This manifesto was written by @butheina @tylerzang for Artistic Intifada (also on Tumblr). It was typewritten on May 2nd/3rd by @plusaziz in Jackson-Heights, Queens.

‘26 Typewriters’ is an exhibition that took place at Envoy Enterprises gallery in NYC last year. It was driven by Exit Creative to also produce a 36-page book. Looking at these images, you get a sense of rich diversity in color, form, and age of numerous typewriter models.

Click here for images of the exhibition and a short video.

Washington-based painter, Tyree Callahan conceived of an enticing new way to make art. Built for the 2012 West Prize competition, he created a functional painting typewriter, dubbed the Chromatic Typewriter, by replacing the letter keys on a vintage 1937 Underwood Standard typewriter with color pads and hue labels. Though, it may not yield the same results as brushstrokes, the concept of painting a picture using words (each key produces a rectangular pixel of color) is what makes this project compelling

Below are examples of Tyeree’s work

(via @drohsnap from PSFK)

Here are some of the first parts of the story I have typed out. Otis will be a main character in the story, but I am still shaping the Chinese cultural context he is born into.

Avi: How did you come up with the USB Typewriter idea?

Jack Zylkin: Typewriters are just really beautiful and elegant machines, and it struck me as sad that they have been forgotten and neglected, especially since most computer technology today is so disposable and utilitarian. People love typewriters, and lots of people have them on their mantle or in their attic, but there is just no place for them on a modern computer desk. So, with the USB Typewriter project I am trying to rescue typewriters from garages and attics and put them to use again.

How did you go about making it a reality? Did your involvement with a Hackerspace help?

Almost everything I have made in the last 3 years has been at Hive76. Belonging to a hackerspace not only gave me the tools and space I needed to make my crazy gadgets, but it also gave me a community of other great makers to encourage and inspire me. For example, the idea to use the USB Typewriter with an iPad came from another Hive member. Also, Hive76 let me hold classes on electronics and soldering, and originally I conceived the USB Typewriter as a kit to teach basic electronics.

What has been the response so far?

The response has been great. The USB Typewriter got “BoingBoinged” about a year ago, literally the day after I posted my first “hey look what I did” youtube video, and since then I have been racing to keep up with all the people excited about my invention. The folks who bought USB Typewriter kits early on had great ideas for improving it, and its been a blast seeing other projects that people have spun off of mine. For example, one guy sent me photos of an entirely typewriter-based game of Zork he made using my circuitry. Of course, the best part so far has been going to Maker Faire — it was so fun to have a booth there and share my crazy ideas with other mad scientists.

Does the USB Typewriter help people “single-task” and focus their attention?

Definitely. The best part of the USB Typewriter is that you can turn off your monitor, so the text is still being saved to your computer, but the paper itself is your “monitor”. So, the USB Typewriter allows you to step back from the fast pace of your twitterbooks and your facefeeds and treat writing as the intimate experience it is supposed to be. Furthermore, I hope that once you have a typewriter as a permanent fixture on your desk, instead of a computer keyboard, it wont be so hard to just turn off your computer altogether and write an old fashioned letter every now and again.

Why is the combination of the mechanical (“past”) and the digital (“future”) so fascinating to people?

I think companies today make their technology homogenized and miniaturized to the point of being invisible to customers — they don’t want you thinking too hard about what goes into making your consumables. Take apart a cell phone (if you can) and inside it basically looks exactly like the inside of a radio or a TV or a watch any other kind of gizmo, which is to say it just looks like a bunch of computer chips. People miss the days when things were made of real stuff, because the muggle magic of gears and pulleys and solenoids fitting together in perfect harmony is in a lot of ways more magical than the flea circus that goes on inside computer chips.

The other thing is that technology today is so disposable! For example, no one thinks about passing down their iPhone3 as a family heirloom (they probably are selling them to buy iPhone4s) but the typewriters I work on have been around for about 100 years and still look and work great!

Lastly, there is also real nostalgia for the olden days of communication, where you could look forward to receiving a letter or an invitation in the mail (as opposed to a twitter or an evite). Hopefully the USB Typewriter will help reclaim some of the intimacy and specialness of the art of letter writing.

[via Boing Boing]

This machine sells for a good $6,000… Let me know if you decide to buy it.

The Keaton Music Typewriter was first patented in 1936 (14 keys) by Robert H. Keaton from San Francisco, California. Another patent was taken out in 1953 (33 keys) which included improvements to the machine. The machine types on a sheet of paper lying flat under the typing mechanism. There are several Keaton music typewriters thought to be in existence in museums and private collections. It was marketed in the 1950s and sold for around $225. The typewriter made it easier for publishers, educators, and other musicians to produce music copies in quantity. Composers, however, preferred to write the music out by hand.

The condition of this Keaton is rather fantastic and dare I say perfect. The keys are all in working order. The ribbon needs a simple replacement and the box that stores this device has an odor (from its humid beachside storage). Other than that, this is an amazing and rare item. 

[via musicprintinghistory.org]

I spotted this tweet from a blog post on London’s Wired Conference:

The typewriter through the eyes of an 8yr old: “A computer that prints while you type and you don’t have to plug in.”

The blog post goes on to elaborate:

“While you or I may think of a typewriter as an outmoded piece of technology, a relic of the past, this child picked out its benefits. You can use it anywhere and it includes a real-time printing feature! Sure, in a world where we’re constantly connected to each other and can share a thought with the world in a second, the benefits of a typewriter may seem slim, but there’s a real benefit to thinking of the world the way others don’t.

[via Shareables]

Ever thought that typing could somehow be associated with mixing a drink?

Morskoiboy designed a clever little homemade contraption that marries the two actions of typing/mixing. The keyboard is made of syringes that spit out brightly colored syrup and liquor. The machine literally converts words into colors and flavors, giving them life as a taste, rather than a purely visual output.

Watch this video to see this thing in action.

[Originally posted on PSFK]

An initial installment of typewritten lyric drafts.

Jeremy Mayer makes anatomical sculptures out of typewriters. His reassemblage technique took a long time to refine and is purist in that he only uses assembly and nothing else:

“I don’t weld, solder, or glue. I only reassemble. There’s no wires, I only use processes that are already in the typewriter and put them back together.

Typewriters are not as rare as people make them out to be. There’s alot of them. They made hundreds of millions of them. And everyone still has one in their basement somewhere. “

He has participated in San Francisco’s Maker Faire. Here are some more links to his work:

- Bust V by Jeremy Mayer, Created Using Assembled Typewriter Parts
- Octopus Sculpture Made Out of Typewriter Parts
- Typewriter People, The Sculpture of Jeremy Mayer