UNREASONABLE CHARACTERS

The Unicode Standard relies on a key design principle: its authors encode character information, not characters’ visual forms, their glyphs. But ultimately, character and glyph are not so distinct. User interfaces and artistic practice often obscure their differences – and in the process, show Unicode for what it is: a historical record bound by prior standards and computing technology. Combining technological history with discussions of artists’ interventions in the standard, I trace in this record Unicode’s gaps, ghosts, and politics. For, the character–glyph distinction has governed what elements of writing Unicode supports, and its instability, I conclude, renders visible the decisions that make this so.