“An analysis of art in the age of mechanical reproduction must do justice to these relationships, for they lead us to an all-important insight: for the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility. From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the “authentic” print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics.”
- Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, 1336 (via BBC Backstage mailing list)

“It seems intuitively that the explosion of reading on screens - which has happened - will ultimately result in ebook reading on screens, but exactly how is not evident yet. Ebook take up has been minimal. Relatively scarce product offerings — counterintuitively, even production of new titles in the trade area has slowed in recent years — combined with a consumer-unfriendly combination of formats, proprietary offerings cut off from normal book retailing channels, klunky merchandising, and anti-viral DRM have prevented book reading from being among the first things besides email to be read on devices. In fact, books will be among the last. That’s not something for us to be proud of as an industry.”
- Mike Shatzkin, Idea Logical at BookExpo America

We’re planning the first Slow Fire non-event for August or September - all suggestions for venues very welcome.

The format is still under discussion, but the most likely is to have a few people make short presentations (five minutes or less) on interesting and forward-looking publishing things, and then general chat over beers. If anyone has their own interesting things they’d particularly like to talk about, do get in touch.