The raw material of the exhibited works are re-read notes, shopping lists, quickly jotted-down names and phone numbers. Probably the word re-looking is more appropriate instead of re-reading, because the survey of these papers was not looked over with regard to actual content. This was the first time these papers, written with a quick hand, were examined the same way we look at pictures.
When these tiny samples of handwriting were scanned into a computer and then enlarged-- now holding within them the extra traces of technology-- they are full of new meaning, though often preserving much of the original. The pictures, interesting in themselves, make it more obvious that when we write by hand we make "notations" that transpire the dimensions of writing; often they tell of completely different things using an always higher artistic utilization. In our culture the tradition of calligraphy is virtually forgotten, and so this kind of notation is not conscious but is also not defined by so many prefigurations. The subsequent search and presentation of the picture of handwriting can be seen as a kind of "negative" calligraphy.