Réalisée par le créatif autrichien Andreas Scheiger en collaboration avec la photographe Nicoletta Sobotta, un petit coup de projecteur sur « Evolution of Type », une superbe série de créations – conçues à partir de carton, de MDF, d’os de poulets et autres mastics et peintures – axées autour de la naissance et l’évolution de l’alphabet. Partant du principe qu’une lettre, bien plus qu’un simple signe ou qu’un simple son, doit forcément avoir quelque part une origine organique, découvrez une partie de l’alphabet passer sous le bistouri de Andreas Scheiger en images dans la suite !

Plus de détails en images dans la galerie

Description originale

« When and to whom in the dim past the idea came that man’s speech could be better represented by fewer symbols [to denote certain unvarying sounds] selected fromthe confused mass of picture ideographs, phonograms, and their like, which constituted the first methods of representing human speech, we have no certain means of knowing. But whatever the source, the development did come; and we must deal with it. To present briefly the early history of the alphabet requires that much collateral matter must be disregarded and a great deal that is omitted here must necessarily be taken for granted; the writer desires, however, to present what seems to him to be a logical and probable story of the alphabet’s beginnings. » – Frederic W. Goudy,  « The Alphabet and Elements of Lettering » (1918)

A letter, a sign suggesting a sound and thus in combination suggesting a world, has to be of organic origin. In this belief I continued to dissect further letters. In some of them, to my utmost surprise, I discovered calcium carbonate skeletons, similar to sea corals. It is only the beginning of my journey into the evolution of letters but I dare to assume conform evolution to mammals at this stage.

Materials used : Powder-coated MDF, polymer clay, chicken bones, corals & shells, thread, wire, acrylics and clear varnish.

Surgical pictures taken by Susanne Stemmer, ViennaRetouching by Nicoletta Sobotta, Vienna
Credits & copyright Andreas Scheiger