The gathering of collective memory. A pre-literate notion of memory, in a communal way, something commemorative rather than putting a memory in a container. What we thought it was going to be changed completely. We are in that way changing our memory of what it was supposed to be. What are you able to collect? Memories? Objects? People? A collection of texts and people, collecting and composing each other? Somehow it's not even important that we have all the knowledge, what's important is the living, generative sense of the collection.

machine writing

Simon Browne

machine writing

see also editing, typing

This text is being written on a QWERTY keyboard, through a browser, using a software called “Etherpad” that records every changeset – every typed key of the characters that are added or deleted. The software is logging these changes fast enough that it appears to be happening in real time. I can also go back through every previous changeset to older versions with the granularity of the individual character. This is the liminal space between texts; in split-seconds of processing where human writing is manipulated by machine writing.


Image: QWERTY keyboard layout