A proper handwriting
The piece is a reproduction of a school normograph in sandblasted overlay glass. A normograph is a symbolically significant object. Implicitly, it distinguishes between a proper, «clean», writing and a «sloppy» writing, deficient, perfectible. Here, a proper writing is ought to be neutral, normalized according to the standard of the machine, cleaned out of any trace of individuality. The relationship to handwriting that The Normograph expresses translates an almost mechanical claim for control and precision: the hand gesture, and by extension, that of the body is something that must be contained, a set of shapeless appetites that must be subdued by the will. The normograph draws the attention on the historical character of our educational model, and questions the actuality of a system based on the classical ideal of reason over body.
