Writing Lines, A Labor of Love
Paper, archival pen and highlighter, wooden frames
2022-ongoing
A handwritten data visualization, I embody Kindle Popular Highlights from romance novels by writing and highlighting them the number of times that people highlighted them on Kindle. A passage in a Kindle e-book becomes a Popular Highlight after a certain number of people independently highlight the same passage. Popular Highlights show up as underlined text along with the number of people who highlighted that passage. These highlighted passages are not the sort of thing that people would broadcast. They aren’t something people are saving to return to later or posting on Goodreads. Not having to perform through a persona allows people to express their empathy and vulnerability. Since 2010, I have collected Kindle Popular Highlights from romance novels into a database. Each time I write a highlight, I imagine what someone might have been feeling when they highlighted it. One piece in this series had as few as 4 highlighters and the page was mostly empty. At the other extreme, some Popular Highlights were highlighted by hundreds to thousands of people anonymously. For the largest piece, I wrote and highlighted the same highlight 1158 times, which took 10 full 22x30" pages.