By showing diverse examples of book genres, the speaker provides an opportunity to follow the changeable process of modifying punctuation to see how she has added and removed punctuation as a poet and editor, and what difference such acts have made. This encourages the audience to reflect on the punctuation marks they recognize and use in their own ways.

Preview
“Punctuation marks are symbols through which the writer and editor confirm their trust in each other. The game of choosing punctuation marks within a consensual frame of rules is built on trust, which is why certain marks selected for certain texts sometimes attest to the relationship between the writer and editor. If the relationship is built on trust and communication, the editor can rely on their judgment to establish a principle for selecting punctuation marks within the writer’s text. The editor can replace certain commas with ellipses and certain periods with exclamation marks for an added appeal to emotions. But these changes should be made only when the editor is convinced that they have completely read and digested the text. From the moment the editor picks up the manuscript until it is materialized into a book, they must also never forget the fact that the text belongs to the writer and not the editor themselves.

On the other hand, the writer is in a completely different mindset when faced with the question of which punctuation mark to use in their text. The choice must come naturally, so to speak. A tree does not take on added beauty when we analyze its growth, nor does rain when we measure its amount, nor a flower when we grieve its fall. They are only so profoundly beautiful when they grow, pour, and fall as intended by nature. The beauty of a naturally derived result achieves depth only when it is devoid of tricks and wiles—that is, when it inherently lacks the capacity to devise, invent, or calculate. Like a shaman’s ritual of dancing on a blade, the act of writing is like dancing with one’s full weight on the blade of the pen, possessed by the will to express. And as this ritual allows the writer to freely roam within the text, punctuation marks serve the role of shamanic props, such as the ‘banners of the guardian gods of five directions,’ unwittingly picked up and waggled by the writer when they find themselves at a dead end or a turning point. In this sense, it is when the writer cannot explain why they chose a red flag here, a blue flag there, or a black or yellow flag here and there that the reader’s curiosity is heightened. Perhaps this kind of inexplicability is the most honest form of sincerity that white paper can spit out in black ink.

For the editor and writer alike, the punctuation marks they hold in their hands are forms of shamanic tools. So, why does a shaman choose to switch to different banners at different points of a gut (shamanic ritual)? What is clear is that, at the beginning of each book, the editor and writer, possessed by the spirit of the text, lead an exhilarating gut under the conviction that it will do each other ‘good,’ and that almost every book in this world is a form of passion, delivered to us through this intense process.”

Voice actors reproduce scripts through speech by reading not only lines but also elements like the amount, pace, and temperature of breath. A scriptwriter doesn’t usually voice their own script. Thus, a script, like a musical score, can be read in a hundred different voices depending on the actor. Can the words in a script be reproduced exactly as imagined by its writer? What roles do punctuation marks play in the process of reproducing text in the form of speech?

Preview
“When I receive a script, I spend hours deciding how to handle the punctuation marks. I don’t worry about dubbing, which is the process of syncing dialogues with lip movements on screen, but audio dramas are different. If there are seven exclamation marks in a script, do they mean to make a very loud voice, or do they just contain information on inner energy? How do I vary my expression of ellipses when some have three dots and others have five or over ten dots?

When writing text, we use word spacing and commas to articulate the meaning of sentences, but when we read it aloud, we don’t need to pause at every comma and comply with word spacing. This explains why the voice generated by TTS (text to speech) technology sounded awkward at first, as machines pause between all words and at all commas. So, in the world of voice actors, we often say ‘Don’t be trapped by punctuation marks.’”

Film director Raoul Peck said, “Any historical narrative is a particular bundle of silences” in his documentary miniseries Exterminate All the Brutes (2021). How can people hear a voice that is silenced, inaudible, or decidedly unheard? To do so requires a completely different hearing method, language, and understanding of the world.

Through several examples of cases in the history of graphic design in which silence was broken down, the lecturer asks whether we are truly ready to face the unheard voices and what they have to say.

Preview
“A certain ………………………………………… is repeated. …… repeated ………………………………………………………………. There is no …………………………………………………………………………………………………. ……………………………………………………… thinking ………………………. … wait ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. ………………… locked up ……………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………………………………… like treasure ……………………………………………………… ……. …………… disorderly ………………………………………………… ………………………………………………………………………. ………………………………………… bundle of sounds.”

In digital typesetting, punctuation marks are often used as an active element of typography. The speaker talks about what visual discussions are generated by punctuation marks in the borderland between type designers and users, along with the typographical roles of punctuation marks—something designers consider when dealing with text.

Preview
“Although it may seem fussy sometimes, there are some sensitive points that type designers routinely and naturally consider when designing punctuation marks. For example, when a paragraph begins with a quotation mark in Korean text, some editorial designers will take it out of the text frame in InDesign so that the left side of the text block can be nicely aligned without space. They also fine-tune the spacing between a quotation mark and certain initial consonants, as the space may seem too wide when the mark is followed by ‘ㅅ’ and too narrow when followed by ‘ㅁ.’ Some editorial designers even use self-designed punctuation marks. These types of users need Korean fonts to include punctuation marks for vertically oriented text, and Latin script fonts to include both uppercase and lowercase punctuation marks.

As a type designer, I always like to know what fonts users need. I believe that as users make more and more detailed and specific demands, hangeul fonts and typography will become more beautiful.”

Preview
“As breathing is one of the most crucial elements in singing a song, counting syllables is important in songwriting. I use punctuation marks a lot when arranging phrases to match my breath, marking breathing points, and making notes of such details. Lyrics are similar to poems. There is little punctuation in them, but their lines break according to the rhythm of the breath. What I have learned from performing on stage is that when I’m nervous, my breath becomes so short that I can’t adhere to the breathing points that I set for myself when I wrote the lyrics. For longer songs, determining breathing points is all the more important.”

A drum is the most primitive musical instrument in that it is beaten to make sounds. In a band, a drum is often considered an assistant to melodic instruments, but if a drummer cannot choose the correct rhythm and keep time, the band loses balance. In this regard, a drum is similar to punctuation, which provides context between words and controls the rhythm of narratives. Rather than language, which is sometimes ambiguous and imprecise, the finale of Punctuation Medley describes the atmosphere of the venue through a jazz drum solo—a kind of music considered too precise to be a language.*

Preview
“I play the drum quietly as if I’m whispering. Minimizing the resonance of percussion, like using small fonts, makes room for negative space.

‘Let’s play the drum quietly, like crawling ants,’ I told some children I was teaching.

One child tilted their head while another said softly that when ants crawl, they make the kind of sound that salt makes when it’s sprinkled. I have never tried sprinkling salt on sheet music, but the description makes me want to roll my mallets like they’re feathers. The percussion that will fill the space during the 10 minutes of provided time might sound like a march, but instead of a musical piece, the sound could be delivered just as a marching sound.”