COVER REVEAL: Voidopolis by Kat Mustatea
MIT Press’s forthcoming book Voidopolis is a hybrid digital artistic and literary project in the form of an augmented reality book, which retells Dante's Inferno as if it were set in pandemic-ravaged New York City. Written to reflect the author’s experience of COVID as the physical city emptied of people and activities, the book is printed with missing words and incomplete images. It is illegible in the printed form and readers must use an augmented reality app to read in full. However the app is designed to degrade over time — revealing less and less before renewing itself on an annual basis—an ingenious concept from author Kat Mustatea that physically reflects her rumination on loss and memory.