Biotypography

Israelian typographer Oded Ezer looks at the world from his point of view, through letters and numbers. So why not turn the world into typography. A short interview taken from interactiondesign-lab.com about ants that you can read.

"Q: Let's talk about Biotypography. What the hell is it? How did it start? What? Why? Where?

A: These are Ant-letters, of course...it's a natural move that I made to see what will happen to typography in the future. So I sit at my desk, and I set myself some working rules (like not using anything typographical that is around me), and I essentially ask: "What would a typographer be in 50 years?"

Q: I still don't understand the ants...

A: I know, I'll tell you this. Recently I gave a lecture I titled: "The Typographer's Guide to the Galaxy", so in preparation I explored a little bit the topic of cloning. I saw the mice with an ear as a letter and it blew me away...in fact, my question was in which technologies I could manufacture a medium wherein typography could develop, evolve - into something completely different.

A: Ok. Very briefly. Typography is about the mechanization of letters. From the moment print was invented till our times. To separate it form Calligraphy, it is the reproduction, design, copying, mechanization of letters. Right? So the different technologies have impacted typography over the years, until today's desktop publishing systems, and this is where typography is today, and how it is taught. In my approach I'm trying to view everything that comes from letters - as typography. I'm trying to investigate the new media into which typography can develop. So, for example, in the Biotypography example, typogrphay relates to the body, to bodily deformation or cloning. In this project, as part of the process, I would ask: Why not make an animal into the letter "F"?

Q: So you create an animal, an ant, which is a letter. where does it live?

A: The first and most truthful answer is that I don't know. I can speculate, but I don't know. The "F" by itself cannot do much. But together with its friend, the "U", the "C", the "Y" and the "K", it can say "FUCK YOU", for example. Or imagine my ants, the mutated letters, gathering, as a collective, and express a message that we can understand, like "food", or something—

I don't know, I have no idea what I'm doing. Maybe I'm just doing bullshit stuff, maybe I'm a prophet. I don't know, and I don't care. I play games. I open doors and whoever wants to enter is welcome. People after me will do things much more interesting. I'm still in the dark...what is the meaning of one wire touching another and creating a spark? You can make a circus show out of it and people will enjoy it and clap their hands, or you can light up the entire world, or start of the digital universe. So I don't know..."

Odet Ezer website