Title: Saving the Alphabet
Artist: Alan Bigelow
Date: 2005/2008
Media: Flash

Saving The Alphabet is a digital story for the web which is created in Flash and uses text, images, and audio. The work 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 piece uses actionscript code to decay language events as they are triggered by users. This decay is gradual and erases elements of the story after they appear.

"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.

Project Website: http://www.savingthealphabet.com