Pixel/print

"While Amazon's Kindle is a bestseller in the United States, Europe seems still a bit slow in taking up e-readers. Producers prepare for conquering the European market. The introduction of e-book readers and their eventual effective diffusion will transform the publishing industry. An international conference organized by Florian Cramer from Rotterdam-based Piet Zwart Institute revolves around the future of publishing, paper and the transformation of reading and the book in the digital age. The program is packed with exceedingly interesting presentations by designers, publishing experts, and researchers from the cutting-edge front of media development."
http://www.mtschaefer.net/entry/printpixel/

Quite a two-day conference I must admit, and an interesting divide of presentations over the past 48 hours. The first day full of e-reading utilities, e-x, e-y, e-z .. easy? Not to mention how the screen is turning half the world's population blind. I will have to place my interest in the second day, and in Alessandro Ludovico's (of neural.it) talk - paper, paper, paper!
Maybe it's me, but I am sure more artists/designers have this: have you ever felt this obsession with any visual/text/image that you want to HAVE it, HOLD it, HUG it? I have. Yes we all have internet and I can watch my favorite image anytime, it's just a matter of going online and loading it. But it isn't quite satisfying; it's not real enough - it lacks weight, substance and the MATERIAL essence. Aren't we material beings?
I am broke and I feel sad that I can't buy books. Then I download my ever-friendly torrent, and the counter never goes above 1 of me opening that file. I am going blind, the screen hurts my eyes, I want to hold my text and sing lullaby to it.
But getting back to the conference which is about publishing. I, being an artist/designer, felt sweetly excluded. I left the conference questioning, can the Sony e-reader or print-on-demand provide me the pleasure of the romanticism an exclusive art-book lying on a walnut-wood coffee-table definitely can? Or is it the death of romanticism we are compromising? Hmm ... may I remind how we are turning into robots ... I really don't want Ray Kurzweil to be correct ... YET AGAIN!