Electric Calligraphy
September 2023Exhibited in Ars Electronica
Electric Calligraphy is a series of anachronistic Arabic typeface designs that imagine an alternative timeline where the Arabic language played a leading
role in the development of early digital typographic display technologies, once cutting edge, now obsolete. It attempts to re-examine the evolutionary path
of the Arabic script within these inherited technological constraints, to uncover new pathways for its development, adding new perspectives to the modern type design discourse. These grids explore what contemporary calligraphy might have been were it more intimate with the electronic revolution;
calligraphy that is guided by light, and constructed with segments and modules - the artifacts of reduction, the dogma of the digital age. The Names of Allah are usually displayed in intricate calligraphy, to reflect the beauty of their meanings. Displaying them with light brings forth a new way to honor the names while displaying them in contemporary times. Showing how the Names of Allah can be displayed beautifully within technology, without having to mimic traditional calligraphy.
This project is developed by xLab in collaboration with Fatima Abbas and Lana Abou Selo, VCUarts Qatar students.
Installing the piece in the Ars Electronica Exhibition space.