What is, what will be, the phenomenology and aesthetics of text in 3-D space?
‘Is there a phenomenology of text in space?’ I would answer that there is, but that it is, as it were, constrained. Specifically, in the case of text as writing, it is constrained to surfaces. Text, in this form — as perceptual material object, as a composition of printed or inscribed letters — is two-dimensional. It has no appreciable thickness, and rests, third-dimensionless, on a surface whose thickness is, itself, largely non-signifying. It is often desirable that the actual surface of writing be as thin as possible. Of course there are exceptional cases, where we become aware, for example, of a force producing real depth in a surface that bears a carved or incised piece of lettering, or when the mark-making ‘ink’ is ‘thick,’ literally, as well as figuratively.
‘Is there a phenomenology of text in space?’ I would answer that there is, but that it is, as it were, constrained. Specifically, in the case of text as writing, it is constrained to surfaces. Text, in this form — as perceptual material object, as a composition of printed or inscribed letters — is two-dimensional. It has no appreciable thickness, and rests, third-dimensionless, on a surface whose thickness is, itself, largely non-signifying. It is often desirable that the actual surface of writing be as thin as possible. Of course there are exceptional cases, where we become aware, for example, of a force producing real depth in a surface that bears a carved or incised piece of lettering, or when the mark-making ‘ink’ is ‘thick,’ literally, as well as figuratively.
