The artist Yiota Demetiou has launched an interactive book that can only be read when warmed by human touch. The book, To You, is an A5 paper-based concertina form that is sensitive to heat and touch and responds to the reader’s body heat.
The book is coated in black thermochromic ink, which is activated through thermal conduction. It makes the text visible when exposed to the heat from a human body.
To You presents a unique experience in which the reader’s touch and body heat gradually reveal words on otherwise blank pages. The author asks to treat it with the greatest of care and respect, it is fragile and alive, it feels and it breathes like any other soul.
Hidden within are expressive love poems that are addressed To You, the reader. The poems contemplate the mysteries of human relationships, love, attachment, loss, and affection.
The book was screen printed, although Demetiou made the first copy by hand. The ink itself comes in the form of liquid crystals. At specific temperatures the liquid crystals reassemble to produce an apparent change in color.
In the opening text Demetriou writes: “In this book, the human hand is as important as love. The words on these pages reflect the way by which the idea of you often haunts corners of my mind, echoing the transition and ephemerality of your effect on me; revealing the diminishing value of words expressed on impulse that vanished into the aether, as they were never intended or belonged to anyone, not even to us. My writing will greet your eyes with the same sensuality as the palm of my hand once gently pressed against your face.”
An Interactive Book That Responds To Body Heat Launched In The UK