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REI INAMOTO
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Rei Inamoto
Year:
The Undiscovered Letter 2008
Description:
My immediate thought, when approaching this project, was to imagine a letter that would come after the letter Z. What does that look like? What is that 27th letter? A new character?
I then thought this approach was a bit too expected.
My next thought was to start thinking about, instead of a letter after Z, a letter before A. What came before the first letter of the alphabet?
In our numeric system, that would be the number 0 (zero*).
An interesting fact about the numeric system is that the zero wasn’t initially a number. It was sometime between the first and fifth century A.D. that the zero was “discovered” in India. The zero is now “the mathematically defined numerical function of nothingness.”
So what is the linguistic equivalent of “nothingness?”
Intriguingly, Greek and Latin manuscripts, until around the ninth century, were usually written with no space.
The letter “space” isn’t really a letter because there is nothing there. But without it, ourlanguagewouldnotfunctionanditquickly becomesunintelligiblewhenalltheletters arestrungtogetherlikethis.
It’s a letter that’s not a letter. You can’t see it but when it’s not there, you definitely notice the lack of it.
The letter “space” is the linguistically defined function of nothingness.
My resulting response to this assignment is a few explorations of this notion.
*My name “Rei” in Japanese, my native language, means “zero.”
Collaboration and Flash programming:
Garth Williams
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ENTRIES
2 Comments From Users
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OKSANA BOVT - 04/15/2008 10:59
Hi Rei,
I like your entry the best. Even though the visual is very expected for this assignment, you have the most unexpected but logical explanation. The description you provided kept me intrigued till the last word. Are you a copywriter?
Oksana
Art Director with passion.
create@obovt.com
MITCHELL GUMBLEY - 09/28/2009 02:09
I too really liked your entry and agree, perhaps it is a bit "expected"... it's certainly the route I would have chosen to explore first (even if not the one I'd eventually have gone with!).
What I particularly liked was the way you presented your thoughts, especially the interactive Mac version. Very well done and thank you.
Space... the final frontier? No, the 27th letter.
Mitchell Gumbley
Creative Partner
jsmarcoms
United Kingdom
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