Playing a role, making an impression: sociotechnical vectors in the extended space of independent publishing

Abstract

This article is based on the analysis of the practices and representations of publishers who attend the fairs of printed art held in the city of São Paulo in recent years. Our goal is to understanding the sociotechnical vectors that organize these practices and the materialities of the editorial objects published and marketed there. At the heart of the analysis is the relationship between the technicities (codex, paper, and print) mobilized by these publishers and certain conceptions of the past, present, and future that are inscribed in their individual and collective investments, between the "return to the artisanal" and the pretension to build a viable future for the publication. It is concluded that the new forms of fetishization of the printed book are conditioned by both the technical evolutions provided by digital technologies and by the programmatic denial of the conventional book identified with the mainstream publishing market.

Keywords:
Publishing; Print; Paper; Digital technologies