A typographic response to the "pornographic era"

A picture may paint a thousand words but typefaces can illustrate thousands of images, according to a current exhibition by Tel Aviv-based typographer Oded Ezer.

Ezer has taken widespread images found online of violence, sex and politics – particularly those that have gone viral – and amalgamated them into animated gifs so that those gifs form the typeface. A non-Muslim woman who teaches how to wear a Burka, an execution carried out by ISIS, a Jeep crashing into a Sphinx and a survivor of 9/11 are blown up or shrunken to reveal a letter made from each image. The end result spells out “We Are Family”.

“In the virtual war that transpires in the exhibit between typeface and imagery, it appears that the latter wins the battle by knockout,” says Dana Arieli, a professor at the HIT Holon Institute of Technology where the Practical Particles exhibit is taking place. “. . . The exhibit demonstrates that, akin to the rumour of the end of books, speculation as to the demise of phonetics is apparently premature.”

We Are Family joins three other new works in the Practical Particles solo exhibition, on at the Vitrina Gallery of the Holon Institute of Technology until January 28. (Breaking) The Crystal Goblet, Dot.Font and Art vs. Design are also intended as ‘typographic responses to current issues in culture and mass communication’.