I'm currently completing my dissertation in the
Department of English at the University of Florida, under the direction
of Professors
Donald Ault
and
Terry Harpold.
In my
dissertation, I
argus that the advent of computer graphics leads to a nostalgic
reaffirmation of the personal and embodied nature of handwriting and
hand-drawing. When compared to digital technology, handwriting seems
like a form of writing which is uniquely material, subjective, and so
on. In a simultaneous and opposite movement, computer graphics becomes
culturally coded as algorithmic, and therefore disembodied and
impersonal.
I seek to find a middle ground between these two discourses by
examining ways in which the cultural values represented by handwriting
can inform both graphical works, and non-graphical works that respond
to graphics in various ways. My objects of study include interactive
fiction games by Nick Montfort and Emily Short; Otto Messmer's Felix
the Cat cartoons; the comics of Kevin Huizenga and Bryan Lee O'Malley;
handwriting-interface games for the Nintendo DS; and Pixar films.