fonts

Alternumerics explores the relationship between language and interactivity by transforming the simple computer font into an art form that explores the fissure between what we write and we what mean. By replacing individual letters and numbers (known as alphanumerics) with textual and graphic fragments that signify what is typed in radically different ways, Alternumerics transforms any computer connected to a standard printer into an interactive artmaking installation.

Entre (‘Enter’) (2001), a CD-ROM created by Brazilian artists Rafael Lain and Angela Detanico, that makes us think that it is possible to dare a non-phonetic thinking as a matrix of new cultural practices. The CD’s title, Entre, comprises some of its features. “Entre” in Portuguese means, as an imperative verb, “enter” and as an adverb it means “between,” and this double meaning transforms the title into an invitation and into a challenge: an invitation because it invites us to think of nothing but exploring its universe; a challenge because it constantly makes us hesitate in trying to define it, since it is a project that stays between writing and speech, between music and drawing, between letter and digit. Without explanations, it gives the reader two possibilities: to touch images, drawing with sounds, randomly using the computer keyboard; or installing a series of fonts created by Rafael Lain.

(Description from Giselle Beiguelman, "The Reader, the Player and the Executable Poetics: Towards a Literature Beyond the Book")