The Livro-Obra app has been created by Itaú Cultural and the Associação Cultural o Mundo de Lygia Clark, recreating in a completely digital form the famous “Livro-Obra”, an iconic artist book created by Lygia Clark in 1983 that employed movable, foldable paper structures able to create different planes. The “digitalization” in this case was a specific problem because of the tactility of the original object, which would have been clearly missed in the app. But the software in this case plays a double role. On one side it conceptually maintains the gesture of the reader, which is the basis of the original work. Only a device with an effective touch screen would have been useful in this sense, although the type of gesture needed for interaction has changed, and so the work assumes a different perspective. On the other hand, the app becomes both an educational tool (the original work is not easy to experience live) and a preservation act. The latter is maybe questionable, as, admittedly, it’s not meant to preserve, but more reinterpret. Nevertheless one of the most effective preservation strategies for digital artworks has proven to be reinterpretation. Although Clark passed away in 1988 and can’t approve this decision, this could be the first valid example and codification of a process that could bring new life to generations of artists’ books.

Livro-Obra de Lygia Clark, para iPad