Performance artist Tim Youd types Raymond Chandler's, "Farewell, My lovely" on a vintage Underwood Noiseless typewriter at the Santa Monica Pier on Tuesday, January 28. 2014.
Youd performs the re-typing of entire novels on a single piece of paper, utilizing the same make and model typewriter used by the original author. In his process, Youd covers a piece of paper with a top sheet, so that the underlying page receives the indentation from the keys but not the ink, except where the typewriter keys break through the top sheet. When Youd gets to the bottom of a page, he reinserts the same page back into the typewriter. The result is a highly formal yet very surprising diptych - the top sheet densely covered in ink, mirrored against a heavily indented but mostly un-inked page.
Geography is integral to the performance. Youd looks to conduct his retyping in a location germane to the author's life, or to some facet of the novel itself. He plans to type 100 novels in the next five years.
