Put all the images in language in a place of
safety and make use of them, for they are in the
desert, and it’s in the desert we must go
and look for them.

Jean Genet (manuscript note at the top of the final proofs of Prisoner of Love)

It is eerie how relevant the words of Jean Genet, written over 2 decades ago, still resonate today.Though referring to the impossibility - or even the failure - of language to capture human struggle and tragedy and safeguard that experience; Genet was touching explicitly on the ephemeral qualities of language (or text), if you will. Due to rapid technological developments, the advent of the Internet, and by corollary the change in the nature of publishing, the “places of safety” for language Genet held so dear, have definitely moved home several times. For in 2007, what is a place of safety for words and text? Some might argue – conform with neo-con ideology – that whatever is controlled and contained, labelled and categorised, copyrighted, locked up and licensed to death, is safe. Others will argue the opposite: that the only safeguarding for the fruits of intellectual labour is their free circulation, and that culture should be “open”. Many of us though, seem ourselves to be a bit lost in Genet’s desert, negotiating the best strategy between production and consumption; between ownership and sharing; between how and what to read and how and what to write; between hard copy and soft pixel.

It is quite cruel that in the 21st Century, despite (or perhaps precisely because of) our fluid post-post-modern identities, most of life is still determined – for those privileged enough – by an either/or question: coffee OR tea; boy OR girl; paper OR pixel.Indeed, there seem to be few mechanisms that would allow us to embrace both to an equal extent. It is as if a slight tendency towards the one, would already prove a disloyalty towards the other. This logic is in effect faulty: for it would be unfair to compare pixel and paper as opposites, or as one being a weak copy or wannabe of the other; or for that matter, one being monumental and the other mutable. Though often dressed up to be similar - as Alessandro Ludovico reminds us in his piece of the paperless office - or to convey the same information, pixel and paper have inherently different properties and sensibilities, and this is also how we should approach them. Yes…this seems to be easier said than done.

When Alessandro Ludovico and myself organised a session in De Balie in Amsterdam on January 19th 2007, called “Offline – Online Publishing: The Love for Print in an Age of Electronic Media”, we wanted specifically to address how the distinct qualities of print – especially in relation to independent magazines - could survive due to the potentials of networked media and technology. We did not want to perform a requiem for the loss of print, but rather insist on how a love for speed and electrons in many ways contributes to the survival of hard copy.And I guess we also wanted to talk about our love for the tactility of the printed word: from the smell of ink to the feel of the page.Nevertheless, there seems to be a sense of loss, which shimmers through our words and sentiments, even in the essays compiled here.It is as if we desperately would like to bring our beloved print publications to that “safe place” where they will eternally continue to be meaningful to us in that very same and particular way we have grown accustomed to them.Surprising perhaps, since almost all contributors have been actively involved in working within digital culture for years. Yet as Sandra Fauconnier points out in her text “Networked Readership”, our reading habits are changing, for not only are they influenced by the networked nature of abundant online content, but they are also bound to techno-social processes.As readers we position ourselves and navigate these contexts on a continuous basis.

Somehow the tactility of (naughtily) reading the final pages of a novel before starting it properly as a way of instant gratification, or reading the bibliography of an academic work first in order to situate the author before purchasing the actual book, feels more transgressive than scrolling down the webpage to see the final footnotes, or doing quick searches on an online text.We never think twice when we copy/paste an online text (or parts of it) into different documents we are working with.But we’ve probably all have been disturbed by (or have perhaps been guilty of) receiving or returning a book where we have marked a particular striking passage, disturbing the tranquility of the page with our biros, or where we have earmarked a page, or worse, ripped something out, maiming the body of the book. The text tactility of the printed page has a particular weight to it, which online publications do not have, because we are literally dealing with “a body of work”. And that body has a scent, a volume, and is designed in a particular way, which conditions us to read it in a particular way. There is something comforting in that. There is also something comforting in the fact that books have proved a long shelf life, in comparison with digital carriers. In times of “unstable media” we sometimes long for things to remain through time, and not be continuously refreshed and updated. Jouke Kleerebezem reminds us in “Ubibook” that he will be left with “some of the book’s information to age with [him], and keep those precious objects at hand, in a sense also ‘against time’”.

However, let me depart for an instant from what is starting to sound like an exercise in nostalgia. For the book or print is far from dead…it is just morphing into something different. Indeed, the use value of print is changing: from being the primary locus of knowledge and reference, print finds itself manifested in objects of luxury, in objects we covet to own,, and yes…consume. In addition, reading from paper is also increasingly becoming a moment where contemplation is called for, as Arie Altena suggests in “Pixel and Ink”. The latter is in effect also becoming a luxury commodity as we lead ever-more demanding lifestyles. What we love about certain books and magazines – apart from their content – is their “objectness”, and how we can invest these objects with personal value, as they collect dust on our shelves and stand there as testimony to a particular moment in our lives. What we like about print, is that we can pass stuff on from friends to friends, and this act of gift economy feels more committing than merely forwarding something though email. It is difficult to cherish something that is immaterial, as we like to be able to touch and feel and keep things we hold dear.

So we have found a place of “text tactile” safety for the words in-between the covers of this reader.And we have also found a temporary place online for those who prefer to read on-screen: http://magnet-ecp.org

But I do urge you to flip through the book, thumb its pages, bend its flexible back, pass it on to your friends, or shelve it in your library amongst the other copies, while I echo Andreas Broeckmann’s words in his introductory essay for the first Mag.net Reader; Experiences in Electronic Cultural Publishing: “We’ll see you in print!”