What Came Before Wikipedia?
By Marion Anthonisen
Well, real-life encyclopedias. Remember those? As a kid, I cherished my Children’s World Book for its abundant illustrations of everything from the European hedgehog to the deep-sea hatchetfish (this was during one of my many animal-obsessed phases). For last-minute homework questions, I sometimes even consulted the text-only adult encyclopedia gathering dust in the chilliest corner of the living room.
Even then, these books were cumbersome. And if any of us owned encyclopedias today, there’s a slim chance that we’d choose to cross the room, awkwardly remove a heavy book from its shelf, stumble through all the wrong letters, and finally locate the B’s to read outdated information about Justin Bieber. Oh, sorry, I meant string theory. That entry’s outdated, too, though.
Whether you’re a Bieber fan or a quantum physics enthusiast, you’d just go to Wikipedia, right? So would artist Brian Dettmer, he says, and his studio is full of encyclopedias. There’s just no arguing with the speed, precision, and accuracy of the internet.
Brian’s work, on display through March at Toomey Tourell and the Katz Snyder Gallery, illuminates the beauty of aging reference books that have become nearly obsolete in the digital era.
Brian seals the edges of the books, fuses them to other volumes, and starts carving. As he works, themes and patterns begin to emerge, and he starts to curate these books for us, acting as a search engine that returns broad but beautiful results.
This one feels like peering into an exposed abdominal cavity on the operating table. Swap kidneys and lungs for archeological artifacts and war heroes.
“The book isn’t the perfect form for organizing general knowledge,” Brian told me over the phone. “But I don’t think books will ever die. One hundred years from now, who’s going to find anything we saved on Facebook?”
“What makes the internet convenient and fast also makes it vulnerable and threatened,” he added. “There are images files online from three years ago that we can’t find.”
This ^ piece is a transcription of the text from the image above it. If you visit the gallery, you should look for the words Brian left out or altered slightly.
The edges are sealed so tightly the pages begin to resemble the wood whence they came.
It’s too bad Brian wasn’t around to help me with my 3-D science projects back when I was consulting my Children’s World Book. He was probably pretty good at dioramas.
You should really check out either show at Toomey Tourell or the Katz Snyder Gallery (I snapped the images above at Toomey). In case the photos themselves are somehow not enough incentive, I’ll give you a near-impossible challenge that will win you my eternal admiration. See if you can find a tiny illustration of a sheep (it’s even labeled “sheep”). Hint: it’s in one of the books.
