Thursday, July 15, 2004

Signs of Type

Roy Arenella continues to work with the idea of signs, sending me Arenellanism # 301. (Who got # 300?)
 
An interesting photocard, this one is merely a photograph of a Lettera 22 typewriter with a sheet of paper sticking out the top of it and showing the text, “WORDS / NEVER SEEM / ENOUGH.” Since this is a photograph, we have the tension (or collusion) between text and image: we learn that if words are not enough, we have pictures. And the image itself is quietly ironic. The text is composed not of typed letters from the machine, but of letters rubberstamped one after one onto the page. The typewriter is a lie.
 

Roy Arenella, "Words Never Seem Enough" (1989)

un violon d’ingres 
 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is the first time I visit this blog and I just wanted to say thank you for sharing those'visual thoughts'.
I've been very enthusiastic about the photos taken by Roy Arenella,this photo is a maze and it is spot on! But, enough of words, the two meaningful ones being THANK YOU.