Asemic writing

Asemic writing is a hybrid art form that fuses text and image into a unity, and then sets it free to arbitrary subjective interpretations.

In 1997, visual poets Tim Gaze[8] and Jim Leftwich first applied the word asemic to name their quasi-calligraphic writing gestures.

The authors explored sub-verbal and sub-letteral forms of writing, and textual asemia as a creative option and as an intentional practice.

It is often created with a pen or brush, but can range from being hand drawn in the sand with a stick and documented by photography,[14] or to works on canvas, paper, computer images, and animations.

[17] Influences on asemic writing are illegible, invented, or primal scripts (cave paintings, doodles, children's drawings, etc.).

[18] Uses for asemic writing include mental and creative idea stimulation, non-verbal communication, meditation, hoaxes, curing writer's block, privacy, and general authorial self-expression.

In the 1920s, Man Ray, who was influenced by Dada, created an early work of wordless writing with his poem Paris, Mai 1924.

[22] Later in the 1920s, Henri Michaux, who was influenced by Asian calligraphy, Surrealism, and Automatic writing, began to create wordless works such as Alphabet (1925) and Narration (1927).

The writer and artist Wassily Kandinsky was an early precursor to asemic writing, with his linear piece Indian Story (1931) exemplifying complete textual abstraction.

In the 1950s, there is Brion Gysin (whose calligraphy was influenced by Japanese and Arabic calligraphy), Isidore Isou (who founded Lettrisme/Letterism), Cy Twombly (a former US Army Cryptologist), and Morita Shiryū/Bokujin-kai Group (Ink Human Society)[24] all of whom expanded writing into illegible, abstract, and wordless visual mark-making; they would help lay the foundation for asemic writers of the future.

[26] 1971 was the year when Alain Satié released his work Écrit en prose ou L'Œuvre hypergraphique which contains asemic writing throughout the entire collage graphic novel.

[28] 1974 saw the release of Max Ernst's work Maximiliana: The Illegal Practice Of Astronomy: hommage à Dorothea Tanning; this book is a major influence on asemic writers such as Tim Gaze, Michael Jacobson,[29] and Derek Beaulieu.

[35] The 1980s also saw artist Gu Wenda begin the first of a series of projects centered on the invention of meaningless, false Chinese ideograms, depicted as if they were truly old and traditional.

For all its limping-functionality, semantic language all too often divides and asymmetrically empowers while asemic texts can't help but put people of all literacy-levels and identities on equal footing.

Examples of this include alien dialogue in comic strips, animated cartoons, and graphic novels (such as Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and the Valérian and Laureline series).