Asemic Writing for Mail-Artists

Comment

Comment by DKeys on August 15, 2011 at 6:34pm

great photos!

Comment by Nancy Bell Scott on August 15, 2011 at 6:00pm

Rustic magnificence, John Bennett.

Wait, and now I'm seeing P E A ... or P E N ...

Comment by John M. Bennett on August 15, 2011 at 4:31pm

Comment by Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat) on August 15, 2011 at 1:23pm

Bravo Sloan! What an amazing intro! Definitely adding to a most highly creative book #3...'tis an honor to be in collaboration with you and all the mail artists. 'So glad the Fates gave me that extra push to join in. Thank you!

Comment by cheryl penn on August 15, 2011 at 11:38am

You're thrilled :-)? I'm THRILLED!!! Thanks DVS - again, ANOTHER great introduction - artists working successfully together - what could be better? :-) XXX

Comment by De Villo Sloan on August 15, 2011 at 11:26am

Dear Edition #3 contributors: Here is the preface for Edition #3. Please feel free to use for documentation or any other way you would like:

 

Asemics 16

Collaborative Mail-Art Book Project

 

INTRODUCTION TO EDITION 3

 

This third edition of the Asemics 16 collaborative book project is a collection of highly innovative work by artists who are members of the thriving, global mail-art community. On the pages ahead, you will find work by painters, collage artists, photographers, conceptual artists, and visual poets. They applied their talents to create new work in the esoteric and endlessly fascinating realm of asemic writing.

 

Asemic writing includes the invention of imaginary languages with corresponding symbols and systems for their arrangement. An asemic text suggests a language, might at times reveal traces of known language, but ultimately cannot be read as any existing language or extinct language that has been recorded.

 

Much asemic writing today mimics symbols transcribed on an otherwise blank page: written correspondence (cursive asemics), the printed page of a book. Perhaps because visual artists have delved into asemics as well as writers, color, images, textiles, found text and objects – among other material – are sometimes employed to provide context and suggest narratives. Mail-artists, in particular, seem to favor liberally incorporating the visual arts. This accounts for much of the visual richness of Asemics 16.

 

This approach is a common thread connecting the work of members of the Asemics 16 project; the result is the creation of hybrid forms that meld traditional distinctions between the visual image and linguistic symbol (visual poetry) – pushing us ahead into the era of post-literature and, paradoxically, pushing us back to the illuminated book and ultimately back to the archaic, to the origins of language and symbols. A fascinating aspect of this edition is the artists who find asemic symbols in nature; it is almost as if they wished to erase the heavy accumulation of culture over centuries and millennia to begin anew. Others prefer to sift among the ruins of older worlds for inspiration.

 

Cheryl Penn, a South African artist whose work frequently visits the border between image and text, deserves great praise for establishing the concept of Asemics 16. I am thrilled to have been her partner on this adventure. She is founder of the South African Mail-Art School and developed her process for creating collaborative books from her study of New York City artist Ray Johnson; he was instrumental in establishing the mail-art movement in the 1960s.

 

The project was launched in May 2011. The International Union of Mail-Artists (IUOMA), founded by Ruud Janssen of the Netherlands, served as an ideal headquarters in cyberspace for an effort that required extensive coordination and communication. One fascinating aspect of the project made possible through IUOMA was group discussions that preceded individual work on chapters (and later sharing drafts). These included forming a consensus definition of asemic writing, providing consciously flexible parameters.

 

The mail-art community, inherently connected to Fluxus, has been a conduit and supporter of concrete poetry, visual poetry, haptic poetry as well as asemic writing for decades. It is gratifying that Asemics 16 can serve as a chronicle for the work of the wonderfully gifted artists who continue to advance these forms.

 

 

 

 

De Villo Sloan

August 15, 2011

Auburn, New York, USA 

 

Comment by John M. Bennett on August 14, 2011 at 4:48pm

Comment by Mim Golub Scalin on August 13, 2011 at 2:14am

Received, today, the wonderful chapter by De Villo Sloan. Thanks. A few more to go. I'm so excited to see it all come together.

Comment by De Villo Sloan on August 11, 2011 at 4:50pm

Thank you, Alicia. Like so many others in the project, I'm now wonderfully surrounded by these beautiful chapters - each seems so innovative and distinctive. I wish I could write about the work of every individual artist, but instead I'm sticking to generalities in hopes of not falling into critical judgments about what's better and what's best, except in the case of some of the major figures who have enriched the group so much by sharing examples of their work. Anyway, much appreciated. I can't speak for Cheryl, but the work I'm seeing here is beyond anything I ever imagined when we announced Asemics 16. It's gratifying beyond measure!

Comment by Alicia Starr on August 11, 2011 at 4:34pm

De Villo, I applaud your intro to Asemics #2.  w  o  w,  very nice.

 and diddo to Nancy Bell Scott's response. 

 

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