Tak, tak, tak: a typewriter that writes in Turkish
2015The Grumpy Scrivener brought together coding, electronics, mechanics, the Turkish language, storytelling, humour and my curiosity about languages. Which of these is the right field? I think the question itself is wrong — take any one away and the work becomes something else.
I wired motors to every key of an old typewriter. In the background the computer composes a different petition for every visitor according to the rules of Turkish grammar; then the motors fire and the text is physically typed onto paper — to the Ministry of National Jealousy, perhaps, or the Association for Catching Children Who Slide Down Rainbows.
What I loved most was that people did not treat it like a machine. Some approached it as if they were having their fortune told. They accepted that it had a character. From then on I became more and more interested in a few questions: when does a machine stop being just a machine? When does an object start behaving like a subject?