Wanted: The Chromatic Typewriter

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Washington-based artist Tyree Callahan has created a rather fascinating objet d’art the likes of which we’ve never seen — a 1937 Underwood Standard typewriter that is modified to paint with oils. Callahan replaced the ink pads with colored paint pads and the letter keys with color markers to build the painting machine, dubbed the Chromatic Typewriter. He submitted the creation, which we first spotted over at Colossal, to the 2012 West Prize competition, an annual art prize whose winner is determined by popular vote. We imagine the machine would take a little getting used to, and doubt it would ever produce better results than an artist with a brush, but we can’t help but wonder what our favorite poems and short stories would look like if we typed them out on the Chromatic Typewriter. Maybe like a muddy mess, but maybe, magically, they’d turn out looking like a divine sunset. Or at least we like to think so.