A large mirror was placed on the grass beside a busy campus walkway with a sign: “Please Non-Write here.” I left the setup for a few hours, observing how people interpreted and enacted non-writing. Visitors responded with gestures, marks, and actions that variously complied with or subverted the prompt.
More than anything, my aim was to hold attention on the request itself, “non-writing” and whatever meaning it might take on, even if only for a moment. Many simply looked. I offered a dry-erase marker, the same tool many use daily for scientific thinking on campus, but asked it to be used without language. Meanwhile, the mirror produced its own “non-writing”: clouds and light moving across the surface.