Despite the predominance of digital and printed communication, penmanship remains a relevant skill for its immediacy, versatility, intrinsic emotional value, and artistry. By creating a compendium that details the somewhat neglected forms and rules of 'proper penmanship,' along with a map that delineates the many areas of influence surrounding the activity of handwriting, I've attempted to rediscover and champion — in an un-nostalgic way — the qualities that make penmanship vital to our everyday lives.
In continuing this project, I aim to highlight and expand upon the ways in which handwriting is still relevant to contemporary life, as well as equalize the imbalanced relationship/perception of the handwritten as opposed to digital communication. In what ways and contexts do you still use handwriting in your daily life? How can the handwritten act as a subversion to our increasingly digital daily experience and existence? What can the act of handwriting add to our lives, and how does it affect/benefit our development as individuals and communities? To what extent does the skill of handwriting help us beyond the ability to communicate?
This was a playful attempt to maintain a sense of human gesture while interacting with computation, by providing an etiquette guide (based on the qualities of penmanship) to explain the most basic computational interaction--pushing a button.
The Handwritten
Handwriting is a dynamic tool,
ubiquitous, but neglected.
Its artistry has been relegated to novelty.
Its prestige outdone by technology.
A craft, a fetish.
A labor, menial, practical, immediate.
A history of erroneous traces—
A fluid record, where nothing stays
But nothing leaves.
Evidence of the fleeting nature of thought,
Impulse, pressed into the physical plane.
Unofficial, haphazard, improvised,
Anonymous proof of existence,
Of identity. A reflection of discordant personalities.
Infinitely varied.
An outlet for ironic commentary,
Against boredom, silence, isolation,
Empty space.
Like plants pushing through cement, organic,
Arbitrary.
A reach towards community.
Authentic because it’s been touched,
Handled, and handed over to the world.
The movement provides clarity of mind. Focus. Primal intent.
No grammar, no format, no distractions.
Intention and attention to detail.
Just the page, and you.
Like walking, there’s variation in each step.
The personality is in the imperfections,
Its asymmetry, anomaly. Practiced spontaneity.
Rebellion against uniformity. Uncontrollable humanity.
Magnetic because it’s intimate,
Persuasive because it’s vulnerable.
A voice, cracking.
The immediacy of the mark is direct without damaging complexity.
An intact reflection of human expressivity and physicality,
Responsive to thought’s nomadicity.
Fluidity, charting vibrations of feeling.
A living line,
A cheeky rebellion against the silent, static authority of legibility over facundity.
The whim of the gesture can’t be emulated exactly.
An unfiltered mark of movement,
structured by the mind’s intent, fractured by the hand’s caprice.
Thinking made physical,
Handwriting exists in a unique state; a record of thought defined by time and space.
Inseparable from a context that dictates structure, pressure, and speed.
A one-off performance, imbued with implications that transcend what’s on the page.
