Interactive eBooks as a Promising Digital Field in Artistic Education. The Example of the eBook “Real life Superheroes”

Interactive eBooks are a quite new phenomenon in a digital world. However, they seem to be a very promising field in an artistic education because they are based on several key factors related both to traditional fine arts and new technologies. Firstly, a book has been a very important part of artistic practice since the beginning of the 1900s. This area is extremely wide and includes many diverse fields such as a picture book, art book or the artist’s book etc. Therefore, either artists or viewers being used to this form of artistic expression willingly explore this phenomenon. Secondly, the development of new technologies also affected the fine arts leading for example to digital or web art but what more importantly in this context, it has made almost everyone gain access to mobile digital devices phones and tablets, whose total accessibility has revolutionized modern communication and education. The eBook entitled “Real life superheroes. Polish Inventors” was created by a group of artists connected with the Polish Committee of InSEA and it is 1415 Synnyt / Origins | 2 / 2019 | Abstracts an attempt to combine new forms of informal education including different disciplines whose content is linked to highly artistic illustrations, animations and interactions. The eBook can be freely downloaded from Google Play Store enabling children from all over the world to use it. Although this form of artistic education cannot replace traditional art class but it may contribute to easy access to fine arts and show positive visual patterns to follow.


Introduction
There is no doubt that the mass usage of mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets has affected not only communication among society but also the way people spend their time.These mobile devices provide the space for work but mainly for entertainment.People communicate with their friends, search for some information, shop, and are also involved in different kinds of entertainment such as playing games and watching videos."According to comScore's 2017 Cross Platform Future in Focus report, the average American adult (18+) spends 2 hours, 51 minutes on their smartphone every day" (internet source no 1).As we may expect this data is very similar in Europe.What is more, the research shows that teenagers and young adults spend even more time on mobile phones than older people.This phenomenon has been widely discussed by scientists from various scientific disciplines such as sociology, psychology or even medicine.But what should concern art educators the most is the poor quality of visual content that bombards people through the screens of mobile devices.
Many visuals that people encounter while playing, watching or searching on their smartphones are made by other "ordinary" people whose visual competences are not high.
Therefore, the only solution seems to be raising awareness of the role and importance of visual content in new media and this is a must for contemporary art and visual education.

An attempt to turn theory into practice
At the beginning of 2017 the Polish Committee of InSEA applied for a grant in the field of creative industry in order to finance the works on the interactive artistic ebook entitled Real-life Superheroes.Polish Inventors.The project was supported by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and at the end of the same year it became a free application which could be downloaded from the Google Play Store.
The intention of the creators of this project was to produce a wise but also interesting story supported by a beautiful layout and fine pictures that would make a great educational tool.

The artist's book
One of the most important point of reference related to this project was and still is the artist's book.Although, our eBook does not even pretend to be an art book but it emphasizes the importance of visual part of the book as well as the easy access to it.Both of those factors are an important part of the idea of the artist's book.
It is worth mentioning that the artist's book has been a part of the art world from at least 100 years (not to mention some earlier attempts such as William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience.However, it became a tool of the contemporary artistic expression in the 1960s which can be seen as physically existing hypertext experimenting with a non-linear narrative mechanisms for the joining associations and the complex relationship between text and image is an ideal form of expression that can be presented in the digital form.
The Real-life Superheroes The ebook presents three stories of the Polish inventors who lived at the turn of the 19 th and 20 th century.Jan Szczepanik, Karol Pollak and Jan Czochralski came from diverse social backgrounds and had different educational experiences but what made them similar was the creativity and the will to solve problems in a usual manner.All of them succeeded despite diverse hardships and proved that every man is the architect of his own fortune.The ebook shows characters worth following, whose actions may not be spectacular but as a result they change the world for the better, helping people in their daily lives.
What is more, their inventions such as the efficient method of producing photographic color, an electrolytic catalyst and developing a new process of silicon crystallization allowed further development of the photographic, electrical and electronic industries contributing to progress in modern technologies crucial for production of smartphones or tablets.
The ebook in an interesting easy way teaches children the rules of action of the described and 70s and was created by young artists as part of a radical alternative to the art presented 1243 Synnyt / Origins | 2 / 2019 | Non-peer reviewed | Full paper in museums and galleries.The artist's books were supposed to reach people who do not visit art museums and galleries and became a part of a real life in contrary to art object gathered by "experts" and diverse art institutions.The subsequent generation of artists of the 1990s was still interested in the artist's book, however, they turned to a new form of artistic expression that reflected a new era in communication technologies -the Internet.Nevertheless, we should keep in mind that Internet art is rooted in disparate artistic traditions and movements, ranging from Dada to Situationism, conceptual art, Fluxus, video art, kinetic art, happenings and performance art.The artist's book