Letter which has been the role of delivery of records and information has been utilized as important medium of expression by having a linguistic features and visual plasticity simultaneously.
According to changes of visual expression, letter's functio...
Letter which has been the role of delivery of records and information has been utilized as important medium of expression by having a linguistic features and visual plasticity simultaneously.
According to changes of visual expression, letter's function of conveyance of meaning was transformed to molding and visual media as 'visible letter' beyond the purely functional languages​​. It means that letter lies in the dual dynamics of 'legibility' related to objective communication and 'visuality' corresponding persuasive communication. However, both are based on the premise of an effective means of delivering.
Recent and rapid changes in the environment of digital media, including Internet, smart mobile technology, and advertising media, etc. are accelerating visualization and imaging. And this makes various changes of communicative styles such as decentralization, fragmentation and diversification of meaning, so the recognition that letter is a medium of spoken language is changing, too.
A variety of visual symbols of digital media are not dependent on fixed meaning, does not mediate spoken language, and are already present as the signifier of signifiers regardless of any conceptual reality. Accordingly, the interest on the visual character of letter continues to grow.
With these socio-cultural phenomenon, this study was started from an interest on the shape of the letter, and investigated that how is the letter representation extended when the representation is made freely without regard to the finality of typography as delivery of meaning and functional aspects of the letter as medium of meaning.
The subjects of this study are the letter works which find out images and ideas from the shape of a unique letter, give emphasis or variation of a reminiscent image derived from forms of letter through the artist's imagination.
Letter representation cases in this research were combined with the concept of objet and selected on the basis of the types of objet expression. And letter represented by a new perspective beyond the stereotypes about it was defined as 'Letter as an Objet'. Also, this study examined about 'the image-scalability of letter as objet' through the concept of deconstruction philosopher, Derrida's Différance as theoretical background of the scalability.
Progress of the study are as follows:
1. examined about 'Différance' that is core concepts of the theory of Deconstruction and the underlying properties of écriture as source letter stressed by Derrida. First, as a preliminary study, discussed what Derrida intended to dismantle, what meaning implied in the etymology of 'écriture' and 'Différance' as source letter, and what the differences between 'difference' and 'Différance' are. And after that, on the basis of those argument, discussed the nature of 'Différance'.
2. introduced what is the origin of the letter, how letter changed here, and what the types of letter are.
3. looked at the implications of objet in the context of contemporary art and the process that objet art had been deployed and diffused. Also, researched expressive features that objet art has pursued in each trend, and through this discussed how the realm of art has been extended.
4. classified art works containing letter according to the representation type of objets, and analyzed for image-scalability of letter as objet in those art works through the concept of Différance aforementioned.
5. summarized the main points of the study and showed the study's implications and challenges.
Letter as objet is reborn as a new formal language in the effects of Différance discussed by Derrida, not as immediate connectivity and integration of meaning. With Objects expressed in a variety of ways and contingent effect mixed, immediate sense of the letter is delayed and the breadth of its interpretation is extended. By being overlapped and dissolved between words, individuality of letter would disappear and it reveals many faces and voices that were inherent in the shape of letter, therefore it sometimes transforms the space into geometric abstraction.
Letter utilized as objet would lose 'reading function' by an irregular structure and space, and the destruction of leading and kerning of the letters, and would get 'visible images' by means of mixed, nested, distortion, inserts, the configuration of coincidence. Through these various expressions, letter is born as life, beauty, and artistic production which stimulates the imagination.