Introduction: Opening Experimental Book Objects-The Heterogeneity of the Codex of the Twenty-First Century: Opening Experimental Book Objects: The Heterogeneity of the Codex in the Twenty-First Century

Books persistently matter in the twenty-first century, even in the time-proven analogue form known as the codex. Audiobooks, e-books, and other digital forms have broadened the scope of literature and expanded the tried and tested technological qualities of the codex to new platforms, all the while bringing into light the processes occurring in the codex itself. The affordances of experimental book objects require mediation to engage the reader. The definitions of medium or media, as concepts, are notoriously varied, fuzzy, or sometimes even evaded in different disciplines; nevertheless, they usually manage to handle and communicate the phenomenon in question quite fluently, at least within their own field of study. In graphic and book design, the focus on the visual and tactile aspects of book objects has of course been a special interest for more than a century. In these fields, the histories of typographic and visual design are considered tightly woven together with histories of bookmaking, printing technologies, and literature.