality of me as a book. It was this space that Loyer has reaffirmed for me through his recreation. After all, as Hayles herself said, "the computational engines and artificial intelligences that produce simulations require sophisticated bases in the real world" (6). Me, as the book itself, I am the physical base. Loyer, my second creator, he is the creative base. The computer hardware and software that allowed my recreation to come into being, they are my technological bases. Menon, my third creator, she is yet another creative, intellectual base. These are the many bases that allowed me to come into being and that force you to pay attention to my materiality. |
 Loyer, Hollowbound Book. |
| By separating my voice from my structure, Loyers forces you to actually look at ME. To see me in my many manifestations - as open book, as spine and covers, as beating heart and voice. My materiality was finally brought front and center, and you had no choice but to acknowledge my visibility. Menon now requires that you continue to take that heart and voice seriously. She invites you to sit here, staring at your computer screen, reading my thoughts and engaging with me in critical, literary analysis. You are treating me, to some extent, as you would a person - perhaps criticizing or evaluating the claims I make. Responding to me in some way, shape or form. Responding directly to ME - a BOOK! What greater validation of my materiality could I possibly ask for? |
| Funny, isn't it, how much more interesting I am now? My thoughts and voice engaging with yours? Tired of this intellectual exchange? Return, for a moment, to the Hollowbound Book. Click through me, if you will, and experience once again what first excited you. Notice my pulsing heart and hollow...mesmerizing as it sucks you in and makes you stop and think. Red light, stop light, heartbeat. And my spine: you're actually intrigued by how you can twist and turn it in so many different ways, creating a fluidity of form that you'd never imagined possible. Before you know it, you're kinesthetically involved! |