Kuka is a robot that writes calligraphy. Developed by the RobotLab at the Center for Art and Media in Germany, it is currently writing out "by hand" the entire Martin Luther Bible.

When I was in Junior High, I spent many class periods working on my penmanship. 5th and 6th grade had been spent earning and maintaining my reputation as the one who could write the fastest, but all that had gotten me was more roles as group/class "scribe."

A point came sometime in my sophomore or junior year in college when I found myself alternating between several different handwriting styles. I still don't know all of the factors that contribute to the use of each one, but available time, line size, importance, and audience are some obvious variables. Here are the four I can pinpoint as distinct:

1) All caps. Larger letters where capitals would normally be. Characters are usually very close together. Points are very pointy, round extensions are sweeping.

2) Normal capitalization. The bodies of most letters are small, but certain lines of lowercase letters extend upward (b, d, h, k, l) or downward (g, j, f, p, q, y) in a quick, spastic lurch such that they often noticeably cross into other lines.

3) Normal capitalization, but lowercase letters are oversized to occupy the entire height of the line. This is the neatest of the three.

4) Normal capitalization. Similar to #2, except much wider due to writing fast and much less legible. Many tails, circles, and semicircles are incomplete.

Given that 4 describes best what my fast writing looks like, you could say that it, and by extension #2, are the most "natural," but I don't think the choice to use 1 or 3 is ever a conscious one.

You could probably draw all sorts of interesting psychological conclusions about me and my formative years based on this (maybe something about self-esteem, identity crises, or some form of artistic expression?), but that's not my point.

My point is that I have several handwriting styles that few people ever see, but my communication is almost exclusively mediated by technology. I have mailed maybe two written letters in the past 10 years and my stamp consumption is probably down to about 4-5/year. When I do write something online, however, I almost always use default fonts. If I'm in Word, I'm using Times New Roman. On the web, usually Arial, Verdana, Georgia, or whatever else a given site offers. Every once in a while my love for late 80s/early 90s telecommunications shows and I switch to a Courier font, but other than that, I'm fontually dull.

Why? I don't even feel so much as a desire to seek out or use a different font.

At some point I had a DOS program that allowed you to pretty easily create a TrueType font. Just draw the letters in their respective 20px by 20px boxes. The first thing I tried to do--as I imagine many did--was to try to make a font that looked like my handwriting. The foremost problem with that program for me was that it didn't have a way to change the appearance of a letter based on the one that came before or after it. The e after an h looks slightly different than an e after an s or before an o. It's a matter of where your hand ends one letter, where the next one begins, and the level of concentration it takes to make a letter (yes, I would submit that a capital Q takes slightly more mental juice to write than a lowercase a). Although I was able to find a way to make the font recognizable as being created in my handwriting's likeness (something like a caricature of the real thing), it was still clearly just a gimmicky simulacrum.

So why a robot to write calligraphy? Well, because there's a certain charm to something that's handwritten. Calligraphy is an art form; it makes text look beautiful. It's also more difficult, and thus more respected. Mostly, though, it has become exotic. It's superfluous and luxurious--an unnecessary relic being pulled through the technology that has caused people to see it as pretty, but unproductive. Who's got time?

Now then, what if a robot--or an inkjet--could simply write in calligraphy for you instead of spitting out some bland sans-serif? First, Arial is easier to read quickly than calligraphy, so we might have to relegate it to select personal or formal correspondence. But even then, would anybody care? PERFECT calligraphy, we're talking. I don't think so. But why?

Even though we might not be able to tell the difference between documents written by human or robot (which could even be coded to screw up or drag the pen once in a while), it just doesn't feel special coming from electronics. Calligraphy is an art form. Art has to come from humans. If it comes from a computer and can be reproduced--if anybody can do it--it becomes less.

Handwriting is, to most people, kind of a dull subject. Computer typography even more so. I think that is why this is so interesting to me.

[Robot via Next Nature]