Books & Publications
Drawings on Writing
Of all the words one uses in a day, the handwritten ones are the most rare. Written with a pen on a small piece of paper or carved with a knife in a tree. Physically made words. Most words are made with a machine such as a laptop or a phone -- words you've never really touched. One learns to make the words by hand as a child, but very soon after that, one starts using a machine. The handwriting years come more or less to an end with the first keyboard, and like drawing it becomes an ancient act. You draw it when you can't find a photo or camera, and you handwrite it when you can't find a keyboard. When it's unreadable to the other, it becomes some kind of drawing. Readability depends on codes and conventions -- just for one person or for billions, like Chinese. This book is a silent space where the signs and words have come to a rest. Where they don't have to act by what they mean.
Drawings on Writing is a collection of black and white drawings based on the concept of text and illegibility.
This is the third volume of drawings compiled by Onnen following a similar format. The first appeared in Zingmagazine issue 16 on the theme of the Face.
140 p, ills bw, 18 x 24 cm, English
edition of 2000
Publisher J&L Books
€16