This work is based on the traditional broadsheet format in early printing using a typical sheet size while combining haiku with early American style of typography used in printed announcements. The haikus are classics – however, here they are texted.
One can compare the reduction of words in texting with taking a photograph in a jpg file format. “Jpeging” compresses the photo so it stores smaller and can be sent faster over the web, but it is also a loss-compression process, which means that some data is thrown out. When it is restored for viewing software on a computer has to fill in that lost information. Sometimes, at low jpg settings, artifacts and pixelated effects are visible. In these texted haikus, the reader “resurrects” the words and their meaning when reading them. Linguistic artifacts show up just like in a jpeg file.
This connects well with traditional American typography in early prints using the broadsheet format. Fonts were chosen largely by what typefaces were at hand and would promise the largest words in a line, regardless if they fit stylistically with the types in the line above or below. The common American view that “bigger is better” leads to larger words which in turn command more attention. Tabloids still do this today. Texting enhances the haiku's already sparse use of words and measured restriction of syllables.
Slightly dissonant visual elements are embedded in these broadsheet interpretations to add some acidity to the perceived “romantic” notion that haikus have acquired over time.
This body of work is an amalgamation of Eastern poetic sensibilities, New World design principles, and Old World "bite of the print" social commentary. The term carries the second meaning of using an acid to ”bite" the image into a plate or block to print from it.