The Impermanent Books
William Hsu
What would you do if you were handed a book with an intentionally limited lifespan? Would you attempt to preserve its original form? Could you avoid the edges tearing if you flipped through it daily? Would you store hundreds of digital replicas on your phone to deny its entropy? Or would you have no use for it, leaving it to collect dust and eventually decay?
The Impermanent Books is a series of experiments that aim to explore people’s intimate relationships with objects and their unique ways of preserving them. The project consists of three books that disintegrate at a faster rate than normal books. This is accomplished by introducing unconventional materials, production methods, and forms in the processes of bookmaking. This disintegrative character is counteracted by the reader’s impulse to either preserve or experience the books as intended despite their finite quality.
How we preserve objects in our lives is distinct for everyone. The Impermanent Books amplifies these differences by adding an expiration date, yielding a new relationship to the format of the book. The Impermanent Books is unified by the lightness of the overarching color selection, as if the content itself is anticipating its inevitable ephemeral transcendence into oblivion. As you attempt to grasp onto the physical existence of these books, you also face the dilemma of preserving or sacrificing your experiences with them.