accidental signs

20x20

The illegible is part of the slate where meaning and its negative form the whole spectrum of what we read and cannot read.

re glass

Everything is reflection, like a pond. Before vision, there is reflection. All signs are born through a looking glass, where they share space with their direct opposites, matter and anti-matter, testimony to the forces that shape the signs we see, or do not see.

notes for asemic items

3 major tendencies

1. asemic as COMPOSED - drawn, scribbled, scrawled, typed, outlined, drafted, painted, etc. there is an AUTHORIAL aspect here that i am uneasy about. materials and techniques would also come into play, and the choice to keep things on a material medium or to digitize them as well. this can also include SHORTHAND, or any scriptural item that represents, not meaning, idea, or object, but another language or another sign or symbol. this can be interesting, since the shorthand functions as a form of substitute for another substitute.

2. asemic as FOUND - interesting because it means a semblance of writing is everywhere, and reminds us of the mythic belief in a cosmos, in natural design, in patterns, in a forest of symbols, etc. anything can be (mis)taken for a mysterious language or pattern, as in DIVINATION. from this, i can take pictures of weather beaten walls, copy out hand or skin patterns, trace surfaces on paper, etc. the process is: take a copy of, upload and digitize, modify as necessary. from here on, the logic of reproduction, quotation, dislocation, reterritorialization, reproduction would have added more unknown effects.

3. asemic as what HAPPENS - what may be interesting, far from this dichotomy, is the way anything asemic is processed, and the MATERIAL aspect overtakes both formal and semantic aspects. an example is twisting a newspaper, or crumpling in such a way that the paper distortion renders the prints illegible. see TOPOLOGY and ANAMORPHOSIS. two extreme ideas are at work in this case: transformation and conservation. signs and images are not READ, but are not obliterated. they remain, but become illegible because the material medium that supports them is EMPHASIZED. by undergoing a physical EVENT, the formal and semantic aspects give way, but are not erased. This physical TENSION overwrites semic intention, but remains discernible, that is, as asemic items. digital files are now easily manipulable through editing software, and can be considered as sources of physical tension.

all in all, the key element is the sustenance of the brain's known predilection to hunt for patterns, illusory or not. it is in this intersection between LANGUAGE and NON-LANGUAGE (in their bilateral relation) that we can see the whole dynamics of symbolic energies.

cross/words

cross/word

In the language of action (2009)

1. 

In the language of action loading. 

In the action of language loading. 

Pause for the analysis of action in the language of action. 

Pause for the analysis of language in the action of language. 

Action ongoing, language encoding. 

Language ongoing, action encoding. 

The action of language encoding ongoing. 

The language of action ongoing encoding. 

Pause for the analysis of action in the encoding. 

Pause for the analysis of language in the ongoing. 

The encoding of ongoing language of action in action. 

The ongoing encoding of the action of language in action. 

Analysis encoded in action. 

Analysis encoded in language. 

Pause for the ongoing encoding of the encoded analysis of the language of action. 

Pause for the ongoing encoding of the encoded analysis of the action of language.

2. 

Ongoing action of language on the language of action ongoing encoding. 

Ongoing action of language on the action of language encoding ongoing. 

The encoding of the ongoing language of encoding of the language of action in the analysis of the ongoing action of language. 

The language of the analysis of the encoded language of action in the ongoing action of encoding of the action of language in the action of language encoded. 

The language of ongoing encoding in the analysis ongoing encoding in the action of the language of action. 

The action in the language of the encoded language of encoding ongoing analysis in the language of encoded action. 

Pause for the action of language, pause for the language of action. Pause for the encoded action of ongoing encoding. 

Pause for the ongoing language of encoding action. 

The action of language in the language of action encoded. 

The language of action in the action of language ongoing.

3. 

The encoded language of action in the ongoing encoding of action ongoing encoding. 

The encoded action of language in the encoding language of action encoded ongoing. 

Pause for the analysis of the ongoing action of encoded action in the language of action. 

Pause for the analysis of the ongoing language of ongoing language in the action of language. 

The action of encoded action ongoing in the language of action encoded in the action of language. 

The language of encoded language ongoing in the action of the language encoded in the action of language. 

The language of the encoded language of the ongoing action of language encoded in the analysis of the language of action ongoing in the encoding of the action of language on the ongoing. 

The ongoing action of the encoded language of action in the ongoing language of action encoded in the action of the ongoing action of encoding the language of action ongoing encoding in the language of action.

4. 

Pause for the action of encoding the analysis of the ongoing encoding of the analysis of the encoded language of action ongoing in the action of language ongoing encoding in the action of ongoing language of encoding. 

Pause for the language of the encoded analysis of the ongoing encoding of the action of the encoding of the analysis of the action of the ongoing encoding of action in the analysis of ongoing action of encoding. 

In the action of encoding the language of action encoded in the action of the ongoing encoding of the language of action in the ongoing language of the analysis of language ongoing in the action of language encoded in the encoding action of language ongoing analysis in the action of the language of action. 

In the action of the encoded language of the ongoing encoded action of the language of ongoing language ongoing the encoding of the analysis of the ongoing analysis of the encoding of the action of the language of action encoded in the language of the ongoing encoding of the language of the ongoing action encoded in the action of ongoing language encoding the action of language in the language of action. 

In the action of the language encoding the action of ongoing action of language encoded in the language of language encoded in the ongoing action of action encoding in the language of language ongoing in the encoded action of the language of action.

5. 

Pause for the analysis of action. 

Pause for the analysis of language. 

Pause for the analysis of encoded action. 

Pause for the analysis of the ongoing encoding. 

Pause for the analysis of the encoded action of language. 

Pause for the analysis of the action of encoding. 

Pause for the analysis of ongoing action. 

Pause for the analysis of the encoded analysis of language. 

Pause for the analysis of the encoded analysis of the ongoing action of language. 

Pause for the analysis of the encoded action of the analysis of the language of action ongoing in action. Pause for the analysis of the action of language on the analysis of the action of the ongoing encoding of the action of language on the language of action. 

Pause for the analysis of the language of the language of action encoded in the action of language on the analysis of encoding. 

Pause of the ongoing analysis in the language of action loading…

Notes for a letter, 2

the creation of texts require
a system of writing, with a defined set of signs
a material medium or base (paper, ink, disks, etc.)
a tool or implement (printing machines, pen, typewriter, keyboard, etc)

the creation of meaningful texts require, apart from the items above,
a community of readers who share, to different extents, systems of writing AND
systems of reading.

texts have different levels of elaboration:
the basic string is a simple performance, using the basic encoding procedures of the system. let's call this level I elaboration.
Level II elaboration compounds the first by hyper-coding, that is creating secondary codes that accommodate poly-semantic reading.

Level I can be described by a metalanguage, as linguistics or semiology.
Level II can be described by a metalanguage, as rhetorics or criticism or hermeneutics.
Level III arises as meta-coding, as level II elaborations read through as codes.

what do we call the elaboration of reading level I? Grammatical competence?
what do we call the elaboration of reading level II? Literacy?
what do we call the elaboration of reading level III? as Meta-literacy?
what do we call the meeting of this complex with other systems of signs? Multi-media, Poly-semiotic art, Post-literacy, Hypertext, Intermedia?
what do we call the foregrounding of these levels and the procedures that they use? SCRIPTURAL FANTASY.

several approaches can be done in relation: parodic summaries, materialist immanence, minimalist scripts, proto-lexemic bindings, paragraphic exercises, etc. it can be technical, mechanical, intuitive, complex, reductionist, calculating, simplistic, caricaturist, etc. as exercises, some may fall, some may survive.

what is in the agenda? it is difficult to be argumentative without any DECLARATIVE slipping in. the language of intents and results is difficult in theory and practice. but we can always dramatize this fantasy, with all the implied VERTIGO of the exercise in METAPHORICAL ASSERTIONS (in various ways).

briefly: SUMMARY of scriptural fantasies or logics; REDUCTION to an immanent material & "literal" base; DISRUPTION of allegoric energies; and, REPETITION as core dynamic. plus, a little humor isn't so bad.

Notes for a letter

the LETTER is an argumentative base, not necessarily any specific letter, but the notion of letterness, i.e., SCRIPT. its ALLEGORIC richness as a term is an afterthought that accompanies the MATERIAL base. at one point its foregrounding would also be called upon. at any rate, whatever it is, the letter is simply a scriptural FANTASY at work, summoned by the scriptural act. we do not say it exists or not; merely, that it is part of what goes on in that act.

the TITLE cannot be a full DECLARATIVE. the TITLE does not present an OBJECT formed, but an iconic exercise in RECONNAISSANCE, that is, a pseudo-declarative. (and what is the real status of a pseudo-declarative if it can even be made?)

the allegoric echo is the hermeneutic wing of the SYMBOLIZING ENERGIES of scripts. this aspect is what we consider as a sort of epiphenomenon, but of what, we cannot say definitely. the relationship of CAUSE and EFFECT, what is primary or secondary, is always in flux.

in this case, the phrase "the letter as base" of this exercise is definitely a METAPHORICAL ASSERTION, already assuming the arrival of a positive form demanding immediate interpretation or reconnaissance: THIS as THAT, recognition as/and repetition.

(thus, the TITLE is of the same status. as a metaphorical assertion, it awaits its second term indefinitely. we can then add that a pseudo-declarative, too, is a metaphorical assertion, without a second term, which in this case would be the BODY of the TEXT under it. or, this second part is in a slippery slope. a metaphorical assertion simply mentions the notion of something, without committing itself to the real status of that something: indefiniteness.)

we can always dive further down, into asemic writing exercises, into the dawn of morphemes, but this would only drag the question into a different level. it would still require that we assume what is BEFORE and AFTER a reconnaissance.

the arrival of WORD, OBJECT, LINE, POINT: always in suspension, since they are what is essentially a question of.

the LINKAGES in SPACE or TIME are also a part of the question. as the attempt becomes more complicated, their roles would also be in the foreground. IMAGE and OBJECT are the same thing as far as this exercise is concerned.

the visual aspect is a frivolous but necessary part of this exercise. DESIGN and SYMMETRY are conserved, not because there is BELIEF in their virtues, but that scriptural logics value them as eventual outcome, even though ENTROPY and NEGENTROPY are relativistic concepts. In the end, both Chance and Order are very difficult to reproduce.

as SUMMARIES (caricature) of scriptural logics: the current pieces attempt a simplistic (parodic) material immanence to undercut hermeneutical forces that sustain these SCRIPTURAL FANTASIES. further complications could employ other procedures to broaden this exercise in the next stages.

small stone

                                  Assume this is indeed a stone set apart from all others. (Lawrence Fixel)

     Imagine you’re holding a small stone in your hand. Imagination being fertile, you start having some thoughts. You come up with the following.

Like this small stone in the hand

holding secrets, you imagine

just a cold object, uselessly

lying around, this faceless sea.

     You hesitate about those commas, and the capital letter at the beginning, and the period at the end, elements that contribute to the idea that this is a sentence, which is true, and have the advantage of suggesting circularity and closure. But you want to replicate the act of imagining, and the kind of ambiguities it creates, for your reader, and to put the reader in the same bind that you find yourself in. So you do away with the comma, and relax the bond of syntax by putting spaces around the lines. Thus,

Like this small stone in the hand

holding secrets you imagine

just a cold object uselessly

lying around this faceless sea.

     Not content, feeling the syntax is still too strong that the ambiguities you wanted might not come off very well, you decide to get rid of this line altogether, and say:

Like this

small stone 

in the hand

holding secrets 

you imagine

just a cold object

uselessly

lying around

this faceless sea.

     You also think of running a permutation of this series to dramatize the irresolvable dialectic you were imagining, pushing the eye around so that it won’t settle in a fulcrum, or find an Archimedean point of reading. However, this is feeding everything to the fish, and it would have been probably better to let the syntax of a first glance dominate, and hope that succeeding glances would loosen the bonds, but at the same time, entrap the eye deeper and deeper into the Endless Bind, with or without the presence of syntax. (Or, probably it’s even enough just to say, “This faceless sea.”) 

     At any rate, that’s how you imagine it would be like.

?context, 2

"I've come to the conclusion that it's very hard to write a gesture completely devoid of meaning or to write a gesture that's completely filled with meaning." -- Michael Jacobson, asemic artist


This tension between meaningfulness and meaninglessness probably defines what language is all about. It is like being caught in the middle of two opposing traffic. This is not so different from the concept of reason. If you insist too much on the rationality of an idea, you will end up being irrational. Voltaire's Candide is a very good illustration. Humor, too, can easily degenerate into other things without a certain balancing act.

It is not, however, a simple binarism. If you move beyond a certain point towards one end, you will find yourself at the other end, and so on. Thus, what we actually have is an endless swing toward both ends, never really defining for us the pure state of meaningfulness and meaninglessness.

These two terms are not axiomatic givens, as if we knew what they were ahead of time. In any process that involves scripts, images, symbols, or signs, that is, any language game, everything seems to be moving by positing positive and negative values, or units and gaps, along the way. It is as if the very act of walking was creating the road itself, instead of walking over a prior constructed path. Each action creates its own space, or weaves its own path, instantaneously assigning poles of meaningfulness and meaninglessness as constitutive horizons that do not have absolute positions, nor absolute values.

The uncertainty of the real value of these poles even renders them mysterious. It is for a system or a game to decide which is which to set itself up. When that happens, a certain threshold is reached. Everything solidifies into a dogma, and becomes too signifying, too obvious. What was previously dismissed as meaningless starts making more sense.

What is interesting, from the point of view of literature, is to see many texts that play on these tensions through the use of different techniques (Ray di Palma's super-efficient syntax, for example, or Peter Ganick's voiceless, subjectless, objectless flux).

extract, 2

supported based on gradual allotropic
remote deniable adverbial stimuli
single barred other assortment

initial headcount film transaction
triple section of repetitive complex
processions dictate filial status

convey all occlusion max
ration recalling dispelled ejecta
basic lent boundary advice

limits failure of blanket proponent
summation pin altered nominated
station noeta over surface

anaphoric wear a potential sealant
detection emotive appeal essence
retains active set direction

adding imaginary control of terminal delay
ending descent into split range
sampling operations pass unity

demand leading to solely patterned
tendency end register possessive  
motions trading attention spills


...

?context, 1

It is not easy to speak too generally, without referring to particular pieces as examples. Then again, the example is not easy to explain in terms of an obvious proof or evidence or as a paradigm, as if there was an easy bridge between the explication and the object so-called being explained. It is a tricky dance, and pursuing it in itself can become an objective illusion.

To simplify to a ridiculous level, to write something is first of all to raise a question, fundamental perhaps, on the nature of relationships with scripts.

The working relationship that I pretend to project is not towards the exemplification or creation of semantic, aesthetic or scriptural models. The organic phantasm I would like to deploy--if vertigo can be paused, involves the temporal suspension of knowing that I am pretending, so that something could arise: scripted or not, marginal or central, in letter or in spirit. Whatever arrives, it would carry traits that destabilize so many times that--far from leading to a thematics or a message--would seem to take on these very functions by default: short-circuited, delayed, suspended, lost, blocked, interrupted, altered, rerouted, split, disrupted, etc.

Definitely, or maybe definitely, one procedure cannot be used forever; that is, it can only be pursued so long, since it would eventually satisfy its own stylistic inertia, even if it may be torn within by its own syntactic and logical contradictions. One solution can delay this by inserting a circle of instability into a bigger circle of instability.

At any rate, that can probably sum up the whole idea of contexts for me.

Indeed, it has become a big question why a text like that needs to be produced at all, when we have so many approaches already around explored by many brilliant individuals, some subsumed under "nonlinear" writing, an idea which in itself is not a given, but another question. (Or, any idea is already a question.)

So there you go: to make these texts is probably closer to a form of asking a question, than to a form of giving an answer, or an example. It is not so different from asking What is a human being? or What is love? and getting tragedy or sonnets.

Finally, if you ask me what a text is, then probably you would hear something like: at the moment we don't know what it is, sorry. But are you any better asking what time it is?

...