Mo'a Ti
I Love Keith Smith’s Book 91
December 2024
/
7 min.
I love Keith Smith’s Book 91.
It’s atmospheric. Poetic. More than a book—less a container, more an experience. The pages don’t just hold content, they perform it. They move, fold, conceal, reveal, often without using a single word.
What stays with me is how much it challenges the idea of “reading.” There’s no linearity, no spine-bound logic. Book 91 is structured like a thought, or a dream—fragmented, tactile, emotional. It’s not just something to look at, it’s something you handle. Navigate. Feel.
In my own work, I often return to the idea of the book as an interface—a designed space, not a passive object. Smith’s book is an early and radical example of that. It plays with form as meaning, not just in the typographic sense, but spatially, sculpturally. It’s closer to architecture or choreography than literature.
I love Keith Smith’s Book 91.
It’s atmospheric. Poetic. More than a book—less a container, more an experience. The pages don’t just hold content, they perform it. They move, fold, conceal, reveal, often without using a single word.
What stays with me is how much it challenges the idea of “reading.” There’s no linearity, no spine-bound logic. Book 91 is structured like a thought, or a dream—fragmented, tactile, emotional. It’s not just something to look at, it’s something you handle. Navigate. Feel.
In my own work, I often return to the idea of the book as an interface—a designed space, not a passive object. Smith’s book is an early and radical example of that. It plays with form as meaning, not just in the typographic sense, but spatially, sculpturally. It’s closer to architecture or choreography than literature.
I love Keith Smith’s Book 91.
It’s atmospheric. Poetic. More than a book—less a container, more an experience. The pages don’t just hold content, they perform it. They move, fold, conceal, reveal, often without using a single word.
What stays with me is how much it challenges the idea of “reading.” There’s no linearity, no spine-bound logic. Book 91 is structured like a thought, or a dream—fragmented, tactile, emotional. It’s not just something to look at, it’s something you handle. Navigate. Feel.
In my own work, I often return to the idea of the book as an interface—a designed space, not a passive object. Smith’s book is an early and radical example of that. It plays with form as meaning, not just in the typographic sense, but spatially, sculpturally. It’s closer to architecture or choreography than literature.
I think of this kind of work as experimental packaging—where the book becomes a spatial proposition. Where the act of unfolding, touching, sequencing is part of the story. There’s a visual poetry in that, without needing visual poems. Just folds. Cuts. Hinges. The kind of design that resists being digitized.
It sits alongside Ulises Carrión’s “book as a sequence of spaces,” and Dieter Roth’s repurposed messes. But Smith’s language is quieter. More precise. More abstracted from the art world’s performance, and closer to a kind of devotional design—almost ritualistic.
Books like this remind me:
Not everything poetic is made of words.
Sometimes it’s just the way the object asks to be held.
INSIGHTS is a collection of thoughts, fragments, and reflections on design, poetry, and visual language. Sometimes structured. Sometimes spontaneous. Always in dialogue with the work.
I think of this kind of work as experimental packaging—where the book becomes a spatial proposition. Where the act of unfolding, touching, sequencing is part of the story. There’s a visual poetry in that, without needing visual poems. Just folds. Cuts. Hinges. The kind of design that resists being digitized.
It sits alongside Ulises Carrión’s “book as a sequence of spaces,” and Dieter Roth’s repurposed messes. But Smith’s language is quieter. More precise. More abstracted from the art world’s performance, and closer to a kind of devotional design—almost ritualistic.
Books like this remind me:
Not everything poetic is made of words.
Sometimes it’s just the way the object asks to be held.
INSIGHTS is a collection of thoughts, fragments, and reflections on design, poetry, and visual language. Sometimes structured. Sometimes spontaneous. Always in dialogue with the work.
I think of this kind of work as experimental packaging—where the book becomes a spatial proposition. Where the act of unfolding, touching, sequencing is part of the story. There’s a visual poetry in that, without needing visual poems. Just folds. Cuts. Hinges. The kind of design that resists being digitized.
It sits alongside Ulises Carrión’s “book as a sequence of spaces,” and Dieter Roth’s repurposed messes. But Smith’s language is quieter. More precise. More abstracted from the art world’s performance, and closer to a kind of devotional design—almost ritualistic.
Books like this remind me:
Not everything poetic is made of words.
Sometimes it’s just the way the object asks to be held.
INSIGHTS is a collection of thoughts, fragments, and reflections on design, poetry, and visual language. Sometimes structured. Sometimes spontaneous. Always in dialogue with the work.
Antonija Škugor
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© Mo'a Ti 2025.
© Mo'a Ti 2025.
© Mo'a Ti 2025.
