They exist in space. You are holding a fixed object confronting signs that have been put there by someone else. Reading words from a screen is a different transaction. It's collaborative in that anything that comes through a screen has no dead end, but is part of a deep and complex circuit system which connects one outward. The act of reading from a screen and the act of reading a book are very different, although people commonly think there is no difference.
Words are words, but the process in which the words are received is crucial.
I'm thinking here of the bardic tradition in which there is no authoritative experience of the work of art. I think this return is a definite possibility, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing. This loss informs the agitations of the past few decades with conceptual art. Technology, though, provides access. The printing press, television, and audio recording all increased access to the arts.