Representation mingles with what it represents.
—Derrida, Of Grammatology
If I can imagine objects combined in states of affairs, I cannot imagine them excluded from the possibility of such combinations.
—Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Introduction
Within text, neither word nor typography exist independently. As we read, the lexical mediates our interpretation of typography as typography
mediates our interpretation of the lexical. Through this mediation, the one is always entering into or becoming a part of the other.
Typographic design, then, is not the application of form onto an already written and completed lexical content—typography is at once a part of writing and writing a part of design.
However fundamental the lexical-graphic relationship is to text, there is no practical resource for cross-referencing the mediation of one by the other.
Presentation
Below are video screen-capture demonstrations of Corpus Thesaurus—a proposed system for cross-referencing typographic and lexical mediation.
I presented this project at the California College of the Arts on May 9th, 2009. I documented the project's early developementhere →
note: videos include audio and show the project at approximately 60% of original scale.
Please get in touch if you would like credit information regarding any of the work displayed in the presentation.