Sign Patterns 1974 Artist’s Book, typewriter signs on paper, 8.5x11 inches.

In the summer of 1974, I hammered out nine pages of keyboard signs on a small Olivetti manual typewriter, one sign per page: Seven punctuation marks, a plus sign, and the letter x (I avoided denotative signs such as ? or !). I typed each sign one at a time in single spaced rows over and over until a block or pattern of signs was completed. The work, an experiment finished over the course of a couple of days, was motivated by the idea that such signs constituted ready made material that could be repurposed in a primarily optical way. The repetitious typing creates an illusion of “vibration” within the patterns (and in the case of the x, a subtle illusion of color); a kind of visual residue of the energy that went into making the work. This may have something to do with the nature of the typewriter used. Non-electrical manual typewriters of that time usually produced uneven letters and symbols due to the inconsistent pressure of the hand during typing; condition of the ink ribbon, as well as other factors. The process of typing on these machines, while somewhat impersonal, required the kind of physical focus that enabled the typist to “find a rhythm,” and an awareness or sense that one was actually making something by virtue of the machine (or tool) being an extension of the hand. This fundamental notion of making (and marking) has been brought to the fore in Sign Patterns through the repetitive typing or riveting of single signs.

Sign Patterns is a reductive work with a conceptual orientation. In this context the patterns might be viewed as “mechanical drawings,” which, in addition to their optical effects, are also evidence of the process of typing, making each pattern as a whole, a sign. The meaning of these sign patterns raises a fundamental tenet of literary theory, insofar as they can be “read” as “woven” fields of visual texture. That the signs are contained by the margins of the page suggests or simulates the form of a text. One subject addressed by literary theory is the concept of text, the origin of which is the Latin textum, or fabric. The word “text” was first used by Roman rhetorician, Quintilian, who advised the writer that after having chosen the (presumably correct) words, “they must be weaved together into a fine and delicate fabric.” (Institutes of Oratory, 95 AD.) Text from the viewpoint of literary theory is mainly concerned with message content, not the physical means or medium through which that content is expressed. But if we allow that the sign patterns can be read as visual texture then they might be construed as having content; that they transmit a meaning. A literal meaning that centers on the etymologically related terms, “text” and “texture.” Thus, an important component or element of text, punctuation, is redeployed as a series of signs forming optical “texts” while also alluding to a classical trope concerning the process of writing.