Ryan Cordell will be delivering the opening for the Thinking Through Printing symposium.

The term "skeuomorph" was coined by archeologists to name ornamental features that evoke a historical structure, implement, or tool. In the 1990s and 2000s, both scholars and technologist applied the word to elements of computational interfaces that evoke earlier, analog media—e.g. files, folders, or desktops—while user interface designers debated whether such design helps users understand new platforms, or whether it weighs new technology down with historical nostalgia.

This talk will refuse this dichotomy, proposing instead the skeuomorph as a key heuristic for the work of book labs seeking to better understand historical technologies while cultivating technological imagination for the twenty-first century. Even as we print with letterpress or make paper or simulate scriptoria, we recognize our labs as complex, transhistorical assemblages of equipment and skills, and we bring to them inescapable temporal distance. In short, our work is shot through with skeuomorphism. This talk will theorize skeuomorphism as embedded cultural critique, drawing on historical praxis to perceive the technical, social, and political operations of media technology that can be opaque in any present.

Ryan Cordell is the associate Professor in the School of Information Sciences and Department of English at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He also directs Skeuomorph Press & BookLab, an experiential studio for research and teaching in book and information arts that is housed in the Champaign-Urbana Community FabLab.

This event is part of the Thinking Through Printing symposium, hosted by the University of St Michael's College and the Faculty of Information, University of Toronto, with support from the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, the Jackman Humanities Institute, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Keynote: "A Skeuomorphic View of Book History"

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