Spellbound

Jean Robertson, Craig McDaniel

Description

Asserting that written language is on the verge of its greatest change since the advent of the printing press, visual artist Craig McDaniel and art historian Jean Robertson bring us Spellbound – a collection of heavily illustrated essays that interrogate assumptions about language and typography. Rethinking the alphabet, they argue, means rethinking human communication. Looking beyond traditional typography, the authors conceive of new languages in which encoded pictorial images offer an unparalleled fusion of art and language. In a world of constant technological innovation offered by e-books, tablets, cell phones and the Internet, McDaniel and Robertson demonstrate provocatively what it would mean to move beyond the alphabet we know to a wholly new system of written communication.

Introduction

-

 

Chapter 1

Listening to the Alphabet: Sounds

 

Chapter 2

Looking at the Alphabet: Shapes

 

Chapter 3

Rethinking the Alphabet: Pictures

 

Chapter 4

Rethinking the Alphabet: Colors

 

Chapter 5

The Visuality of Text: Degrees of Spatiality and Translucency

 

Chapter 6

Thinking in Scripts: The Look of Arabic by Erica Machulak

 

Chapter 7

The Curious Case of Translation

 

Chapter 8

Love Letters by Slavs and Tatars by Gabriel Ritter

 

Chapter 9

Text and Image in Visual Art

 

Chapter 10

Rethinking Visual Language in the Digital Future by Aaron Ganci

 

Chapter 11

Visual Culture and Visual Power

 

Chapter 12

Conclusion

Sujets

• Communication Studies
• Disciplines
• Language Arts
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Linguistics
• General officer
• Sociolinguistics
• Typography
• Semantics
• Design
• General
• Cultural Studies

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783205509
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 11 Mo

Extrait

—

rethinking the alphabet

— —

Craig McDaniel + Jean Robertson

—

—

— —

rethinking the alphabet

First published in the UK in 2016 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK

First published in the USA in 2016 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA Copyright © 2016 Intellect Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.

John Hollander, 'Swan and Shadow' (p.111), inTypes of Shape(1991) is reprinted by permission of Yale University Press. © Yale University Press.

‘The Alphabet is the Message’ (p.66) was first published inThe Midwest Quarterly: A Journal of Contemporary Thought(Winter, 2016) 126–136. Minor modifications were made for this volume.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Copyediting: Emma Rhys Layout Design and Typesetting: Emily Dann Production Manager: Katie Evans

ISBN: 9781783205493 ePDF: 9781783205509

Printed & bound by Gomer, UK.

—

—

— —

rethinking the alphabet

Craig McDaniel + Jean Robertson

For Susan Ruth Robertson, 1952–2015 forever loved

7

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Listening to the Alphabet: Sounds

Looking at the Alphabet: Shapes

Rethinking the Alphabet: Pictures

Rethinking the Alphabet: Colors

The Visuality of Text: Degrees of Spatiality and Translucency

Thinking in Scripts: The Look of Arabic byErica Machulak

The Curious Case of Translation

Love Letters by Slavs and Tatarsby Gabriel Ritter

Text and Image in Visual Art

Rethinking Visual Language in the Digital Futureby Aaron Ganci

Visual Culture and Visual Power

Conclusion

Bibliography

9.

13.

29.

43.

55.

83.

109.

131.

139.

155.

159.

177.

187.

207.

219.

9

spellbound

Preface

Authors carefully consider the titles of their books. Our title,Spellbound: Rethinking the Alphabet, has been chosen with several ideas in mind. First, we want to state the general topic:alphabet. Secondly, we want to indicate that the alphabet used in a language (English, in our case) operates most often as if it is a singular entity:the alphabet. Thirdly, we wish to underscore our stance that the alphabet we take for granted is on the cusp of change:rethinking the alphabet. Additionally, we want the title to point to how the alphabet, occupying a central position in culture, captures and holds attention with a powerful psychological charge we characterize as spellbound. Thus,Spellbound: Rethinking the Alphabet. Our primary focus is on the alphabet, meaning the specific system of alphabetic letters that functions for virtually all recording and exchanging of communications in ordinary written English, known as the Roman or Latin alphabet. However, we recognize that the Roman alphabet is not singular at all in the sense of being the only alphabet that encodes language in written form, nor is it singular as a symbolic framework for communication. Other societies encode their languages in their own distinctive alphabets and non-alphabetic writing, and in the course of this discussion we and our guest essayists explore a sampling of other systems. In addition, other symbol systems are powerful in their unique capacities – including mathematical symbols, musical and dance notation, Morse code, braille, semaphore, and the innumerable encoding systems of cryptography, as well as the diverse array of symbols that structure