Creative uses for books

In July, Amazon.com announced that, during the previous three months, it sold more e-books than hardback books.

 This may or may not portend something about the future of the form in which long chunks of text are published. But what about the future of the long chunks of text that have already been published as physical objects with paper pages bound between covers? There are, after all, many such things around. Set aside any emotional attachment you may feel toward the reading of physical books; the truth is that creative uses for books that do not involve engaging with words on a page already abound.

For starters, books have served as useful raw material for conversion into an impressive variety of artworks. Jacqueline Rush Lee has created a body of work that turns books into organic-looking shapes - sometimes pages are rolled, sometimes they seem to grow from their open covers, sometimes they’re squashed into wholly different forms.

Su Blackwell’s intricate cutouts rise from old books like impossible pop-ups; Stephen Doyle has made tanks and staircases from paper pages, resting on open books that serve as pedestals. Guy Laramee and Brian Dettmer have each created compelling three-dimensional objects by carving or otherwise restructuring books.

Full report here Deccan Herald