CLOU

Academic publishing is undergoing major changes, most of them triggered by the digital transformation. Whereas the majority of newly launched journals are now published in electronic form only, the CLOU app is part of an experimental format developed at the Interdisciplinary Laboratory Image Knowledge Gestaltung. By using a combination of augmented reality and the press, it shows how the qualities of an analog medium can be blended with the benefits of the digital world. The title CLOU (short for Cluster Letters of Understanding) was chosen for two reasons: On the one hand, the format uses the advantages of analog design strategies – for example to integrate haptic perception and capture new materials. On the other hand, written contributions will be enriched with digital information ranging from sounds and animations to videos and 3D models. CLOU should act as an interdisciplinary platform for researchers and designers alike and have the ability to close the gap between scholarly print and online publishing. As such, the project is also an object of research itself and offers a new possibility of publishing research results.