Sample Two.

The size and legibility of this writing indicates what experts would call a ‘“difficult” type’. Such a person is likely to be called ‘Garth’, or ‘Jeremy’, and will probably be very particular about their feet, and the ordering of their socks.

The slight widening of the left hand margin in conjunction with the subtly rising slope of the lines suggests an impatient optimism; such a writer is likely to have a high level of competency in crossing busy streets.

The rare and erratic linking is indicative of quite slow writing. Slow and careful writing is often synonymous with slow and careful thinking; however, the lack of velocity in this writer’s work is more likely to stem from a preoccupation with

Big Caslon

Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write.

Cochin

Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please

Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write.

Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write. Please write.

Didot

Hoefler Text

Minion Pro

Palatino

Plantagenet Cherokee

He writes from Melbourne
and says
that the beer is expensive
and nothing much else.
He spells love
L-U-V

Later he will say ‘I’m going.’
and she will ask him to buy milk.
‘No, I’m going.’
She will be holding his baby.
‘Then go.’

Next time she marries
she plans do it for money.
There will be a garden
and gardener
and her mother’s promise
that if she studied hard
she’d never have to clean
her own toilet
will come true.

He is young
and balding and says
that he keeps all of his money
in his car, which is red
and called ‘the beast’.

She has a son
and daughter
and he calls that
a ready-made family.

None of his relatives come to the wedding.

Before light happens, the way it does
when you read all night
until the tungstens fade
against the glow from the curtains,
she gets out of bed into shoes
and bike shorts.

It will still be dark when
a man asks to take her bike
and she says it isn’t any good,
that it broke when she fell.

The shock wears off
on a white leather couch
that she tries not to bleed on
while an ambulance drives up
the same hill that she didn’t make it down.

Her name is Meg
but that could change.
Those clear lines and
backwards letters
and not the kind
that learn themselves
at school in notebooks
with large lines
and room for pictures.

These are the re-learnt
letters of someone
who has forgotten
how to write and speak
and look in the mirror.

His name is Jack or Jasper. The lines have the upward slope of impatient optimism. He clicks his bitten nails without realising and checks his watch three times without reading the time. The clumsy attempt at speed indicates a certain bumbliness in his mannerisms, a kind of skipping swagger when he walks.

His dominant middle zone shows that he is concerned with the present. This, in conjunction with the sharpened accent of his dot on the ‘i’, often an indication of sarcasm, suggests he has children, maybe 2 or 3, and a strong aversion to large domestic animals such as Labradors and cows.

He goes to the park on Wednesday when he is supposed to be at work, he climbs a tree and reads a book about children and divorce. The tree climbing part is because of the Labradors. There are three of them. One is lying by the swings pretending it is ‘man’s best friend’ or whatever, ‘small-girl-with-pigtails’ best friend’ by the looks of things. The other two are being kept preoccupied with sticks over by the sports field.

He turns back to the section on ‘Imaginary Problems’ apparently this is one of the biggest problems with divorce. ‘Imaginary Problems’. For a moment Jack/Jasper feels relieved. Then he remembers waking up the night before around 4am thinking that the sound of someone on the stairs outside the apartment was his ex coming to take back the kids, since it was her day. He barely relaxed when the footsteps continued past his door and up another level to the flat above.

GWRC Co-ordinator

34 Chapel Street

Masterton

NEW ZEALAND

Frances or Francis is likely to forget Christmas as s/he is holed up with a good book, s/he will end up eating a packet of honey roasted peanuts and a can of tinned tomatoes because all of the shops are closed, and s/he doesn’t believe in having food in the house.

The extremely vertical lettering is a strong indication that Frances/Francis is particular to the point of being OCD. This writer can be recognised in person by their very neat eyebrows and tendency to wear oversized men’s cloths (regardless of gender).

This is an example of what we call ‘artistic printing’ and in this instance is a strong indication that Frances (for the sake of communication) plays an instrument, either the clarinet or the bongos. She was once part of a progressive jazz band that played songs about the impact of capitalism on the lives of small rodents.

The backwards letters, which are obviously a symptom of dyslexia, can in this sample (due to the intense care evident in their formation) be seen as a sign that the writer has very bad teeth, though she always remembers to floss, alternatively this could be an indication that she is (or was) a teacher, probably of maths or speech therapy.

Council Offices

101 Wakefield Street

Wellington

NEW ZEALAND

Chris (male or female, for the sake of clarity I will treat this writer as male) hates goodbyes. This is evidenced by the garland stroke at the end of most of the words of this sample. Chris will not go to the train station and wave a handkerchief for his departing lover who has their nose pressed up to the window and a single tear rolling down their cheek. He will be at home boiling potatoes and reading about atrocities from ten years ago in an attempt to gain perspective.

Chris is a slow, careful thinker, as can be seen in his neat, slow writing, the pressure of which suggests he makes a conscious effort to be in control. Goodbyes frazzle him, they make him feel that he is not in control. The potatoes he is boiling are Yukon Gold potatoes because they are the very best for mashing, and Chris needs to mash some potatoes. The Yukon Golds were chosen for their similar size and have each been fastidiously peeled. Chris has made mashed potatoes once a week since he left home, but he still follows a recipe, he enjoys consistency. Once the Yukon Golds can be easily stabbed he drains them and dries them in a skillet on the stove. He is thinking about rolling the boiled potatoes in sand and then mashing them. How nice they could look all grainy like that, the gritty feeling between his teeth. The milk he adds to the potatoes (now off the stove and cubed) is warmed, to avoid gumminess. He begins to mash. While Chris’s writing shows control, there is also repetition of form that suggests that, all worked up over his lover, who by now must be asleep with their head against the train window, dreaming of frogs, he will become stuck in the mashing motion and end up with liquid potatoes.

The size of his writing can suggest a certain level of introversion, maybe Chris will decide to stop with the hellos in order to avoid the goodbyes.

GWRC Field Operator

34 Chapel Street

Masterton

NEW ZEALAND

The unconscious capitalisation at the start of every line suggests an obsession with traditional poetry. This writer is in her late teens and is probably called Catherine (with a ‘C’ not a ‘K’, as is evidenced by the attention paid to the one ‘C’ in the sample). The open letters is a sign that Catherine (never Cat or Cathy) knowingly provokes people, and probably has a number of siblings; the fact that these openings are also present at the tops of letters indicates she is also talkative.

Catherine collects places.

Harbour City Tow & Salvage

59 Hutt Road

Thorndon

Wellington

NEW ZEALAND

Alex is leaving. Just for the process of it. The packing up, the throwing away, the moving out. She left a handkerchief and a note for Chris to meet her at the station. She wanted to be waved off, to have the goodbyes part of leaving. She didn’t have to take the train, if she hadn’t wanted to see Chris running down the platform waving the specially provided handkerchief she would have gone by plane instead. And now she is stuck staring at a Chris-less platform , crowded with high school children and the elderly.

The baseline of this writing sample is quite erratic, an indication of a person who strays between reality and unreality with abandon. She is fixated with the process and appearance of things, constantly playing out senarios with the people around her. This, afterall, is what the leaving is about. Kind of like wading out into deep water at dusk, but without the drowning part that would inevitably follow. She imagines wading along the ocean floor, her clothes and hair swirling around her, before emerging in the shallows of some other continent, walking unfaltering up the beach.

Alex is fixated with the process and appearance of things, this can be seen in her attention to appearance over speed in her writing, the majority of her effort is put into loops over communication. Such a writer is liable to take hours to get dress. Coupled with the exaggeration of the ‘C’ at the start of the second paragraph, which is evidence of her obsession with faerie tales, it becomes apparent that Alex ------ within her own life.

Alex is leaving. Just for the process of it. The packing up, the throwing away, the moving out. She left a handkerchief and a note for Chris to meet her at the station. She wanted to be waved off, to have the goodbyes part of leaving. She didn’t have to take the train, if she hadn’t wanted to see Chris running down the platform waving the specially provided handkerchief she would have gone by plane instead. And now she was stuck staring at a Chris-less platform , crowded with high school children and the elderly.

Cricket Wellington Incorporated

The Brierley Pavilion

Allied Nationwide Finance Basin Reserve

PO Box 578

New Zealand

Cricket Wellington Incorporated

PO Box 578

New Zealand

The baseline of this writing sample is quite erratic, an indication of a person who strays with abandon between reality and unreality. She is constantly playing out scenarios with the people around her. This, after all, is what the leaving is about. Kind of like wading out into deep water at dusk, but without the drowning part that would inevitably follow. She imagines wading along the ocean floor, her clothes and hair swirling around her, before emerging in the shallows of some other continent, walking unfaltering up the beach.

Maybe she does need Chris around to remind her of things like oxygen and hypothermia. She leans her head against the train window, closes her eyes, and dreams about being dragged under water by a giant frog who speaks with a lisp.

(online) Dictionary

ar·ti·fi·cial

(är

-f

adj.

a. Made by humans; produced rather than natural.

b. Brought about or caused by sociopolitical or other human-generated forces or influences: set up artificial barriers against women and minorities; an artificial economic boom.

2. Made in imitation of something natural; simulated: artificial teeth.

3. Not genuine or natural: an artificial smile.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin artificilis, belonging to art, from artificium, craftsmanship; see artifice.]

arti·fici·ali·ty (-f

-t

) n.

arti·ficial·ly adv.

Synonyms: artificial, synthetic, ersatz, simulated
These adjectives refer to what is made by humans rather than natural in origin. Artificial is broadest in meaning and connotation: an artificial sweetener; artificial flowers.
Synthetic often implies the use of a chemical process to produce a substance that will look or function like the original, often with certain advantages: synthetic rubber; a synthetic fabric.
An ersatz product is a transparently inferior imitation: ersatz coffee; ersatz mink.
Simulated often refers to a fabricated substitute or imitation of a costlier substance: simulated diamonds.

ON ARTIFICIALITY

Rafael Capurro

Capurro beings with a brief history in which he describes the concept of nature versus the artificial in terms of the Greek understanding of these things. It's interesting because this is a discussion of creation through nature and creation by humans. Capurro calls natures ability to create something both spontaneous and purposefull, where as human creation can only be one or the other. This is interesting because of it's focus on creation is

'In contrast to nature, the artist has to think about the purpose and about how he is going to produce an object in order to achieve this purpose. On the basis of his technical knowledge (techné) he gives to his works some purposeless character or beauty. Bringing together the good or useful (agathós), and the purposeless or beautiful (kalós) engenders the specific Greek sense of artificiality.'

To get to my point in a broken kind of way, understanding the ancient Greek perception of nature and the artificial in regards to creation and the artist makes the initial reception of photography as 'the pencil of nature' much more understandable. (Maybe only read this sentence.)

Phew.

In his Timaios, Plato describes the creative or techno-poetical activity of the divine artist. The demiourgos produces nature in a similar but much more perfect way than a human artist produces, for instance, a statue. Whereas he has the exemplars of all things, the divine forms, at his disposal, we use only their materialized copies, producing then copies of copies.

I really like idea of these infinite copies of copies. As a concept. As a reality it's depressing.

The next section is "Towards a Current Interpretation of Artificiality"
and covers

I Reality as computational artificiality
II existential artificiality
III myths of artificiality

I Reality as computational artificiality

Artificiality traditionally is less real than nature. This is less true in current times as machine/artificiality is so abundant, and is often used to control nature. Besides which we have countless simulations in countless facets of everyday existence. We get to the point where for a large number of people the most wilderness they have seen is through the artificiality of a television screen.

I'm going to leave this here because it isn't the particular brand of artificiality that I'm interested in.

II Existential Artificiality

To exist as a human being means having to construct our own life. Our life is not something already given, it is not just a program to be run by a hardware, but it has to be partly written down by ourselves. 'Partly' means that we come into existence within natural and cultural given conditions (family, gender, country, epoch, language, etc.). Although we mostly rely on them in our everyday life, we also have to make our options within a field of non-fixed possibilities. We are responsible for these decisions. In other words, our life is not just a natural but also an artificial or, as the tradition calls it, an ethical one. Our way of existence is the sense we give to artificiality with regard to ourselves. Our mimetical relation to ethical ideals and values is an artificial one, not only because we can choose them, but also because we can change them, and even create new ones.

This is more like it!

workingworkingworking

search party

Wednesday, 19 October 2011

And these!

Forgot about these!

and then I tie it all up with a neat bow.

The Pressing Issue of the Book

Where I Ask the Internet for Help..... then I wrap it all up with a bow.

ON ARTIFICIALITY

About Me