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DAVID BOLTER: SEEING & WRITING

Letters have meaning, and the words they compose are absorbed by their visual elements (i.e. texture, weight, size and color). The electronic mediums treatment of stylizing letters has influenced our concept of reading and writing, returning to the roots of typography, from that of medieval times. In David Bolter’s paper ‘Seeing ad Writing’ the author looks to the history of typography to inform his understanding of writing on the computer. He discusses the computers treatment of type, in both reading and writing, by reflecting from the past into the present. Through the medium’s innovation in word processing and image authoring environments, reading has become a combined verbal and pictorial experience. Although mathematical and scientific imaging is considered as a gratifying technology in the modern world, their encouraging of complex space of words, pictures, and illustration were produced in medieval manuscripts thousands of years ago: “Hieroglyphs were themselves little pictures, and so both visually and conceptually Egyptian writing could blend smoothly with illustration.” (685) The iconographic representations of words and pictorial elements support and compliment one another within this structural form. The meaning of the Microsoft Word icon, a sleek blue framed ‘W’ character, rests within our memories. We associate its bold design to that of an advanced word processing solution. Just as in medieval illuminations, letters function simultaneously as texts and pictures in electronic writing spaces.

The new degree of mathematic rigor in design has invited a greater appreciation and development in picture writing. Developed by humans, systems supply data that ultimately augments our sense of knowledge without or awareness. Computer-aided technology has made designing more practical for artists and designers, the context is left in the background for the micro computer to handle. As a new media artist, I commend the electronic mediums treatment of text and images though its bridging of disciplines in both formulating data and designing: “Scientific picture writing distances the writers from their writing (data) in such a way that the writing no longer seems to belong to them at all.” (688) The absolute and recurring data may not reflect those of the designers knowledge, however, its significance would not exist without their vision. Seeing that designer understands the information the computer is processing beneath their work, I believe they still opt to deserve the title as creator within the context they idealized. We should not forget that the computer was designed by man; it has been embedded into nature and not by it. Furthermore, to have the ability to segregate the design in such a process would result in a more stimulating image through the designer’s ability to maintain a concentrative isolation. As stated in Richard Stallman’s GNU manifesto, the fundamental act of friendship among developers is the sharing of knowledge. (Stallman) This constructive method is certainly how any student, such as myself, achieves their understanding of disciplines. On commercial writing spaces (such as magazines, and newspapers), bundles of writings and images compete for the viewer’s absorption. In hypertext documents (such as web sites and electronic spreadsheets), the user becomes a participant in motion by defining the sequencing of information through an animated journey. The issue at the forefront is not the determining of authorship, but in fact where the author is present in new media.

posted by jason @ 11:40 PM