FTHo

Redacted Royal Retouched (2026) is a digitally enhanced photograph of a modified ‘Royal’ model typewriter. The original unlettered black keyed typewriter was made as a prop for the durational performance the mechanical construction of random language thrown from an island into the sea, Eastside Projects, Birmingham (2016) and On darkness, BEEF, Bristol (2017). Coy’s manipulation of the typewriter, both physically and digitally, complicates the status of the object as artefact. The Royal model typewriter has a near mythical status as the model used by Jack Kerouac to write On the road (1953), and then again by Ed Rushca as the subject of his seminal book work Royal Road Test (1967).