Individual Work
Letters to X

Jessica Barness’ Letters to X is an interactive interface utilizing sixteen anonymous pieces of handwritten letters in collaboration with digital copies to create a collage of emotionally driven words electronically. The digital copies permit personalization, by inserting individualized words within the piece creating overwhelming emotions when layered. Letters to X aims to reinstall emotion that gets lost through digital literature, and perhaps allows the reader to “blush, tremble, or grin.”

When opening the website, readers are connected to a blank canvas. On the right corner, a button labeled "Letters to X" acts as a drop-down menu when clicked, presenting sixteen key words as an indicator of each piece. Readers can choose to read the handwritten copy by utilizing the first button on the left side of the labeled piece, as well as personalizing the piece digitally by utilizing the second button on the left of the labeled piece.

Letters to X gives readers the opportunity to layer both digital and handwritten copies to make art of emotions. It’s innovative make up, engaging features to enhance personal aspects, and having the ability to pick and choose the product of the readers remixed letters creates amazing, individualized pieces. The layering feature in specific, is the driving force that shapes the ideologies of emotions digitally.

Elayna Montenero wrote this entry for ENGL 693: Digital Literature, Professor Melinda White, University of New Hampshire, Spring 2025.

Screenshots: 
Author statement: 
How might digital screens cause us to blush, tremble, or grin? Letters to X is an interface that utilizes handwritten correspondence as a catalyst for creating ‘new’ social media. It is also my critical commentary on how personal connections are affected by digital machines. I asked friends to handwrite a letter to “X” (this might be me, anyone, a specific person, or the universe) on a subject they would not typically email, text message, or post elsewhere online. Their letters are adapted here as phrasal templates alongside anonymized reproductions of the originals, and visitors are invited to create ‘new’ messages by editing and layering the texts. Through (re)writing, performance, and printing or saving, the resulting messages manifest as textures of our most intimate stories. Letters to X invites people to imagine personal correspondence as a form of electronic literature that may be continually rewritten.
Read the original work online here.