Hi everyone,
My intention here was to collect a set of images that represented an overview of the development of the writing space. I chose Flickr and decided to narrate the gallery description down here, so you can go through the images before, have your own thoughts and see what comes to your mind first.
Aside from showing a historical development of different tools or technologies for text and information, it also depicts the development of practices where we exteriorize thought.
This gallery initiates with one of the earliest forms of writing, such as Sumerian Cuneiform, which began as characters shaped like the objects they represented. Here we find traces of the origins of the text, characterized by physical and concrete representations of knowledge.
After this image, a particular arrangement of lines and curves is giving shape to letters in the physical landscape of paper. Here, writing is done by the motion of manual activity (forming letters or intricate characters on paper). In this characterization, the properties of fixed materials are significant.
As we move forward, we see a mechanical symbolic manipulation of the writing space which is represented by the typewriter and the printing press, in relation to the increase of text production and access to information.
In the third stage, the symbolization of writing is represented by “the automated manipulation of computers”. Information here takes different forms that go beyond physical materials or surfaces. The multimedia in the World Wide Web is extending our conceptions of reading and writing, so other modes that vary from linear writing and that are appropriate to digital technology can be included, involving the vast potential of the electronic space: accessibility, collaborative knowledge, multimodality.
However, it is important to remark that “the properties of handwriting, of print, or of digital writing do each seem to favor certain kind of expression and prejudice others” (Bolter, 2001). In this sense, previous modes of reading and writing are still relevant for learning.
References
Bolter, J.D. (2001). Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print. Routledge.
Flickr. The Commons. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/commons
