IBM: chance encounters with a Selectric II typewriter
August 1–30, 2026
by appointment Mondays thru Saturdays, noon–10:00pm
with working examples on hand by
Oluwatobiloba Ajayi
Anni Albers
Carl Andre
Christian Bok
Marcel Broodthaers
York Chang
Natalie Diaz
Claire Fontaine
Jin Lee
Françoise Mairey
Jonah Mixon-Webster
N. H. Pritchard
Kathryn Scanlan
Roberto Tejada
Emmett Williams
The Broodthaers Society of America is pleased to present IBM, a multifaceted exhibition dedicated to the Selectric line of typewriters, the brand name being an engineer's in-house portmanteau of "selective" and "electric." The Broodthaers Society has acquired a vintage Selectric II in excellent working condition and offers all poets, visual language artists, weavers, and writers a chance to give it a whirl throughout the month of August.
There is really nothing like writing on a Selectric typewriter. First introduced in 1961, it is most famous for replacing the traditional array of individual type bars with a single, motorized ball. The ball is entirely covered with the upper- and lower-case letterforms of a given font and, when typing, it furiously spins and imparts each desired letterform emphatically onto the page. If you are a proficient typist and really get rolling, the Selectric has the effect of a hummingbird operating a jackhammer. It can be quite thrilling.
There were three versions of the Selectric: the Selectric I marked the first time in sixty years that an author sitting at a single typewriter could experiment with multiple fonts on the same page. The Selectric II introduced a correction ribbon, capable of making errors disappear by retyping them through a white, dry-transfer film. The Selectric III increased the number of available letterforms and fonts, albeit just in time for the personal computer to pretty much render Selectric typewriters obsolete.
For your writing pleasure there will be many inspiring examples of concrete poetry and typewriter drawings on hand, paramount being Emmett Williams' landmark essay "IBM" (1973). In the text, which begins as a letter to his partner in the next room, Williams proposes a self-propagating word system that is a de facto poetry writing machine. The premise—equally cathartic, sardonic, and ridiculous at the time—remains eerily prescient today. In the current creative climate, we welcome any opportunity to explore language's relationship to machines, however obsolete or modest they might be.
But you might ask: what does this have to do with Marcel Broodthaers? Well, Broodthaers spent his entire life searching for a technology through which he could speak, and his search took him somewhat famously backward in time as well as forward and sideways. Like Broodthaers, writers today continue to search for the language forms and writing instruments that will "click" for them, that will turn on the synapses of the frontal lobe, the parietal lobe, and the cerebellum that cause words to flow. For some, it's a legal pad and pencil; for others, it's dictation and transcription; for still others, it's a laptop in the fruitful oblivion of a bustling airport terminal.
This exhibition is a chance to see if a massive, humming, fifty-three-year-old behemoth might light things up for you. Time slots are already being booked, so reach out and make an appointment any Monday through Saturday in August between noon–10pm. Repeat visits are welcome. Refreshments are provided.
by appointment Mondays thru Saturdays, noon–10:00pm
with working examples on hand by
Oluwatobiloba Ajayi
Anni Albers
Carl Andre
Christian Bok
Marcel Broodthaers
York Chang
Natalie Diaz
Claire Fontaine
Jin Lee
Françoise Mairey
Jonah Mixon-Webster
N. H. Pritchard
Kathryn Scanlan
Roberto Tejada
Emmett Williams
The Broodthaers Society of America is pleased to present IBM, a multifaceted exhibition dedicated to the Selectric line of typewriters, the brand name being an engineer's in-house portmanteau of "selective" and "electric." The Broodthaers Society has acquired a vintage Selectric II in excellent working condition and offers all poets, visual language artists, weavers, and writers a chance to give it a whirl throughout the month of August.
There is really nothing like writing on a Selectric typewriter. First introduced in 1961, it is most famous for replacing the traditional array of individual type bars with a single, motorized ball. The ball is entirely covered with the upper- and lower-case letterforms of a given font and, when typing, it furiously spins and imparts each desired letterform emphatically onto the page. If you are a proficient typist and really get rolling, the Selectric has the effect of a hummingbird operating a jackhammer. It can be quite thrilling.
There were three versions of the Selectric: the Selectric I marked the first time in sixty years that an author sitting at a single typewriter could experiment with multiple fonts on the same page. The Selectric II introduced a correction ribbon, capable of making errors disappear by retyping them through a white, dry-transfer film. The Selectric III increased the number of available letterforms and fonts, albeit just in time for the personal computer to pretty much render Selectric typewriters obsolete.
For your writing pleasure there will be many inspiring examples of concrete poetry and typewriter drawings on hand, paramount being Emmett Williams' landmark essay "IBM" (1973). In the text, which begins as a letter to his partner in the next room, Williams proposes a self-propagating word system that is a de facto poetry writing machine. The premise—equally cathartic, sardonic, and ridiculous at the time—remains eerily prescient today. In the current creative climate, we welcome any opportunity to explore language's relationship to machines, however obsolete or modest they might be.
But you might ask: what does this have to do with Marcel Broodthaers? Well, Broodthaers spent his entire life searching for a technology through which he could speak, and his search took him somewhat famously backward in time as well as forward and sideways. Like Broodthaers, writers today continue to search for the language forms and writing instruments that will "click" for them, that will turn on the synapses of the frontal lobe, the parietal lobe, and the cerebellum that cause words to flow. For some, it's a legal pad and pencil; for others, it's dictation and transcription; for still others, it's a laptop in the fruitful oblivion of a bustling airport terminal.
This exhibition is a chance to see if a massive, humming, fifty-three-year-old behemoth might light things up for you. Time slots are already being booked, so reach out and make an appointment any Monday through Saturday in August between noon–10pm. Repeat visits are welcome. Refreshments are provided.