The computer has undoubtedly struck a decisive blow against the art of handwriting. But, argues curator and writer Hans Ulrich Obrist, it doesn’t have to be the end – technology can actually be harnessed to revivify this lost art...
In his treatise on the lost art of handwriting, the author Umberto Eco laments the “crisis” that has befallen the once practiced art of writing by hand. “My generation was schooled in good handwriting, and we spent the first months of elementary school learning to make the strokes of letters,” he wrote. “The exercise was later held to be obtuse and repressive but it taught us to keep our wrists steady as we used our pens to form letters rounded and plump on one side and finely drawn on the other.”
While Eco cites the ballpoint pen as the instigator of this crisis, the computer has undoubtedly struck a decisive blow. But, argues curator and writer Hans Ulrich Obrist, it doesn’t have to be the end – technology can actually be harnessed to revivify this lost art. Since December last year, Obrist has been posting photos of specially handwritten messages by the many artists, writers and architects he regularly encounters – and the result is a smorgasbord of communiqués from Ai Weiwei, Yoko Ono, Michael Stipe, Douglas Coupland, Gustav Metzger and Marina Abramovic among many others.
The inception of the project was serendipitous: it was on a studio visit in LA with the artist Ryan Trecartin that Obrist was signed up to the online photosharing network. “Ryan said, you should be on Instagram and he installed it on my phone, so I had no choice, I had to start.” But the idea for the project came later, after having conversations with friends whose children had grown up surrounded by digital technology. “I remembered Umberto Eco saying we have to resist the disappearance of handwriting. Then it all came together and I thought maybe it’s great to use social media to bring back or celebrate the beauty of handwriting.”
“I remembered Umberto Eco saying we have to resist the disappearance of handwriting. Then it all came together and I thought maybe it’s great to use social media to bring back or celebrate the beauty of handwriting.”
New messages pop up frequently on Obrist’s feed, and include “Dream”, written in neat cursive by Yoko Ono, “BABIES AND FUNERALS” in jubilant block capitals by Gilbert and George, and “Call Najma” scrawled in red ink on a scrap of paper by Jonas Mekas. Seeing how people write is almost as interesting as what they write.
But while the project celebrates this lost art – which indeed has ties to artistic practice, and the doodling that often accompanies drawing and painting – Obrist makes clear that this is no reactionary stand against digital technology. With his new project “89plus”, which he initiated with curator Simon Castets and which celebrates the work of artists born after 1989, new forms of digital literature are being discovered. “It doesn’t have to be analogue and it can happen on a very low-tech level,” he explains, adding that he sometimes scans and sends handwritten emails. “Something we have to ask is how can handwriting play a role in the digital age – maybe not with ink, but with digital devices."
Follow Hans Ulrich Obrist on Instagram at @HANSULRICHOBRIST.
Text by Laura Allsop
