University of Cambridge

LNA / Special Report (20 March 2003)

Acodcinrg to a sdtuy dnoe by the Unrveistiy of Cmbdriage, the oerdr of the leretts in a wrod has no ipotmrnace. The olny ipotmrnat tnhig is taht the frsit and the lsat leettr be at the rhigt pclae. The rset can aapepr in ttaol drasiary and you can slitl raed wuotiht any pblroems. It is baecuse the hmaun mnid dnoes’t raed eervy sgnile leettr in ilestf, but the wrod as a wolhe.

Wrapped up between the first and the last letter each word travels in our mind like a picture! The world is not the world, but what looks like it… (James Brayes)

GRAFFITI, COMPUTER ICONS AND ANCIENT WRITINGS

How can we not be struck by the visual similarity between certain ancient forms of writing like tifinagh, and the new contemporary icons, logos and other signs? These projections that have escaped from the humanoid memory of our computers, what desert do they belong to? To the conurbations sated with ads, billboards and the like, or to the immensity of the dunes whipped by the scorching breath of the harmattan ? But who actually cares about why, where, when and how these enigmatic signs were engraved in stone? What matters is that they were conceived in the same way for the same purposes,two thousand years apart. The time that separates them only exists when we grasp the fleeting duration of our very short lives. (Extracted from R. Mutt, From the Readable to the Visible, 2003, Ed. Signum Insigne)