From the Beginning

The books that I am going to be talking about through the semester are Writing Space by David Bolter, and Hot Text by Jonathan and Lisa Price. 


So far I have read up to chapter two in both texts. 


Writing Space talks about the development of writing and the changes that it has endured over its existence from the beginning of time. 


Writing is truly one of the most changing elements of human existence. Every few hundred years, and even more so now, we are experiencing a change in how people communicate. Almost every form of communication has to do with written text. Cave drawings, written words in books, carved in stone, or today's digital writing on computers, the internet and phone texting. 


Remediation is what Bolter would refer to in these changes. I would have to say that my FAVORITE remediation of writing in the western world would have to be the move from paper writing to online writing or even just the ability to type rather than print on paper. 
I have troubles writing with a pen because I could never figure out how to hold the pen properly, but with typing on a keyboard I am able to type much faster than a lot of people can write. 


I feel this is remediation because it is a whole new form offered to me dealing with textual communication. Yes it is still text that we read and write but it just offers a new form of writing (typing) and reading (off a screen rather than a paper page).


Digital technology according to Bolter is "one of the more traumatic remediations in the history of Western writing," because it is such a dramatic move. Let me explain further, writing for the past 2000 recorded years has been in pictographs on cave walls, or writing on papyrus, or in libraries and done by monks. But writing digitally opens up a world of possibilities, so many more people have the opportunities to express themselves. 


Writing has changed as time has changed. I wonder where writing will move next?