by Jarema Drogowski

The origin of the project was my idea that arose while I was
reading a book. Every other sentence seemed to be written
with ‘he whispered’, ‘she said quietly’ etc., but when the
characters were shouting it was simply enough to put an
exclamation mark. I put the book aside and thought: ‘Why
there is no whisper mark?!’ Then I thought of an art project
that would focus on designing and introducing a new
punctuation mark, the WHISPER MARK. Words that are
whispered can be the most powerful ones. When we share
an observation, a deeply hidden emotion or when we admit
that we made a mistake, thereby showing our weak side to
a person we trust, we whisper. The WHISPER MARK is a
tool that enables better and fuller communication because
it widens our emotional spectrum and ways of expressing
thoughts in writing. It helps in developing intimate,
more sensitive spheres of understanding in writing about
difficult matters. It is also a balance to the overused exclamation
mark. The WHISPER MARK fills the gap in punctuation
by allowing writers to easily mark a part of text
that is to be interpreted as spoken softly.
Tags conceptual, research
Technique Other
