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"writing, but for people who can't write" Reminds me of Book from the Ground[1], a novel written entirely in pictograms. The intent is to write a story that a
by bunderbunder 12y ago
"writing, but for people who can't write"
Reminds me of Book from the Ground[1], a novel written entirely in pictograms. The intent is to write a story that any person - even someone who's illiterate - can read. I should mention that it can really only be made legible to sighted people, which is a shortcoming it shares with many attempts to create programming languages for non-programmers. That said it's remarkably successful. But the story is extremely simple, a side effect of the author's choice to use a form of expression that cuts expressivity to the bone. As an exploration and mental exercise it's fascinating. But I don't think it heralds a major change in how we communicate nowadays, even across language boundaries.
[1] http://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/always-pioneer-artist-xu-bing-now-takes-novel-beyond-written-word http://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/always-pioneer-artist-xu-bi...
- Retric 12y agoPictograms are still a written language. Also, 30 is hardly a pictogram nor is !, &, checkmark, or a + symbol these are also only meaningful because you have seen those symbols before. Plenty of others like thumbs up sign are culturally dependent. EX: You see someone doing a thumbs up, but their biting the thumb what does that mean? PS: It's still an interesting exercise IMO because people recognize a much wider symbolic language than they generally think about.
- dkersten 12y agoThat's a very interesting concept! But.. I have no idea what the sample pages are trying to convey. I couldn't figure any of it out at all.