This article by Alice Twemlow (found at Design Observer) is an interesting read that touches on the sometime over-analyzed but always necessary debate on the friction between digital and print media. Written in response to her visit to the current Artists Space exhibition KIOSK (XIX) – Modes of Multiplication (curated by Christoph Keller) the article, as well as the exhibition, focuses on the continuing growth of the contemporary art press in the face of declining readership and increasing digital media choices. The counter-intuitive thrust of the situation highlights the ways in which print (ink on paper) could continue to be a cultural (or maybe sub-cultural) player for a long time to come. Perhaps the most telling passage in the piece is this bit:

The creators of such publications do not expect large readerships — nor do they depend upon sales. Instead their enterprises are funded by subsidies in Europe and in the U.S. many have opted for non-profit status. As Keller has pointed out, “All these art books would cost a fortune if they were rooted in a capitalistic market system… Of the 500 books I have published with Revolver, more than half the copies have been given away or swapped for other books.”

That these books are existing and exchanged outside the capitalist market system would seem to indicate that print is in trouble as a commercial mass medium, but has a bright and comfortable future in niche markets where the aesthetic cache of ink on paper still holds sway.