Saving The Alphabet

From Rhizome Artbase
Alan Bigelow
2005
Description

"Saving The Alphabet" is an interactive story for the web which is created entirely in Flash and uses text, images, and audio. The work itself is a commentary on the use of language in a digital age. It addresses governmental and corporate threats to the free use of language, as language is simultaneous constructed and deconstructed by Orwellian double-speak, trademark claims, and invented etymologies on the web.
The story requires that users click on the appropriate buttons to proceed through the narrative. There is no set order of events--in fact, the arbitrary navigation of users through the story reinforces the underlying theme of how language is being co-opted, and how that co-option is often capricious and arbitrary.
"Saving The Alphabet" is also a statement about the impermanence and permeability of language, and how language, although connected to a historic (and gradually evolving) lexicon, can be altered, corporatized, and destroyed. Additionally, those who navigate the site themselves become a contributing factor in the decay of the story, and their contribution to the fictional death of language suggests our wider social and aesthetic responsibility.
The work requires approximately 5-10 minutes to view.
To see this work online, please visit http://www.SavingTheAlphabet.com

Alan Bigelow
28 February 2007

"Saving The Alphabet" is a commentary on the use of language in a digital age. With this work, I address governmental and corporate threats to the free use of language, as language is simultaneous constructed and deconstructed by Orwellian double-speak, trademark claims, and invented etymologies on the web.
The work is in English and requires approximately five minutes to view.
If you would like to see this work online, please visit http://www.SavingTheAlphabet.com

Alan Bigelow
28 February 2007
Metadata
Variant History
outside link
2005
Alan Bigelow