When we apply the vernacular of digital entrepreneurialism to the conditions of our society, what does it mean? This question is the impetus for WRD DSRPTR; the iterations thereof supply its answer.
WRD DSRPTR is a series of noun phrases that construes the profound social transformation of the Bay Area through the ideology of tech speak. By utilizing buzzwords to contextualize the actors and issues of this process, each phrase presents and interprets a relation between the two in a collaboration of ideas. So an independent contractor, for instance, relates to the minimum wage via “reconfiguration;” or a Winnebago to the affordable housing crisis via “innovation.” However descriptive or absurd these relations may appear, the worldview encoded therein proposes not only to explain our shared reality, but to exploit it.
WRD DSRPTR achieves this dual goal by optimizing form and function.
In consideration of form, WRD DSRPTR launches a novel typeface composed of a finite number of shapes, the relations of which manifest each letter. Toward a continuity of user interface, the dimensions and layout of these shapes must conform to specific spatial rules that ensure all letters are equal in width and height. (These rules are proprietary.)
In consideration of function, WRD DSRPTR employs a language program identifying three categories of words whereby noun phrases may be algorithmically arranged. In detail, these categories are: a social actor or implement; a social issue or economic concept; and a tech buzzword or computing term. Toward maximal program functionality, all categories must be nouns or suggestive of nouns, and their order must be consecutive as listed here.
The optimization of form and function is realized in the synthesis of both. Indeed, the form of the typeface is so designed that the act of reading it becomes a metaphor for comprehending its function, that is, the noun phrases it communicates. For within the logic of WRD DSRPTR, the reader must discern a system of relations by way of that system’s component parts in order that any meaning be derived from those relations.
WRD DSRPTR disrupts words. You’re not speaking a second language. You’re not living a virtual reality.