12.06.2021 / 22.08.2021

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I began to notice the inscriptions that can be seen on the streets of Porto (and elsewhere) that sometimes “climb” and appear on street lamps. These obsessively repeated inscriptions are, within what we know as tags, statements of identity, compulsive signatures of name [and] it interested me to understand how the terms scribomania or hypergraphia are used to describe a generalised obsession with inscription close to and typical of the schizophrenic situation. The desire to write beyond mere communication is commonly ascribed as a pathological mania that is historically a way of “disqualifying” even professional writers [...] Some more experimental pedagogical currents have been successfully using clay moulding to teach children the alphabet. Clay is then a recognised material to support cognitive stimulation and the relationship between the concrete and abstract side of language. [...]