18 Challenges in Contemporary Literature
Bruce Sterling’s list of industry challenges reads like a summary of the blogosphere’s most tiresome commentary over the last two years. Except for this point:
Unstable computer and cellphone interfaces becoming world’s primary means of cultural access. Compositor systems remake media in their own hybrid creole image.
This is the most interesting, and lethal, threat to the industry. It overrides superficial concerns, such as text length, literary genres, screen size, the smell of a book, e-ink technologies, physicality, and territorial rights. Instead, it speaks of the fundamental nature of information, of the semantic web, and of its likely progenitor, linked data. It’s the opposite of intention, fixity, and publishing authority; it’s the opposite of codex technology and its 500-year-old business model.
