Magic board

Leiden, February 2015.

With the rise of the internet, writing practices were dramatically transformed. Not only, text processing softwares allow one to interact very differently with words, by using a keyboard, but also with sentences and paragraphs that can be modified, moved, copied and pasted in others texts so easily and rapidly that it was unexpected beforehand. Hyperlinks to a myriad of other graphic objects (photos, figures, tables…) have considerably enriched the production process of documents. Simultaneous collaborative writing does not require the co-presence of writers, commentators, proofreaders in the same site. Everything seems possible…
Such an enthusiastic conception for digital writing often goes hand in hand with a functionalism that ignores itself. Not only it neglects the diversity of inscription surfaces available simultaneously, but also other technologies that develop in parallel to digital writing practices. This mere roll of white plastic film is a perfect example. From now on the white board accompanied with its markers is transportable, adjustable, stackable, foldable, attachable to any flat surface, and very easy to wipe clean and to reuse. Like any inscription technology, this white plastic film is “magic”: it opens numerous writing opportunities while leaving behind, into the folds of the assemblage it enacts, a set of graphic acts that make its very fragility and draw in hollow its on limits.