Nieczytelność i ultraczytelność – sposoby angażowania odbiorcy w przestrzeni publicznej
Illegibility and Ultra-Legibility: Ways to Engage the Audience in Public Space

Summary/Abstract: The article presents two artistic strategies of effective communication in public space thatdiffer from simple persuasion. One is the tradition of a relatively autonomous message,which presents the viewer with the task of solving a rebus or riddle, discovering a code,or a complex process of thinking that combines images with texts, illegible without priorpreparation (Polish School of Posters). The other one accumulates associations, requiresreading and interpreting more than the seemingly simple and comprehensible structureoffers, whose mysteriousness lies in the oscillation of meanings and the difficulty inidentifying oneself with a particular reading (Twożywo). Both strategies prepare forarbitrary decisions in the reading process, for “reading from memory,” and for anticipatingmeaning. This has particularly interesting consequences in “reading the city,” namely bytransforming messages that we would not want to receive. Graffiti is particularly proneto transforming meanings of texts, changing functions of images to texts, and the otherway around.

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