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literaturegeek.bsky.social
Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
@literaturegeek.bsky.social
9K followers 5K following 1.3K posts
@ScholarsLab Director ✨💻📚🏳️‍🌈 (personal acct 🙃)
Just+joyful, critical+creative tech & culture

*DIY scholcom: letterpress+zine+blog+code
*Book-adjacent data+making
*Experimental/DH+library futures+community

3 !s in a hoodie
Dr! 🏳️‍⚧️ They/Them
AmandaVisconti.com
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literaturegeek.bsky.social
Amanda Wyatt! Visconti @literaturegeek.bsky.social · Nov 9
Hi new folks! I post on: intersections of tech/culture/justice, making+craft (zines, weird resin, letterpress/book arts, color+light, retro tech), directing a digital humanities research center, transformative justice, bookadjacent code/data. General enthusiast; laugh inappropriately loudly at puns.
Photo of a full-size-skull (front half) made of translucent resin, with embedded ramen noodle block in the brain area, and chatter teeth in the teeth area, held up to the sun so the light shines through the translucent resin from the back. Photo of materials for the Ghost Books project artfully arranged on a floor, including a swirl of blue LEDs with silicone diffusion making them look like neon lights, superglue, acrylic and glass cut to size to be assembled into a rectangular-prism/book shape with smoothe or crenellated edges, and one of the books I'm basing the initial prototype on (10 PRINT) because of it's interesting blue and white patterned cover. A photo of a white lab-hound mix dog lying down but with head up, basking in the bright sun with eyes squeezed shut in pleasure. There is a red brick wall behind the dog. Example themed reading card deck, prepared for the ACH 2023 conference's #DHmakes (digital humanities making) session. An open plastic playing card case holds a playing-card-style card with information about the "#DHMakes at #ACH2023" project governing the readings chosen for inclusion in the deck; next to the case is a fanned-out pile of playing-card-style cards showing tech, GLAM, and social justice zine titles such as "Kult of the Cyber Witch #1" and "Handbook for the Activist Archivist"; on the top of the fanned pile you can see a whole card. The whole card is white with black text; the title "Design Justice for Action" is in large print at the top of the card, followed by a list of the zine's creators (Design Justice Network, Sasha Costanza-Chock, Una Lee, Victoria Barnett, Taylor Stewart), the hashtags "#DHMakes #ACH2023, and a black square QR code (which links to an online version of that zine).
literaturegeek.bsky.social
Goudy, goudy! New printshop typecase labels & type finder I created (a 15-page list of just type distributed in standard job cases, not even all the type Virginia Book Arts has?!) have landed (thanks to VBA colleagues for applying labels & helping proof inventory updates):
This photo shows just cases labeled for the "Goudy" font, which is why I made a "goody"/"Goudy" pun in my tweet. Photo of a cabinet full of letterpress wooden typecases, with eye levels dating the font, size, and cabinet/case ID. Photo of a spread of laminated pages listing Virginia Book Arts' type collection in a table showing font, size, and cabinet/case IDs for where to find them. Photo of a cabinet full of letterpress wooden and metal typecases, with eye levels dating the font, size, and cabinet/case ID. Fonts shown include Belair, Thompson Quill, and Futura. Photo of a cabinet full of letterpress wooden and metal typecases, with eye levels dating the font, size, and cabinet/case ID. Fonts shown include Centaur, Arrighi, and Shaded.
November 14, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
ryancordell.org
I went ahead & printed a small stack during office hours because they’re cool & I like the typewriter

And correction HT to @mkirschenbaum.bsky.social who made the original
November 13, 2025 at 9:39 PM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
More lasercut print blocks I made: historical dancing skeleton! Beckoning Luddite leaders! #DHmakes
Photo of a wood block cut so an image of a historical "danse macabre" style dancing skeleton cavorts, raised from its surface, for printing Photo of two 9" tall bamboo boards that have each been lasercut to show a historical image of a beckoning Luddite leader; one is raised from the surface and one is inset
November 13, 2025 at 11:34 PM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
fosis.bsky.social
Such a privilege to have something I made hanging in the @scholarslab.bsky.social, who represent all the good parts of academia to me 😊
literaturegeek.bsky.social Amanda Wyatt! Visconti @literaturegeek.bsky.social · 1d
New art in @scholarslab.bsky.social's Text Aisle! Huge thanks to #DHmakes colleague @fosis.bsky.social for letting us exhibit his bright & strong "Pride" banner in our public space ("Make your pride part of history"🌈):
Photo of a wall hung with multiple posters and a banner. A large black cotton banner created by Francis Osid has appliqued felt letters, each in a different color creating an overall gradient effect. The letters spell "Make your pride part of history". The posters are the cover of Élika Ortega's book "Binding Media: Hybrid print-digital literature from across the Americas", on a white background with a large, pixelated, gradient yellow to red to purple mouse cursor series on top; the cover of the "Digital Futures of Graduate Studies in the Humanities" volume; and last year's Praxis Fellows research poster on analyzing archival university satire magazines. Closeup photo on a large black cotton banner created by Francis Osid has appliqued felt letters, each in a different color creating an overall gradient effect. The letters spell "Make your pride part of history". Photo of a museum exhibit label that says: "Pride 2025 Francis Osis, queer archivist & artist living in Glasgow, Scotland Materials: felt & cotton Methods: hand appliqué & machine sewing This banner was made in a feverish last minute scramble for West Lothian's 10th anniversary Pride, which the West Lothian Council Museums & Archives Services attended to engage with the local community & to encourage donations to the service so their history could be told. In addition to his archival expertise, Francis Osis holds a Ph.D. in history of medicine, and creates textile and fibre based art including clothes, quilts, and embroideries."
November 13, 2025 at 7:03 PM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
At @scholarslab.bsky.social Coffee+Code listening to UVA Spanish ABD & SLab Intern @winnieepm.bsky.social talk about using the static site generator (tool that helps you make very lightweight mostly-HTML websites) @11ty.dev (www.11ty.dev) to create her portfolio site #mincomp
November 13, 2025 at 6:03 PM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
New art in @scholarslab.bsky.social's Text Aisle! Huge thanks to #DHmakes colleague @fosis.bsky.social for letting us exhibit his bright & strong "Pride" banner in our public space ("Make your pride part of history"🌈):
Photo of a wall hung with multiple posters and a banner. A large black cotton banner created by Francis Osid has appliqued felt letters, each in a different color creating an overall gradient effect. The letters spell "Make your pride part of history". The posters are the cover of Élika Ortega's book "Binding Media: Hybrid print-digital literature from across the Americas", on a white background with a large, pixelated, gradient yellow to red to purple mouse cursor series on top; the cover of the "Digital Futures of Graduate Studies in the Humanities" volume; and last year's Praxis Fellows research poster on analyzing archival university satire magazines. Closeup photo on a large black cotton banner created by Francis Osid has appliqued felt letters, each in a different color creating an overall gradient effect. The letters spell "Make your pride part of history". Photo of a museum exhibit label that says: "Pride 2025 Francis Osis, queer archivist & artist living in Glasgow, Scotland Materials: felt & cotton Methods: hand appliqué & machine sewing This banner was made in a feverish last minute scramble for West Lothian's 10th anniversary Pride, which the West Lothian Council Museums & Archives Services attended to engage with the local community & to encourage donations to the service so their history could be told. In addition to his archival expertise, Francis Osis holds a Ph.D. in history of medicine, and creates textile and fibre based art including clothes, quilts, and embroideries."
November 13, 2025 at 5:34 PM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
#DHmakes <3s pre-digital text tech + textile-based styles:
whitneytrettien.bsky.social Whitney Trettien @whitneytrettien.bsky.social · 2d
A better image. Typewritten, but looks like needlework.
Montserrat Alberich typewriter art, title page of Don Quijote.
November 13, 2025 at 12:06 PM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
skeuomorphpress.org
Now that our edition of Ursula K. Le Guin's "A Rant About 'Technology'" is (finally!) printed, bound, packed, & with campus mail, on its way to folks, we’re making approximately 60 of the internal poster available separately

If you’d like to claim one see the order form at forms.gle/BKJQWSmcnuq8...
A poster on white paper. In orange ink is an illustration of six matches, with a flame rising from the first four, reaching to the top of the page. In various fonts of wood type, black ink overprints the flames and reads: TECHNOLOGY IS THE ACTIVE HUMAN INTERFACE WITH THE MATERIAL WORLD In the bottom right corner is an attribution to URSULA K. LE GUIN A stack of posters on white paper, with an individual poster sitting to the right of the stack. In orange ink is an illustration of six matches, with a flame rising from the first four, reaching to the top of the page. In various fonts of wood type, black ink overprints the flames and reads: TECHNOLOGY IS THE ACTIVE HUMAN INTERFACE WITH THE MATERIAL WORLD In the bottom right corner is an attribution to URSULA K. LE GUIN
November 12, 2025 at 5:22 PM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
Seen at @virginiabookarts.bsky.social, Liz Schneiders & students' printing using just tetrapaks (eg broth & oat milks cartons!) & tiny plastic Sizzix craft/scrapbooker presses or etching presses #DHmakes
Photo of a red brick wall displaying a 4 x 4 grid of small (about 3" square) aqua and black art prints of trees, sea creatures, and more, under a title print that says "TetraPak Prints" Photo of a red brick wall displaying a long strip of material printed in aqua and black with the backwards words "TetraPak Prints"; a tab at the bottom of the strip says "LIFT to see back of printing plate" Photo of a red brick wall displaying a long strip of material printed in aqua and black with the backwards words "TetraPak Prints"; a tab at the bottom of the strip says "LIFT to see back of printing plate" and has been lifted to show the back of that printing plate is just a strip of chicken broth carton material Photo of an exhibit label on a red brick wall. It says "Tetra Pak Printmaking The following sampling of prints were made by visitors to our Book Arts Demonstration Day held during the Virginia Festival of the Book in March of 2025. We made printing plates cut out of Tetra Pak, a material commonly used for packaging food such as broth, oat milk, soups and more. Guests were invited to "draw" on a piece of Tetra Pak with a pointed awl. Each plate was then inked, wiped clean of excess ink, and run through a small etching press with a dampened sheet of watercolor paper to produce a print. Tetra Pak printing has become quite popular as a fast, affordable and eco-friendly method of printmaking. Look for classes and demos at Virginia Book Arts in the coming year."
November 13, 2025 at 11:07 AM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
scholarslab.bsky.social
Early morning makerspace still life. We 💜 how our community has filled the room with their art 🎨🪡🖨️
Photo of a desk and window sill in the Scholars' Lab Makerspace in early morning light, showing a sewing machine or serger, and various art such as felted animals and pumpkins, lego cacti, and costumed mannequin dolls
November 13, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
katrinacallsen.com
Governor Elect Spanberger advises the UVA BOV to pause selection of a new President until they have a Board approved by the General Assembly. A good and fair call.
Dear Rector Sheridan and Vice Rector Wilkinson: As both a proud alumna and the Governor-elect of the Commonwealth of Virginia, I am deeply concerned by recent developments at the University of Virginia and how these challenges may impact the legitimacy of the current search for the University’s next president. Over the past six months, the actions of the Board of Visitors have severely undermined the public’s and the University community’s confidence in the Board’s ability to govern productively, transparently, and in the best interests of the University. This loss of confidence is reflected in the numerous votes of no confidence from both the faculty senate and the student council – constituencies essential to the University’s success and those directly affected by the critical decisions before the Board. In addition, as five Board appointees have failed to achieve confirmation by the General Assembly, the Board is not fully constituted and its composition is now in violation of statutory requirements in crucial respects, further calling into question the legitimacy of the Board and its actions. In the wake of the departure of President Jim Ryan as a result of federal overreach – unchallenged by the Board – the University now faces the serious task of selecting its tenth president. The next University president will not only lead the University of Virginia but will also serve as an example of leadership across the Commonwealth’s public institutions of higher education at a time of unprecedented challenges. The search for a university president is the most consequential action a university board can undertake, and in all cases, such a search must be conducted through a legitimate and transparent process. That requirement is especially critical for the University of Virginia at this moment, and that legitimate and transparent process must be led by a Board that is fully constituted and commands the trust of the University community and the confidence of the citizens… The benefits of selecting a new president with a full, duly-constituted Board are clear and include: (1) providing credibility to the search process and the selection decision; (2) ensuring that the individual chosen to lead the University benefits from having been chosen in a credible and transparent process; and (3) removing any concern that the Board’s actions are illegitimate due to a lack of authority. Given our shared commitment to the success of the University, the aforementioned concerns, and my commitment to making Board appointments quickly upon my swearing in, I again urge the Board to refrain from making any selections of finalists or ultimately a president until the Board is fully constituted and statutorily compliant. Respectfully, Abigail Spanberger Governor-elect of the Commonwealth of Virginia
November 12, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
prisonculture.bsky.social
You look for cracks everywhere to exploit against fascists. Period. I think some people seem confused about the state of things in this country.
November 12, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
prisonculture.bsky.social
The value of reading history is you know that in 1860 there were abolitionists who were so demoralized that they thought chattel slavery would be permanent. 5 years later those still alive had lived to see its end.
November 12, 2025 at 8:05 PM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
Making things. (Lasercut two 9" tall Luddite printing blocks on bamboo wood; acrylic triangles to glue randomly across a wood board, for printing textured letterpress backgrounds
Closeup photo of a laser-etched image on a stripey bamboo wood plank; the image is from the historical watercolor of the "General of the Luddites", a man in a bonnet and dress gesturing as if to encourage others onward Photo of a lasercutter bed with three 3"x3" squares of orange, green, and blue transparent neon acrylic; the green square has been cut into many small regularly sized triangles
November 12, 2025 at 11:39 PM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
whitneytrettien.bsky.social
Holy shit, just learned about the typewriter art of Montserrat Alberich Escardívol, a Catalan typist. Using an extra wide typewriter and 180 color ribbons, she built up elaborate images from simple characters like 'm' and '.' and ';'. Here is her typewritten painting of the Cathedral of Barcelona.
Full-color image of the Cathedral of Barcelona, composed on a typewriter by Montserrat Alberich Escardívol. Image from WikiMedia.
November 12, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
melissaterras.bsky.social
We are featured in over 50 news outlets today: PhD student David Mahoney's research using web archives, @archive.org, to measure historic website emissions, offering a new method and open-source code for analysing & highlighting online environmental impact. www.energylivenews.com/2025/11/11/c...
COP websites emit 10 times more carbon than average webpages - Energy Live News
COP conference websites emit more carbon per page view than typical webpages
www.energylivenews.com
November 11, 2025 at 9:34 AM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
zinelib.bsky.social
The zine libraries unconference wiki has been updated with a statement from the organizers about someone who attended the event in order to spy on and record it without permission. www.zinelibraries.info/wiki/zluc2025/ This infiltrator is driving an effort to get a zine librarian fired. 📚
Zine Librarians unConference 2025 | zinelibraries.info
www.zinelibraries.info
November 11, 2025 at 7:32 PM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
Zine/letterpress overlap: Chris Fritton's free zine about dayglo letterpress inks! itinerantprinter.com/wp-content/u... (Fritton runs Itinerant Printer—beautiful prints w/backgrounds I think made using press wash to swirl the ink before printing?) +
literaturegeek.bsky.social Amanda Wyatt! Visconti @literaturegeek.bsky.social · 2d
I ran across this while researching dayglo letterpress inks & I think this is ZineBakery.com's goal aesthetic 😂🌈 (Letterpress ink is so interesting re:pigments, opacity; most are translucent, so e.g. for a opaque black there's actual silver *metal*—not dye—to achieve that opacity.)
Screenshot of a very bright, colorful, Lisa-Frank-esque pattern resembling tiger stripes made of purple, pink, yellow, teal, and blue. Those colors also appear below separated out, with their web hex codes written on them
November 12, 2025 at 11:19 AM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
I ran across this while researching dayglo letterpress inks & I think this is ZineBakery.com's goal aesthetic 😂🌈 (Letterpress ink is so interesting re:pigments, opacity; most are translucent, so e.g. for a opaque black there's actual silver *metal*—not dye—to achieve that opacity.)
Screenshot of a very bright, colorful, Lisa-Frank-esque pattern resembling tiger stripes made of purple, pink, yellow, teal, and blue. Those colors also appear below separated out, with their web hex codes written on them
November 12, 2025 at 11:14 AM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
Free DHy zine alert! @capnpilot.bsky.social's
* "CTRL+S: Preserving Your Work for the Long Haul" (plan, preserve/archive resilient digital projects, so that when time to sunset them, is easy to preserve core attributes)
* "Web-Native Cryptids & Creatures: A Spotter’s Guide" (web safety+literacy)
November 12, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Reposted by Amanda Wyatt! Visconti
amberfirefly.mastodon.green.ap.brid.gy
Set myself up a little printing press out of a slightly modified old pasta machine, kind of works! Not the result you'd get from the tonnes of pressure from the real presses, but still not too shabby :)
Pasta machine clamped to a desk, with a metal board and felt blankets to run through the rollers Test print of little figures doing somersaults and jumping over 4 abstract pie charts
November 11, 2025 at 3:45 PM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
Letterpress/DH/librarian satisfactions:

reorg'd printshop cases+assigned cabinets letters to help find case #

made new clear typecase labels

turned old word doc type collection list into a database=filter/sort, track type's foundry, print quality, acquisition history, example prints using it etc
November 12, 2025 at 12:13 AM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
At Jess Walter's @uvalibrary.bsky.social Zines Now! workshop in @scholarslab.bsky.social. Jess is starting us off w/reading zines they shared on our tables so we can share the different approaches to advocacy-via-zine we observe (& folks new to zines can get up to speed too).
scholarslab.bsky.social Scholars' Lab @scholarslab.bsky.social · 7d
"Can expressing and exchanging our experiences through zines provoke changes in perception, convention, or policy?" Tuesday 11/11 Jess Walters helps us explore—and then learn to make!—zines as tools for advocacy. (You may remember their past excellent SLab event on zines for disability justice!)
Zines Now! Workshop: Zines for Change
Join us for an interactive workshop for Zines Now!, a year-long initiative showcasing the history of zines as an art form, highlighting future possibilities for the making and...
cal.lib.virginia.edu
November 11, 2025 at 10:43 PM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
Printed a version of this for nonbookmaker folks ("our community says" instead of "bookmakers & binders say"), with a neon green border under black ink:
Photo of a letterpress print made with wood and lead type on white paper, and a black ink overlaid on neon green so just an edge of green showed around the black. It says "Our community says / all you fascists bound to lose / Justice hinges on us gathering / bind us together / leave no one behind". The word "hinges" is set diagonally off the word "justice" to look like it's hinging Photo of a letterpress print made with wood and lead type on white paper, and a black ink overlaid on neon green so just an edge of green showed around the black. It says "Our community says / all you fascists bound to lose / Justice hinges on us gathering / bind us together / leave no one behind". The word "hinges" is set diagonally off the word "justice" to look like it's hinging. The green edging is narrower on this print than on the print in the previous photo.
November 10, 2025 at 10:14 PM
literaturegeek.bsky.social
I got one of the wood lasercut blocks of @queermedieval.bsky.social's to print better: "We can be soft & brave / silly & right" and "hope comes from us" #DHmakes
Photo of a letterpress print on cream paper with bright green ink. It says "we can be / SOFT & BRAVE / SiLLY & RIGHT" over an image printed using a lasercut wood block made from @queermedieval.bsky.social's drawing of the Portland Frog standing up to evil government agents. Photo of a letterpress print on white paper with bright green ink. It says "HOPE comes from us." over an image printed using a lasercut wood block made from @queermedieval.bsky.social's drawing of the Portland Frog standing up to evil government agents. Photo of a letterpress press bed with a print at one end on white paper with bright green ink. It says "HOPE comes from us." over an image printed using a lasercut wood block made from @queermedieval.bsky.social's drawing of the Portland Frog standing up to evil government agents. At the other end of the press you can see the rollers and wood type that made the print inked in green. Closeup photo of a letterpress print on cream paper with bright green ink. It shows an image printed using a lasercut wood block made from @queermedieval.bsky.social's drawing of the Portland Frog standing up to evil government agents.
November 10, 2025 at 10:01 PM