Drawing whispers and shouts - Texts art.

The written word has always been one of humanities greatest feats of magic. Familiarity with these arrays of lines, symbols, and their combinations, has allowed us to preserve and transfer knowledge across millennia.

Even when lost for a great period of time, the divergent branches and flavours of this magic have let us reverse engineer and decipher the intent of those long since dead (and judge the quality of their copper). In fact of all the magic we posses, the codification of communication and knowledge may well be the greatest and most enduring. It can add enough volume to a speech so as to see it carry across the ages. It may turn the rants of a pauper in to the words of a prophet. Yet it does not perform these miracles alone.

Much akin to stage magic, the core tricks lose their impact with familiarity, our intimate awareness, counterintuitively, makes it all less interesting, sapping its power. Or there are situations in the opposite, where such an abject lack of familiarity makes the trick indecipherable, a series of pointless markings on a page, a man waving coloured cards around and handing back to you the same one you gave him, nonsensical.

So the magic has changed over time. Both to enhance & preserve its impact, and to make it more accessible. Imagery is added, words stylised, letters embellished, new punctuation and page layouts found. It is here we find the illuminated manuscript. Works of devotional beauty, they elevate the word enshrining it with all the holy weight those preachers wish it to carry. Simultaneously they make it more accessible, providing imagery in context to the story communicated they teach meaning and so grant power through understanding and in time the individuals ability to replicate the wonder they’ve seen performed.

The illuminated manuscript is to Text what Penn and Teller are to stage magic. They simultaneously explain the foundations of the magic, whilst still leaving you in awe of the spell performed.

Beyond enjoyable metaphor though, how does this relate to today? Surely most of the magic’s gone, stripped back to pure function, no longer the purview of the select few, nor solely dedicated to words of great import or invention, it is now commonplace. A trick everyone can access, like making a fire, magic mauled by modernity.

But this isn’t true, over time these systems of modernity have simply reshaped this magic and its landscape. We may no longer flock to those few readers and share in wonder & worship at their translation of lines in to words and knowledge, but we have transferred the power from a perception of god on the page, to our perception of the individual behind it.

Think of how important you can make yourself seem with just text and its layout. With correct spelling, varied vocabulary, a well formatted header & footer, you quickly elevate yourself. Simultaneously others may see less of your ability if it’s shrouded in broken grammatical rules, and a font that borders on illegible in its comical shapes.

We have intermingled iconography, colour theory, and imagery. From the copyright C to the red stop sign. We have examined and played upon our visual and auditory perception, alongside psychology, to perform increasingly subtle yet incredibly impactful new feats of magic. We know how to make words clear at 100mph, we can transfer meaning through conceptual or instinctual imagery and colour. We can even pick at the threads that bind our perceived reality and pull apart the nature of truth through conceptual artwork.

Go Back Inside - Zachari Logan

This brings me to my point as far as I have one. I think many more artists should explore the intersection of the written word and their artwork. Not only can the written word grant an immortality of meaning to a piece through the transcendent nature of codified language, but more importantly your arts magic could be greatly strengthened by integrating our greatest source of it.