Tyndale Box (2004-2008)
Hand bound with goat skin leather, gold leafed book
A four and a half year project, completed whilst research fellows at Durham University, Tyndale Box is a translation of the entire Old and New testaments of the King James version of the bible into SMS text. With around 4 billion text messages per month sent in Britain alone at the time of this piece, SMS text (pre-predictive text) was one of the fastest evolving languages on Earth. It has been charged with insidiously eroding literacy levels; a phonetic language with flagrant disregard for grammatical conventions, that bastardizes its host for the sake of speed and economy. However it is this very need for character rationing that fuels the inventiveness and humour imbued in SMS translations. Tyndale Box is a unique, goat-skin leather, gold-leafed book, hand-bound by one of the finest book binders in Europe. It is the only existing complete translation of the entire bible into SMS text in the world.