Humans use letters, which are two-dimensional static symbols, for communication. To write these letters, we have to move our body and spend some time; therefore, it can be said that a letter is the trajectory of movement and time. Based on this notion, I began studies of multi-dimensional kinetic typography, mainly using robots to display a letter, and visualize its time and movement simultaneously. And I named this project and the devices as Robotype.

There are three kinds of Robotype so far: Sujigen for displaying Arabic numerals, Mojigen for the Roman alphabet, and 7×7 which is primarily for double-byte characters such as Japanese. Each display is designed with conventional computer displays as a motif.At this exhibition, a video documentation “Robotype 3” and 7×7 are displayed.

This research is supported by the National Research Foundation of the government of Singapore under a funding initiative from the Interactive Digital Media Programme Office.