I live in a city that is a mecca for artisans of different kinds of
traditional crafts. As a result, the story with flare drawings could
take a variety of forms. It may be printed on handmade washi
paper and bound with Japanese stitches. Or be printed on
pieces of wide paper, possibly five meters in length, and then
folded or rolled to make emaki—hand scrolls that unfold
horizontally. Or the story could be printed into rolls of
kakejiku—long, hanging scrolls. In contrast to these ancient
crafts, with today's technology, they could be converted into
e-books for devices such as smart phones or tablets.
While I was thinking of these technological representations, I
received an e-mail from New York City. James Michel, my
primary editor and the co-writer of the memoir, suggested the
ultimate–interactive e-picture-books that react to the reader's
fingers. It is a pity that the story wasn't for children. Even so, I
tried to imagine what that might be like.
The aim of these experiments is to use abstract images to create
picture books for adults. Please open the files for the PDF
experiments and enlarge the window so it fits your screen.
In these picture books, I'd occasionally like to apply different
perspectives or edit some scenes from the original versions. It
takes a long time to create these images, and they make the
book significantly longer. I foresee that these picture books
would have to come out as separate volumes. I also expect it to
result in slower-paced reading. I hope, in the future, you'll find
a slow-reading experience to be enjoyable.
EXPERIMENT - no. 3: PDF (the first appearance) >>
Note: I have more complete drafts of the Flare Drawings.
However, at this stage, it felt it was nicer to share only the
first page and leave the rest to your imagination. The small
dots in the file suggest that if you touch them with your
fingers, some things will appear from underneath. They are
meant to be “interactive,” but they are currently still a simple
PDF. And please understand that those dots are not placed
abruptly. They are located in relation to the actual drawings.