Speak, Pen is a web-based art tool programmed in JavaScript. It’s a drawing tool that replaces the traditional paintbrush with custom text inputs. Users are free to use text on the canvas to make visual poetries, interactive drawings, and performances, etc. The work explores the materiality of text, and ways in which users experiment with texts beyond their semantic functions.
Created during a radical tool workshop at SFPC, Speak, Pen takes inspiration from other “radical” tools that encourage DIY spirit and playfulness. It is not just a digital drawing tool, but rather, a community that aims to inspire makers to experiment with texts beyond their daily functions. It is something that can be performed, alone, or alongside others. I intend to blur the lines between users and the creators or mediators of a platform. Our community guidelines are based not on rules for how to use the text brush, but examples of how past audiences have experimented with it. The meaning of the works lies not within the interpretation of the texts in the drawings, but the different engagements with the tool within and outside its community.
(Source: ELO 2021)
