Material Mediation: Black Books of Hours
At the heart of dark waters lies an unlikely ancestor: the Black Books of Hours, a rare type of prayer book produced in late 15th-century Bruges. These manuscripts feature parchment dyed entirely black, illuminated with metallic inks whose glimmering surface seemed to animate devotional contents, especially in flickering candlelight. To “dress” both body and book in the same sumptuous noir de Flandre popular at the Burgundian court was as much a social gesture as a spiritual one – the saturation of black itself was a sign of prestige and depth.
The seven surviving examples strikingly anticipate contemporary dark screens: a black background against which light emanates, a format meant to be touched, and a surface that doesn’t just frame the content but intensifies it. While the black manuscripts were precious objects used on special occasions by only a few members of Burgundian nobility, our digital counterparts are in everyone’s pocket, consulted countless times a day. Yet, the screen’s constant availability has not led to deeper forms of engagement but to increasingly superficial ones, often being described as doomscrolling, endless feeds, or simply… time lost.
Staged Attention: Opera Libretti
In the dark of an opera house, before a show begins, another mediating object is used to facilitate the audience’s immersion into the artwork: the libretto.
Traditionally containing lyrics, visuals and the context of the musical piece, libretti introduce the universe of a production and activate spectators’ attention. By revisiting them afterwards they also prolong the experience beyond the event itself and function as both a souvenir and a miniature reenactment of the performance, materialized into paper. Like the Black Books of Hours, they turn a handheld object into a portal towards immersion.
The libretti that inspired the myDARKwaters app are from La Monnaie (Brussels) in the 1980s, when director Gerard Mortier transformed the format from utilitarian program sheets into spectacular objects in their own right.
Conclusion
The Black Books of Hours, the libretti of La Monnaie, and today’s dark screens certainly share more than a surface: across five centuries, immersive tactile media have sought to anchor attention and intensify their contents materially. Through this, they become thresholds into other mental landscapes.
All exhibited materials, and the reflection they provoked, have nourished the creative process of myDARKwaters. Continue the experience through the app via mydarkwaters.com, or through its printed book version on the table.
Curated by Marie Hartmann.