title

Computer/Vision

Artist/Designer

Simon Thiefes

Date

2023

type of writing system

Alphabet

Based on

Latin script, Computational languages


The human ability to distinguish between individual letters, like A or B, is relatively straightforward. However, when it comes to establishing a set of rules to precisely define what constitutes “an A” versus “not an A” for a computer, the task becomes significantly more complex. Computers do not forgive ambiguity or subtlety; they demand clear rules and sharp definitions. Computer/Vision is an invitation to ponder the limitations of computation and compels us to contemplate the implications of the dichotomy between human cognition and computational precision. It grants a computer full authority over the arbitrary generation of letters, their subsequent classification as letters of the alphabet through text recognition, and their integration into a writing system. This real-time project unfolded throughout the duration of the exhibition, gradually introducing an array of characters and producing multiple alphabet sets, all of which were uploaded as open-source fonts now available for download





Artwork courtesy of Simon Thiefes. All rights reserved.

abjad
abugida
acrophony
acrostic
alphabet
alphasyllabary
asemic writing
automatic writing
boustrophedon
character
character set
cipher
code
conscript
cryptography
encode
experimental
grapheme
glyph
hieroglyph
hieroglyphics
imaginarium
language
letter
letterform
linguistic
logosyllabary
logographic
logogram
nat scirpt
neography
optophonetic
phoneme
phonetic
pictograph
quasi
re-worlding
script
syllabary
syllable
symbol
speculative
torus
versimilitude
writing system
Mark

Mark