Michael Mandiberg's Print Wikipedia: 7,473 Volumes of Encyclopedia

In 2015, American artist Michael Mandiberg realized a monumental conceptual project titled Print Wikipedia, first exhibited at Denny Gallery in New York. The work consists of 7,473 volumes of 700 pages each, representing the entire English-language Wikipedia as of 2015. Only 106 volumes were actually printed on white-covered paper, including a 91-volume table of contents listing 11.5 million articles, 500 volumes for entries starting with symbols and numbers (e.g., "!", "!!", "!!!"), and 36 volumes listing 7.5 million Wikipedia contributors. The project took three years to develop, using custom software to analyze Wikipedia's database. It was produced in collaboration with Eyebeam, the Banff Centre, Lulu.com, and the Wikimedia Foundation. Mandiberg later planted trees to offset the paper used. The work explores the tension between digital and physical media, crystallizing knowledge at a specific moment, and enacting a form of reverse remediation by translating a hypertextual, ever-changing digital encyclopedia into the fixed, tangible format of printed books. The New York Times at the time called it a wasteful conceptual exercise.