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• Joseph Cornell DVD-ROM tipped by Washington Post as 'the art book of the future'

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Jessica Dawson writing the main story for the Washington Post's Sunday Arts Section (2003-11-09) suggests that our DVD-ROM 'The Magical Worlds of Joseph Cornell' may provide a model for the art book of the future.

The following quotations come from her article.

With its unprecedented access to artworks normally confined in glass vitrines, we may well be looking at the art book of the future.

Funded by [Robert] Lehrman's Washington-based Voyager Foundation and developed by the British-based technology firm Cognitive Applications, the DVD allows users to read the tiny French text that frames a blue sand fountain on one box. Or to crack the lid on "L'Egypte de Mlle. Cleo de Merode cours elementaire d'histoire naturelle" (roughly, and quirkily, "The Egypt of Miss Cleo de Merode elementary natural history course"), pull out one of its 12 cork-capped vials and rotate that vial 360 degrees. Unless you want to buy a Cornell box yourself -- it'll cost anywhere from $75,000 to $500,000 -- the DVD is the closest you'll get to that experience.