Zebra. Shorthand exercises.
Oleg Pospelov's art project
The project ‘Zebra. Exercises in Shorthand’ is a series of linocuts inspired by a typewriting textbook of the mid-20th century. The idea of the project is to print one single engraving cliché on different media: on a page from the textbook, on an old newspaper or on a sheet of acrylic-painted paper. The identity of the cliché is preserved, but thanks to the variety of media, a new work with its own tone and mood emerges each time. The project breaks the tradition of repetition of classical prints - now each print is not a copy, but an independent interpretation of what is carved on the board. At the moment (March 2024) the cycle includes more than 150 prints and the number may increase.
Fingers press steel lettering into the paper - they are the prints of all ten fingers on one sheet of paper - typewriter dactyloscopy, an individual sign, a determinant, but one typist’s fingerprints will be indistinguishable from another’s - the mechanical intermediary erases identity without releasing it. Who are we? Señor Don Jacinto Barreda. Time and place are erased. Bilbao, 23 April 1957. Where are we? The printing speed is 190 characters per minute, and the completion time is 9 minutes and 20 seconds. Where are we? Page 69.
Dear Senor, We have received your oil samples and analyzed them carefully. We have found that sample #1 contains 2 degrees of acid, and samples #2 and #4 contain 8 degrees. Is it that important? Is it so important now to the person who dictated this text, the person who typed it, and the honorable Señor Don Jacinto Barreda?
And anyway, where is Señor Barreda now? Many days, monotonous, like the clatter of a typewriter, the carriage goes from left to right, covering the sheet with characters of the same width - because the font is monospaced, and that’s on purpose; the rhythm of 190 characters per minute reaches 400, and that’s the end; there’s nothing further - I rest my forehead against the hard cardboard of the cover - everything is gone. Señor Barreda, the oil, the samples, and the degrees - everything has moved, like the carriage, to the right but not back to the left.
Time, rhythm, clockwork, the shuffling footsteps of those leaving, the chimes of those coming - champagne - hurrah, new year! Life is a book in which, page after page, the pace quickens, and there are more meanings - the number of characters increases, there are more and more to be written - ten per minute - that is the purpose of learning. That’s the cost. It’s like a person’s subjective perception of time - constant acceleration. Winter lasted forever when I was seven. But so was summer.
The zebra is simple. It’s like us. It’s like life - white stripes, black stripes. A pedestrian crossing from morning to night. Some zebras having stepped over themselves, will continue their way in the morning, and some will freeze in the night forever - there will be not a breath of wind, not a sound, not a thought left of them - they will merge with the night, fall into the black cotton wool of complete and unconditional nothingness. They will forget everyone, then themselves, and everyone will forget them.
A zebra is an exact copy of a printed brand. Still, in the real world, no two zebras are alike - it’s technically impossible because each one has its own world, medium, text on the page, color, borders, and texture -- just like like the scribbles of a child from a bygone day. Someone’s finger presses a key, a mechanism is triggered, a lever is lowered, the stigma is absorbed into the paper; the lever is pulled back, and the carriage is moved one step to the right, ready for the next stroke. Then, the whole thing is repeated over and over again.
The zebras are folded into words, sentences, paragraphs of text - sometimes it’s interestinging to read, and sometimes it’s rubbish, worse than ChatGPT. Write me a short story in the style of Anton Chekhov, please. Oh, no more, stop!
And where there is no time, silently counting signs per minute - there are more and more of them, like zebras. More and more meanings, more possibilities, more paths. Only one thing does not change - the zebra. Because a constant has no right to change.
And where there is no time, silently counting signs per minute - there are more and more of them, like zebras. More and more meanings, more possibilities, more paths. Only one thing does not change - the zebra. Because a constant has no right to change.
It is not given to those who ask, but to those who take. It is not the one who walks, but the one who does not die on the way. That’s why it’s scary. That’s why there’s nothing to believe in. Only in yourself. And only in her. And also in her immortal zebra, which will wake up the next morning and continue on its way.
You can buy artworks from this project here:
Incomplete catalogue of the project ‘Zebra. Exercises in shorthand.’
Some of the works officially included in the project are published here.
art by oleg pospelov
