How Are Books Without Text Read?
Abstract
In the world of books, in addition to literary texts, there are books of which contents refer to visual imagery. Illustrated books, artist books and all books of which content is based on images, require a particular form of reading whose paradigm is vision. Seeing is an everyday event, it’s an unconscious habit for all of us who enjoy the physical ability of perceiving the surroundings through the sense of seeing. Educating sight means elevating to the level of conscience the different perceptual moments; this involves considering the objective and tangible conditions of every instant, being able to name in correct terms the formal conditions of what is being seen, and understanding the possible determinations of our sight, everything from the perceptual ambiguities to the physiological, environmental and cultural processes that go with it. Reading a book with images requires learning to see, resorting to the abilities of the other senses that contribute to the apprehension of the sensuality of this type of publications. The space of these books is the infinite exteriority that surpasses the world of ideas due to its complexity; they are receptacles whose magnitude forces the human being to conceive them within the framework of a particular legibility, and also to fragment them in different ways so as to understand them within material configuration or determined exterior limits that create their inner ambits.