Postcards from Writing
Description
Artist Statement
What exactly IS writing? Is picture writing something that is half way between pictures and writing? And is it a useful concept for thinking about new media writing and interfaces? One approach to these questions is provided by Integrationism, a radical new theory of language and communication which Roy Harris has applied to a groundbreaking analysis of writing. In this view, writing is teased apart from speech (transcription of speech is just one of writing's possible uses) and re-aligned with spatial configurations in general. 'Picture writing' then becomes a meaningless and rather ethnocentric term because the boundary between writing and pictures is shown to be fluid, rather than fixed. These are quite difficult ideas to grasp in a world where written words are so important.
In Postcards from Writing, a kind of intellectual road movie, I artistically express my own encounter with them and explore their implications for new media writing and interfaces. My work offers users an interactive experience, rather than simply an illustrated lecture, because user interaction creates dynamic and multidimensional signs that illuminate the ideas I'm trying to express.
Source of Artist Statement
What exactly IS writing? Is picture writing something that is half way between pictures and writing? And is it a useful concept for thinking about new media writing and interfaces? One approach to these questions is provided by Integrationism, a radical new theory of language and communication which Roy Harris has applied to a groundbreaking analysis of writing. In this view, writing is teased apart from speech (transcription of speech is just one of writing's possible uses) and re-aligned with spatial configurations in general. 'Picture writing' then becomes a meaningless and rather ethnocentric term because the boundary between writing and pictures is shown to be fluid, rather than fixed. These are quite difficult ideas to grasp in a world where written words are so important.
In Postcards from Writing, a kind of intellectual road movie, I artistically express my own encounter with them and explore their implications for new media writing and interfaces. My work offers users an interactive experience, rather than simply an illustrated lecture, because user interaction creates dynamic and multidimensional signs that illuminate the ideas I'm trying to express.
Source of Artist Statement
Creator
Pryor, Sally
Date
2004
Rights
Copyright Sally Pryor. The copyright of images posted on the ADELTA Website belongs to third parties and is included on this website by permission from copyright holders. Apart from any use permitted by the Copyright Act 1968 (including fair dealing) the images may not be downloaded, adapted, remixed, printed, emailed, stored in a cache or otherwise reproduced without the written permission from the copyright holder.
Genre
Interactive multimedia
Platform
Shockwave/CD ROM
Citation
Pryor, Sally, “Postcards from Writing,” ADELTA, accessed April 29, 2024, http://adelta.westernsydney.edu.au/items/show/161.