Post-Digital Print

La mutazione dell'editoria dal 1894 (Ludovico, 2025)

Authors

  • Alessandra Clemente University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli" image/svg+xml Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.82068/pgjournal.2026.23.42.15

Abstract

The review traces the editorial history and critical project of Alessandro Ludovico's Post-digital print, now in its second Italian edition (Timeo, 2025), following a deliberately hybrid first distribution: released as a PDF on pen drives and in open-access format even before the printed version appeared, the book enacts in its own mode of dissemination the very argument it advances. Ludovico does not read print as a relic of the past, but as a versatile medium continuously redefining itself in dialogue with the digital: the post-digital horizon is one in which analog and digital coexist, contaminate each other, and multiply — from early twentieth-century avant-garde print to underground publications, from mimeographed zines to print-on-demand platforms. The review highlights the book's political and emancipatory value: ink and pixel do not exclude but reinforce each other, and print — in its slowness, its physicality, its spatial and temporal invariance — takes on the character of a material resistance to the volatility of the digital sphere and the fragmentation of knowledge.

Author Biography

  • Alessandra Clemente, University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli"

    rchitect, she is a PhD candidate in the National PhD Program of Interest in "Design for Made in Italy: Identity, Innovation, and Sustainability," affiliated with the Department of Architecture and Industrial Design at the University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli." Her field of study is Italian cultural heritage, with particular reference to the history of visual communication and graphic design. Among her most recent publications is Ettore Sottsass and the Eco-Thought, in For Nature/With Nature: New Sustainable Design Scenarios (Springer, 2024).

References

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Blissett, L. (2003). Q. Translated from the Italian by Shaun Whiteside. William Heinemann

The Random House Group Limited.

Burdick, A., Drucker, J., Lunenfeld, P., Presner, T. & Schnapp, J. (2014). The Immense Promise of the Digital Humanities. The New Republic. In A. Ludovico, A. (2015), Le reti come agenti

nello scontro tra stampa post-digitale personale e industriale. Progetto grafico. Pubblicare, 13(28), pp. 28–39. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117711/digital-humanitieshave-immense-promise-response-adam-kirsh

Ludovico, A. (2012). Post-Digital Print. The Mutation of Publishing Since 1894. Onomatopee. https://monoskop.org/images/a/a6/Ludovico,_Alessandro_-_Post-Digital_Print._The_Mutation_of_Publishing_Since_1894.pdf

Ludovico, A. (2015). Le reti come agenti nello scontro tra stampa post-digitale personale e industriale. Progetto grafico. Pubblicare, 13(28), 28–39. https://aiap.it/cdpg/numero/progetto-grafico-n-28/

Ludovico, A. (2025). Post-digital print. La mutazione dell'editoria dal 1894. Traduzione di Arcangelo Licinio. Timeo.

Monoskop. (n.d.). https://monoskop.org/Monoskop

Onomatopee. (n.d.). https://www.onomatopee.net/

Piscitelli, D. (2019). First things first. Comunicare le emergenze. Il design per una contemporaneità fragile. LISTLab.

Published

2026-05-01