Aa Bb Cc Dd

Ee Ff Gg Hh

Ii Jj Kk Ll

Mm Nn Oo Pp

What might be striking about the expression ‘production of words’ is that it reveals that the very stuff of our thinking is a product. According to Walter J. Ong, the reification of words happens not with writing, but with printing. “Alphabet letterpress printing, in which each letter was cast on a separate piece of metal, or type, marked a psychological breakthrough of the first order. It embedded the word itself deep into the manufacturing process and made it into a kind of commodity.”

manufacturing
organising
printing
striking
thinking

manufacturing
organising
printing
striking
thinking

’Letterpress printing put the hands to work in such a way that may be thought of as paradigmatic, it introduced a new form of production, as Ong writes further: “The first assembly line, a technique

of manufacture which in a series of set steps produces identical complex objects made up of replaceable parts, was not one which produced stoves or shoes or weaponry but one which produced the printed book.”

1234567890

In other words, the assemblage of text using moveable type provoked a change in thinking that gave way to assembly line factories; a completely rationalised mode of production that made industrial capitalism into the organising principle of work and life. The pre-existing letters, or type, with which one prints, correspond to the replaceable parts of industrially produced commodities. In contrast to the manufactured products of Gutenberg’s assembly lines for text, work done with the typewriter can be considered digital — as it is with the fingers that one strikes the keys. From the end of the nineteenth century on, writings flow would falter — the movement of a line, traced by a hand held tool, would increasingly be replaced by the rhythmic staccato of tiptiptip ten fingers hitting keys.

In other words, the assemblage of text using moveable type provoked a change in thinking that gave way to assembly line factories; a completely rationalised mode of production that made industrial capitalism into the organising principle of work and life. The pre-existing letters, or type, with which one prints, correspond to the replaceable parts of industrially produced commodities. In contrast to the manufactured products of Gutenberg’s assembly lines for text, work done with the typewriter can be considered digital — as it is with the fingers that one strikes the keys. From the end of the nineteenth century on, writings flow would falter — the movement of a line, traced by a hand held tool, would increasingly be replaced by the rhythmic staccato of tiptiptip ten fingers hitting keys.

In other words, the assemblage of text using moveable type provoked a change in thinking that gave way to assembly line factories; a completely rationalised mode of production that made industrial capitalism into the organising principle of work and life. The pre-existing letters, or type, with which one prints, correspond to the replaceable parts of industrially produced commodities. In contrast to the manufactured products of Gutenberg’s assembly lines for text, work done with the typewriter can be considered digital — as it is with the fingers that one strikes the keys. From the end of the nineteenth century on, writings flow would falter — the movement of a line, traced by a hand held tool, would increasingly be replaced by the rhythmic staccato of tiptiptip ten fingers hitting keys.

In other words, the assemblage of text using moveable type provoked a change in thinking that gave way to assembly line factories; a completely rationalised mode of production that made industrial capitalism into the organising principle of work and life. The pre-existing letters, or type, with which one prints, correspond to the replaceable parts of industrially produced commodities. In contrast to the manufactured products of Gutenberg’s assembly lines for text, work done with the typewriter can be considered digital — as it is with the fingers that one strikes the keys. From the end of the nineteenth century on, writings flow would falter — the movement of a line, traced by a hand held tool, would increasingly be replaced by the rhythmic staccato of tiptiptip ten fingers hitting keys.

DISCRETE UNITS
A child learns to count on her fingers. Long before producing typewriters, FACIT began to manufacture counting machines.

(,.-–—!?/&%)

arms
fingers
muscles
nerves
thumbs

arms
fingers
muscles
nerves
thumbs