This talk is part of Cambridge LASER Talks.
Since the initial Cambridge LASER on October 1, 2020, we have focused on Rhythmicity, asking: how do our neural and biological oscillations engage us and facilitate our interactions with each other and our environment? What are the consequences of their misalignment and their links to mental and physical health? How are humans impacting the rhythms of nature? How is technology affecting our rhythms of connection? Whilst also presenting the analogues, phenomena, and structures in artistic media and especially in sound art.
We continue and extend discussions on rhythmicity with this LASER on Writing as Rhythm, emerging from the VIEWS project at the University of Cambridge (Visual Interactions in Early Writing Systems), led by Pippa Steele at the Faculty of Classics.
Alice Mazzilli's curation of the recent CRASSH workshop, co-hosted by the VIEWS project, on Jamigraphy: Writing as rhythm, movement and embodiment, explores writing as sociality and in relation to music. Jamigraphy (jamming + graphia) is "about coordinating attention — about listening and responding to the changing energetic conditions of the space. The mark, the rhythm, the breath, and the line all become extensions of the same field"; this was beautifully evident in Pule kaJanolintji's work on the collective and embodied qualities of 'writing' in the !Ui-Taa traditions of Southern African linguistic and graphic symbolism. The rhythms of writing together create a collectively shared holding space of presence.
Helen Magowan's research on the letters by courtesans in pre-modern Japan shows how their calligraphy expresses their intent, such that the reader of the letter understands how to read the emotion and intent in the writing, be this joy, sadness, longing, rebuke, contemplation.
What gets lost as more of us connect via tapping keys and reading screens, rather than writing by hand for self-reflection, to organise thoughts, to share ideas, and to build relationships? How can we imagine and understand forms of writing of the past and how these 'writings' evolved with and shaped culture? The VIEWS project is innovating research methods and ways of knowing in the way it brings together cross-disciplinary and artistic practices.
Speakers
Jamigraphy and Interowriting. Alice Mazzilli is an artist and independent scholar whose work explores the ontology of writing across artistic, philosophical, and technological domains. Her research focuses on writing as an embodied and chronotechnical practice that shapes perception, memory, and collective life. Central to her work is the concept of Interowriting, an experimental framework that approaches writing as a process of entanglement between rhythm, interoception, ecologies, and cultural structure. Working across performance, theory, and public engagement, she collaborates with musicians, researchers, and cultural institutions, developing workshops and live writing formats that foreground rhythm, embodiment, and perception.
- Helen Magowan
Rhythm and gesture in Japanese writing. Dr Helen Magowan is a scholar of classical Japanese literature, art and calligraphy, specialising in premodern Japanese writing, and a Visiting Fellow at the VIEWS project at the University of Cambridge. She has a particular interest in writing practices, embodied knowledge, and the visuality of writing. Her interdisciplinary work sits at the crossroads of linguistics, literature, art history, and digital humanities.
- Pule kaJanolintji (Tūkx'aoseb)
An Endogenous (|Xam) Ontology of Sign, as an Affective Practice of Interoreading of Inscriptions in the Isibheqe Sohlamvu (Ditema tsa Dinoko) Writing System. Pule kaJanolintji (Tūkx'aoseb) is an artist-researcher and cultural technologist working in transdisciplinary peer-learning based in endogenous cultural history and philosophy, with a focus on siNtu, Khwemana, and !Ui-Taa traditions of Southern African linguistic and graphic symbolism, particularly utilising the Ditema tsa Dinoko writing system.
Reconstructing acts of writing in the ancient world. Pippa Steele is a Research Professor at the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge, where she directs the VIEWS project: Visual Interactions in Early Writing Systems. She is also the founder of the Endangered Writing Research Network, and has published widely on languages and writing systems of the ancient Mediterranean and beyond.