Part of my practice is to copy some of the sentences that really strike me when reading. I do this rather than taking notes, though sometimes I add a few notes as well.
I’ve chosen a few that are related to writing to share here today. That will give you some flavor of the book, though it’s only a small part of what Chang is doing.
It can be easy to forget that writing is an embodied technology.
There are three powerful thoughts in those few words.
First of all, it’s easy to forget these things about writing because we take it for granted. We don’t think about it much, unless we’re sitting down to do some of it. It’s a fact of life in our world.
Secondly, it’s embodied – we use our bodies to do it. Now right now I’m writing on a keyboard, which is my preferred way to write, but even that requires physical movement.
Writing by hand requires other kinds of movement, and dictation to produce written words a third kind. All of those are physical.
Chang goes on to say:
While much of writing’s profound impact lies in its massive capacity to store and transmit ideas, its ancestry in handmade marks makes it the twin of drawing.
I’ll get to the first part of that in a minute, but the idea that writing is much like drawing – which preceded it – amplifies the fact that it’s an act of our bodies. I keep thinking about Japanese and Chinese writing and particularly about how people do calligraphy with words in those languages, creating their own understanding of the word through the way they do the lines.
Much of the traditional poetry in those languages is also done as art. It’s a physical act – you could dance it, really – but it also stirs the mind, makes you think about ideas. Continue reading “Reading The Body Digital by Vanessa Chang”…