My First Book of Tracks

My First Book of Tracks

1. Edition
Salon für Kunstbuch edition No. 7
a No-ISBN publication | Vienna 2016
www.salon-fuer-kunstbuch.at
Idea and implementation: Roland Maurmair
Graphic, layout and illustration: Roland Maurmair
Print and embossing: gugler* print GmbH

© Roland Maurmair 2016
All rights reserved.

My First Book of Tracks is a children's book in which knowledge transfer happens by way of the archaic art of track reading, in combination with virtual information through augmented reality.

The content presents seven tracks of indigenous animals which are included in the book in the form of embossed prints. The opposite page, in each case, shows an illustration of the respective animal. With the help of the Book of Tracks app the image can be scanned with a Smartphone or tablet, and the animal, subsequently, visualized three-dimensionally on the paper.

Although the book also works without the app, the additional component offered by the virtual information on the animal further enriches the visual experience. Besides the three-dimensional visual there are also acoustic contents transmitted in the process, just as a feeling of the track is possible thanks to the embossed print. Knowledge transfer, in other words, occurs here by way of a synaesthetic experience and in an innovative manner.

Reading tracks is a science of perception and interpretation of the found - an archaic passion, which has been part of the human development since the early days. Precise looking, recognition and interpretation helps us for orientation particularly in our days. When we read tracks we automatically change our perspective and focus on unfamiliar terrain. This is how we train specific brain patterns, which help us to attentively scan our environment, to read and thus understand the landscape better. It is the cultural achievement of reading tracks that brings us closer to nature.

Photo: Sam Strauss

This book shall help risk the first steps in reading tracks, in order to come into contact with the issue in a playful manner. If adults pick up the book together with children, and little stories are told on the individual animals and the shape of the animal tracks in passing memorized, these should also be recognizable afterwards in the actual world around, for example when going for a walk. If a child relates a track to an animal, there comes about, at the same time, a connection with the respective creature and thus also, in a certain sense, a closeness to nature from childhood days.