Work

Title

Blank on Demand

Author

Silvio Lorusso and Giulia Ciliberto

Date

2011

Description

"The most beautiful and perfect book in the world is a book with only blank pages, in the same way that the most complete language is that which lies beyond all that the words of a man can say." (Ulises Carriòn, The New Art of Making Books, 1975)

1 hardcover volume, 15.2×22.9cm, 740 pages, €999,999.99 on Lulu.com
1 paperback volume, 10.8×17.5cm, 40 pages, €5.44 on Lulu.com

Print on Demand technology allows to make a book without the intermediation of a publisher, setting autonomously size, amount of pages and price. Blank on Demand is an experiment that aims to probe the limits imposed by this production process. The two volumes constituting the project are produced through the self-publishing platform Lulu.com. The volumes’ formats correspond respectively to the maximum and minimum dimensions currently available for the print; similarly, page amount and price are set according to the limit values allowed by the platform. The two volumes are completely blank, except for the presence of the ISBN code. The experiment investigates the influence of the current technological context on the materiality of the book object.

URL

silviolorusso.com/work/blank-on-demand/

Medium

Book

Size

15.2×22.9cm, 10.8×17.5cm

Pages

740, 40

Price

€999,999.99, €5.44

Technology

Print on Demand

Platform

Lulu

Related Article

The Print on Demand Myth: Hoping for Public Distribution” by Impossible Library in conversation with Annette Gilbert and Andreas Bülhoff, www.impossiblelibrary.com/en/blog/the-print-on-demand-myth-hope-for-a-public-through-distribution, Mar 11, 2021.

Keywords

bookness, context, distribution, materiality, mediation, process, production

Added

ID

1844