Dirk van Weelden

English ttranslation of typecast

A new magazine

Today it finally arrived, the first issue of the new magazine SILENT TYPE. In it you find poetry, fiction and essays published as facsimiles of typoscript. Yes, the magazine actually consists entirely of photographs of the typewritten sheets the writers sent to the editor.

Cheryl Lowry is a technical writer in Seattle and she is the founder and editor of SILENT TYPE. She also runs the website Strikethru.net that culd be viewed as the web-office of the magazine. Here is where people who contribute to the magazine keep in contact; it basically is a group of bloggers who publish their writings in the form of jpegs of their typoscripts.

SILENT TYPE has a subtitle: a retro-tech journal. What does that mean? That it originates in a curious and loving interest in pre-digital technology, particularly having to do with text and image. You could say the magazine focusses on that which is not replaced or improved by digital wordprocessors, telecom or digital camera’s. Ofcourse that results in nostalgia and complaining by some, but also digital natives prove to be sensitive for experiences and practies that lie outside contemporary digital formats. Particularly among young filmmakers, designers, artists, writers and photographers the interest for retro-tech seems to increase.

SILENT  TYPE  is a strong example of what I usually call the transdigital typewriter here. Only thanks to the computer that made possible wordprocessing, the internet and blogging software, this typewriter culture (that in fact has literary, typographical and artistic content) can exist at all. Digital machines have liberated the typewriter and have given it wings. The people who contribute to SILENT TYPE live in all corners of the USA, but also in the UK and Europe. The lossely connected group of blogs of kindred spirits is what Cheryl Lowry calls the typosphere. Apart from publishing their typecasts they exchange photo’s of their machines through Flickr. The paper magazine is an extremely effective instrument to stimulate enthusiasm and a sense of community in a group that only exists thanks to the internet. Nothing convinces retro-tech lovers so efficiently as a real magazine that arrives by regular mail. And still, the magazine would not exist without digital scanners, digital cameras and printers. It is the ideal synthesis of the power of digital media and the literary and artistic experiences that cannot or only poorly  be captured without retro-tech.

The texts, photographs and design in this magazine are of a high quality. It has been produced with care and appears like a happy semi-professional form to publish  personal expressions. It is a joy to see how an ironic and lighthearted approach to the mixing of media prevails. The traces of melancholy are never saccherine or lame, they are firmly rooted in the present. SILENT TYPE is a great example of literary culture in a digital culture, completely independent of the problems in publishing, the bookmarket; the media-industry or mass media. Visit striketru.net and who knows, you might become greedy.