The XFR is both a research project and an interactive museum exhibition. XFR makes the argument that reading will continue to be central to our culture but the practices of reading will change. The individual pieces in the show explore new forms of interaction that combine and extend various reading traditions using new technology. For instance, there are books with cinematic sound tracks, material that is read by tilting the large display surface, a dog that reads to visitors, a comic book visitors walk through and another one that uses a hyperbolic tree to present the story. While not positing a specific future or specific products for the future, the pieces show how physical form, content, and setting of use will create a rich and pervasive reading environment in the next decades.

XFR was created by the RED group (Research in Experimental Documents) at Xerox PARC. RED's charter is to explore new genres that may arise from new media. Genres are not just outcomes from the research, but deeply influence method, affecting problem setting, on-going evaluation, reflection, and re-framing of situations and ideas. In addition, we will touch on the entailments of using an interactive technology exhibition as the basis for innovation.