The beginning of the end, and of a new beginning

The beginning of the end, and of a new beginning

As part of the 23rd Thailand Book Expo, which begins on Wednesday, an exhibition imagines a world where books no longer exist

The 23rd Book Expo Thailand begins on Wednesdayy at Queen Sirikit National Convention Center, and hundreds of thousands of people will flock there to buy books. But as technology has continued to challenge our concept of "reading" and "reading materials", and as history has proved how so many books could be lost and forgotten through time, the exhibitor invites us to imagine a world wherein books have become extinct.

At once a sci-fi scenario and a reflection on the history of printing, "The Lost Book 3018" is the main exhibition of the Expo, which runs until Oct 28. On the one hand, the exhibition imagines an extreme circumstance when books as we know them would be replaced by AI and other forms of consciousness; and on the other, the curator looks back at the literary black hole where important books in the past did not survive the passage of time and taste.

"The concept of the exhibition came from the scary fact that 99.5% of books that were printed at one point disappeared or got lost through time, and only 1% have survived and are still read," said Kittiphol Saragganonda, an editor at 1001 Nights Editions Publishing and curator of "The Lost Book 3018".

The statistics he claimed came from a famous study by Margaret Cohen called "The Great Unread", which looks at how a body of texts have, since the time of their production, become forgotten or unavailable, and how human knowledge is shaped by the 1% that has made it.

"Instead of just giving information, this exhibition will tell a story, based on both fact and imagination, of the future world when printed books no longer exist -- and what caused their extinction."

"The Lost Book 3018" is located in the main area in front of Plenary Hall of the convention centre. Inside, the audience will be transported into a future world, with a computer-storeroom simulator and a "time machine" that will show visitors a timeline of the significant publishing events of different eras -- from the Gutenberg Bible to the advent of e-books.

An exhibition hall has been designed with two entrances, and the audience can walk in from either side, said Kittiphol.

"From one side, you will begin at the year 3018, then you'll see what has happened each year in reverse, back until the first day, when the book was invented. But if you enter the exhibition from the other side, your experience will be totally opposite," he added.

In the wild imagination of the exhibition, in the future books will become extinct because knowledge would be transmitted directly to our consciousness through AI.

The underlying idea is the evolution of technology. E-books are now an established mode of reading -- and they don't need a national book expo to promote themselves -- while devices such as the iPad or Kindle continue to evolve.

"But a printed book was a form of technology when it started out, especially the mass production of books as a result of the invention of the printing press," said Kittiphol. "It's the same as computers, software programs, and e-books -- they are all parts of technology that's constantly changing."

"The Lost Book 3018" isn't just about how technology can change the printing landscape. It's a bibliophilic exploration of literary history, especially why some books survive and others don't. Which books, in short, will be chosen to continue, while the rest will be soon forgotten.

Kittiphol gave an example of detective fiction, like the Sherlock Holmes stories by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which first appeared in print in 1887. During that time, there were so many other novels in the same style by different authors that came out, but only Sherlock Holmes and a few others get recognised and are still remembered today.

Or the case of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a Genevan philosopher who's best known for his 1762 political book The Social Contract. Around the same year, he wrote another sentimental romance book called Julie, Or The New Heloise, which was also a great success at the time, but people hardly talked about Julie 100 years later.

"We don't know the exact reason why some of the books are just disappearing after a period of time," Kittiphol said. "For some books, people just stop reading and stop talking about them, and some never even get picked up and are left dusty on the shelves. So the exhibition will give attendees this information, as well as a theory to explain all these events -- what happens with books and print media, and how they can still be passed on."

The exhibition also features a section on "Writers The World Has Forgotten", which tells the story of seven authors who were well-known in their time but were soon nearly wiped out from the pages of literary history -- simply because their books are no longer in print

Kittiphol believes that readers are the main factor with the power to determine the fate of literature.

"Readers play the key role in deciding which literature is important enough to pass on to the next generation," he said, adding that the exhibition will explore the economic side of the printing business, which in turn affects the tastemaking process.

"Not the critics, and not university professors in the classroom who told you which novel should be considered a literary classic, but it's the readers, like any of us. This exhibition was made to build an awareness of how important the readers are."

Book Expo visitors are largely comprised of teenagers, and "The Lost Book 3018" has been designed as a youth-friendly exhibition with a more engaging and accessible museum experience.

"One of the gimmicks is the photo-sticker machine where you can take pictures with legendary authors from different eras, both Thai and foreign -- from Chote 'Yacob' Praepan to Charles Dickens and James Joyce," said Kittiphol.

Another highlight is an image of Johannes Gutenberg, the German who invented the printing press. But his face is replaced with a mirror where the exhibition audience can see their own reflections. "The message is that you're the one who decides the fate of printed books and literature."

Kittiphol also believes that at the end of the printing era, the computer will be taking over and become the centre of information, and the world will come under technology. All of the world's important information and literature will be recorded, which AI can find, or research topics itself, or even write novels by itself.

"Today the only flaw of the computer and the internet is that they contain inaccuracies," he said. "But indeed, books can be wrong too. What we have to do is ensure access to knowledge in the widest possible way, because the more people know, the less they will believe in the wrong information."

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