El Lissitzky repeatedly invoked the book as a dynamic object. He regarded it as a 'unity of acoustics and optics' that required the reader's active engagement. More than any other medium, he found in the book his 'monument of the future.' In this talk, Nancy Perloff, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Collections, Getty Research Institute, will trace Lissitzky's aesthetic back to the book art of the Russian Futurists. She will argue that, while both called for the reader's close attention to the relationship of word, image, and sound, the Futurist books arose out of collaboration between poets and visual artists. Lissitzky, by contrast, controlled all aspects of his book art and incorporated into its architectural design a revolutionary subtext.