PI: Aleksandra Kaminska
My next book project is a historical and theoretical study of security printing and document aesthetics. I examine how authoritative papers, such as banknotes and passports, provide an alternate history of printing, one that is focused on making the authentic reproducible and legible through strategies like material and technical quality, complexity, and expertise. Contrary to arguments that focus on paper as a cheap and flimsy commodity, I argue that there is an intrinsic value to valuable papers which is produced through an array of overt and covert security features and devices that work to inscribe and encode authenticity (e.g. watermarks and specialized substrates, metallic threads, invisible or UV inks, holographs, RFID chips, nano-optical images, microprinting, etc.). To do so I draw on histories of the technical image, material innovation, media convergence, document aesthetics, and paper infrastructures. Operating from the field of media studies the book thus also engages in areas such as material culture, infrastructure studies, history of technology and design, print and book history, and art history, all to understand why we continue to trust printed paper in an age of accessible mechanical and digital reproducibility.
This project has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC Insight Development Grant; SSHRC Insight Grant).