The word 'asemic' was published in 1885, in the Society for Psychical Research's Proceedings, in the article Automatic Writing part II, written by Frederic W H Myers. Myers (1843–1901) was a Classical (i.e. Ancient Greek and Latin language and culture) scholar who won prizes for his Latin verse, a founding member of the Society for Psychical Research, and inventor of the word 'telepathy'. It is likely that Myers coined the word 'asemic' in English.

My purpose isn't to critique Myers' ideas, but to point to his use of 'asemic'. In part of his article, Myers mulls over the vocabulary relating to difficulties with spoken language and written language. He mentions the terms for inability to hear words: word-deafness; inability to speak words: motor aphasia or aphemia (or, earlier, aphasia); inability to read (that is, to recognise) words: word-blindness; and inability to write words: agraphy (pp. 35–6). By 1885, according to Myers, 'aphasia' had expanded its original meaning of inability to speak, to cover all four of these disabilities. He also mentions the alternative term 'asemasia' and then offers his own terms 'asemia' and 'asemic', as superior to 'aphasia'.

Dr. McLane Hamilton has proposed asemasia, "defect in the power of giving signs." I shall venture to suggest asemia (with the adjective asemic,) as shorter and not more unauthorised. (p.36, double dagger note continued from p. 35)

Hamilton's 'defect in the power of giving signs' could be more accurately stated as 'inability to send or receive communication signs'. 'Asemia' survives in contemporary times as a medical term with the same meaning.

Numerously, Myers uses the word 'asemic' (p. 34 asterisk note, p. 36 mentioned above, p. 46, p. 47 numerous times, p. 48, p. 49 twice, p. 50, p. 53, p. 55, p. 56 twice, p. 57 twice, p. 58). 'Asemia' appears on p. 36 and p. 61.

In the course of his argument, Myers contrasts abnormal or subnormal, illegible automatic writing made by a person with 'asemic troubles' with supernormal, legible automatic writing made by a person who could be channeling an external personality, ideally containing information unknown to the person who wrote it. Thus, 'asemic' has a connotation of disability for Myers.

While attempting to produce automatic writing of his own, Myers inadvertently produced asemic writing (which will be mentioned more, below). With his focus on examining the phenomenon of legible automatic writing, he dismissed his illegible productions as being of no interest.

By extreme persistency, in the year 1875, I attained for a few weeks to the lowest degree of graphic automatism. The first symptom was that my fist would thump itself violently on the paper. Spasms were entirely new to my experience, but this seemed like a spasm of the arm, induced by expectant attention. Soon, however, it was plain that there was more than this. There was an unmistakable attempt to go through the act of writing. I scrawled rapidly many meaningless interlacing strokes, which sometimes bore a vague resemblance to letters of the alphabet, but never shaped themselves into a legible word. I never got beyond this point, and after some neglect of practice, even this faculty (if such it can be called) deserted me. (p. 37)

While Myers uses 'asemic' to describe a disability involving sending or receiving communication signs, in 21st century usage, 'asemic' is frequently used in the compound noun 'asemic writing', which denotes writing-like visual material which is illegible, typically created deliberately rather than as a consequence of a disability. Although his connotation of the asemic differs from contemporary usage, Myers would approve of finding a new way to use a word.

The point is worth mentioning, as raising the question, which frequently recurs in any new scientific inquiry, whether words may be adapted from the Greek in a sense other than that which they can be shown to have borne. I am decidely in favour of such adaptation, which I do not regard as a debasement of the Greek language, but rather as a prolongation of its vitality under altered conditions. (p. 34 dagger note)

Myers' employment of the syllable '-sem-' in 'asemia' and 'asemic' is a point of possible confusion. 'Asemic' could be understood as 'lacking marks', or 'lacking words' (as communication signs), two quite different meanings. The syllable '-sem-' is derived from Ancient Greek σῆμα (sêma), meaning 'mark', 'sign' or 'token'. Illegible writing that conveys no words meets the criterion of being asemic by lacking signs, if we allow 'signs' to mean 'words'. However, it would seem to be impossible to produce markless illegible writing, because marks are the most basic signs in writing. Writing cannot be asemic in the sense of being markless.

Source

SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH / PROCEEDINGS OF THE GENERAL MEETING ON / January 30, 1885 / section I. AUTOMATIC WRITING PART II., pp. 1–63 A scanned version can be freely perused here. Another free scanned version, missing pp. 22, 23, 36 & 39, is here.

References

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), Myers, Frederic William Henry article, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Liddell & Scott (1940), A Greek–English Lexicon, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 1592

Tim Gaze
Mount Barker, South Australia (Peramangk lands)
June 2023

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We have (1) concrete asemic writing when only the asemic glyphs and calligraphy, only the asemic letters and sentences are present on the page. No images, no colors.
We can also say asemicrete, a term coined by Michael Jacobson.

We can say we have (2) visual asemic writing when we see the asemic symbols are intertwined, superimposed or when they ---in any other way--- simply share the page with abstract or realistic images.

We have (3) glitchasemics when an asemic text is evidently disturbed by some kind of glitch: it may even be severely disturbed, but not so much as to make the asemic part completely disappear.

We can say we have (4) abstrasemics when an abstract drawing or image turns itself into something resembling an illegible text, an asemic piece. Or, on the contrary, when a fragment of asemic writing gradually loses any vaguely linguistic aspect and is transformed into an abstract image.

Post scriptum.
At the same time, there are examples of works that marginalize ---or do not include at all--- an asemic aspect, and I would refer to them as: abstract or realistic paintings (pictorial works, photographs etc.) weirdly called "asemic writing" by their authors; legible alphabets and texts weirdly called "asemic writing" by their authors; monotonous decorations that would hardly be taken for words or sentences.

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FRANK SINATRA GOES FLAT (1953)

If asked, Frank and Suzie wouldn’t singe, or aim. It didn’t matter by the sky, Frank and Suzie took the dog by the trampoline, found panties, a green skirt. They wave the flashlight at the howl, show hay. Once today Frank researched a vast Nexus iii, the reflection of microscope landscapes gleams watermelon juice under black graph paper curls – sage leaf dries patent plastic- the desert slides a digital cactus with a tray of salt and wax to Suzie. Auto correct the tobacco smoke if needed. Dear Frank,

There is a horn solo in that distant train whistle, my head is a mushroom

Full of the candy land games, and the wind is attacking, seeds, knocking over that which does not hold weight -- the wind is making a friend -- with the weightless cardboard or the blue hanger --A matrix of sputters, lime machine advances, floating astronauts to a new bird house, to forever.

To a diagram of avenues, hunched across naked alcoholic dessert machines, Suzie is operating the ketchup bottle with flimsy, waves of digits and cold hair strung into an ice line. Above her head Frank sees big, NEON lights read: Caterpillar lounge.

The sky is full of bird nests drooping along the fishnets and light bulbs, taped together from matchsticks. Her eyes keep landing in the gutters, cat CLAWS the size of a house reach out of a mirage, and drape woven hair through the blush tree line.

Bicycle rabbit research, static klezmer drops from the cats CLAWS. Writes nylon birds. A tennis player produces a pair of Armani and tosses it over a NEON tapestry above the nests. The table dipped quart yard, now the fork reflects some of the flashlight, portable luminaire. Suzie sees the barber shop, listed cigarettes for haircuts, shows it to Frank. He takes it and trades her Russian candy for it, and they follow grown over concrete, gather Finch color slow motion.

Black and white T.V. Static covers dawn, the trees a perfumed and painted replica on TV land, (an old episode of Bewitched) swaying. Inside the family home in Auroville, flashes of a television show are left black and blue, an obsessed audience lingers at the table, drools, Bit-by-bit eating TV dinner. The show is put on the air, and Auroville changes -- No one goes to work, cars rust in the drive, covered with dust. The children don’t  have to go to school anymore, they can sit and watch the show -- the pets sleep all day, and at night scratch the door – giving up after a time - Auroville rarely sleeps – Never goes outside – its safer in the show --

When he enters town, he at first, believes the night is the keeper of these people’s dreams –

His slack grey suit walks into an alley, adorned with a marionette, red hat, and red shoes, wooden legs painted like pants. He checks the broken pocket watch in dismay, no knowing the late hour, but late -- he replaces it back to his pocket, a purchase from Louisburg thrift.

He enters a deserted end of the candy colored suburbs, grey slacks pulling up barbs and snags of juniper, cedar and twigs -- the moon lowering under TV static, behind the purple clouds. He settles, twitching near the desert cactus, near soft clay --

A small camp behind an abandoned Sears is fashioned, he drifts to sleep --

Days pass, he meets no one and begins the process of door to door sales -- introducing himself as Frank Sinatra --

They snarl, and slam their doors in his face -- and he and his puppet lurk in the small town, shut out to wander the streets-- the marionette a silent comrade at his hand- the abandoned streets all grey. The black and white static all storms above him.

TV MUSEUM

Sinatra greases back his jet black hair and puts on his grey suit jacket in the morning, listening to the birds. He wanders through endless neighborhoods, where he finally comes into a center of town. He finds a fountain pouring murky green water from within. The fountain is built in a circular formation of stones around a rusted brass sculpture of a naked angel spitting out bubbling water into the green pool, quietly bubbling.

A library overtaken in vines nearby, wrapped by the entry way in live oak trees hovers silent under the TV static sky. The place is abandoned; no one would be interested in books any longer. He sets up a cardboard box, and begins dancing his marionette, by pulling and contorting its body, hovering quietly in front of the soft water bubbling fountain -- Frank imagines smooth Caramel dripped slow motion, from the insides of the fountains workings, pulls at the strings of the puppet, placing it down on the box.

Frank wanders after night fall into an old avenue rotting with black water damage, and torn up brick. Vines crawl along steps to an old museum door. He steps up and looks inside the doors, his marionette hangs limp, rocking in black and white TV static at his side -- Frank quietly along the steps, bumps into a sign that reads Museum of Americana, but at the closer he inspects, the letters adjust, setting down onto the board Museum of Television, then the wheels beneath, turning the letters on a motor, roll each word inside somewhere in the box. Museum of Frank Sinatra -- he enters the wide doors having some resistance with the heavy oak.

Inside, the echoing of his entry reverberates somewhere in the distant chambers, and on the tall ceilings with painted televisions, and clocks, and in the center a shocking representation of himself, Frank Sinatra, holding the marionette, inside the center of one television. The artist had rendered him and the marionette in black and white; the smell of musk and cigar smoke.

Lining the walls of this first room -- all lights on, and one at the far back, near an elevator flickering in and out -- The floor reads Museum of Television ~ 1940 ~ set inlaid to a circle  beneath Franks feet, and around in a perfect circle. Looking up, Frank sees that there are golden chandeliers hanging along a staircase from the back of the building, and spiraling along to his left to the front door.

Frank stands at a glass case -- a run down black and white Zenith television flickers on when he presses the worn out display button. A plaque covered in grey film reads this television is America's first to pick up frequency, playing the Bernie Sanders Show --

The sound is muffled as the show starts up, reminding him of the slow mechanical workings of a Ferris wheel advance, and spun, a small rodent inside of the device, waking up, rubbing its eyes, and running on the wheel.

A little black and white dog enters a parking lot, behind a freshly painted white fence, the dog barks. The audience is heard laughing, and a little boy walks up Bit-by-bit, kicking pebbles and rocks, his head down. He kneels to the dog, and says Gee, Albert, how’d you get way out here!? Dad’s going to be sure angry with me if he finds out I wasn't watching’ you.  The dog barks, and the television show is eaten up by thin black and grey static interference, and then finally after a minute of this it switches off.

Sinatra hears a sound tapping above him, the rain beginning outside, calmed by this he pauses, and closing his eyes, for a few moments he stands in front of the casement holding his eyes closed. Afterimages of the black and white dog play briefly in his mind --

He takes the spiral stairs up to the second floor, where a janitor sits in front of a television set, sleeping--

To the left of the TV on a small stand is a broken pocket watch that looks to have been smashed by a hammer --

Frank Sinatra tries to figure out what is happening by watching the little screen, a jumble of alphabetical letters, spelling words at random, and then switching around crossword puzzle. The janitor snores, rain tapping loudly now outside --

Frank follows the hallway passed the janitor, and finds a room with a bed, and a candle. He lies down and dreams.

Croquet set up from stage left to center stage.

Four characters dressed in two time periods play croquet two in twenties outfits and two dressed in science fiction style costumes (i.e. tight metallic jumpsuits, alien costumes, or some silly space man costume found in the dressing room (Be creative.) Ex, formally a female character is dressed in male costume of late nineteen twenties. Me, formally a male character, dressed in late twenties female costume.

Croquet

ME: How are the bridges to Castle iceberg Iceland these days?

EX: Are you a red Burmese, perched at the doorstep?

2: I wouldn't mind an alligator!

ME: Set in restaurants is they? Big news Big Cheese.

3: Is it my wings getting in the way or your wings getting in the way Roger?

ME: Here is a wooden spoon for the bird you ordered.

EX: The shallow end is always the best for that, not a strawberry! Strawberry! Strawberry! Not a strawberry.  (At this point starts going crazy and slamming the croquet stick down in a violent rage.) Everyone else starts singing:

                                                            “Doo Op Dee do de doo doo do doo

                                                            doo doo doo doo doo doo doo bop

                                                            dee dee dee doo

                                                            dee doop”

(Spinning sticks, cuts short)

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#painting #artist#book #performance #vispo #asemic

Festival Oriente Occidente
30-08 / 11-09-2019
Chiesa di Sant’Osvaldo e Ostello, Rovereto (TN, Italy)

Performance:

30-08-2019 h: 18:00
Sergio Dangelo & Lome

01-09-2019 h: 18:00
1. Eugenio Lanfranco
2. Sergio Dangelo
3. Jakob de Chirico

04-09-2019 h: 18:00
1. Gigi Zoppello
2. Renato Sclaunich
3. Osvaldo Maffei

05-09-2019 h: 18:00
1. Ruggero Maggi
2. Sergio Poggianella
3. Lome

Artist books, painting, asemic writing, vispo by:

Sergio Dangelo, Lome, Anna Boschi, Gudrun de Chirico, Jakob de Chirico, Gigi Zoppello, Osvaldo Maffei, Renato Sclaunich, Eugenio Lanfranco, Ruggero Maggi, Gerard Broutin, Giuseppe Desiato, Lamberto Pignotti, Jack Hirschman, Gabriele Picco, Roger Fritz, Luc Fierens, Kiddy Citny, Gianfranco Grisi, Tullio Mazzotti, Orazio Bacci, Orazio Gaetano, Giorgio Moiso, Alberto Casiraghy, Francesco Aprile, Ben Vautier, Luigi Bonotto, Heinrich Bunzel, Ampelio Zappalorto, Joseph Beuys, Sarenco, Giuseppe Chiari.

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22 March - 12 May 2019
Room 37, vestibule and 3 cupolas
Opening night on 21 March on World Poetry Day

In the 20th century, phonetic and then sound poetry always stood as an act of emancipation. Sometimes ready to abandon semantics, the avant-garde turned it into a spearhead of a struggle against systems, beliefs and dogmas. What is now left of their heroic combats? Myths and legends. But times have changed. Combats too. Utopias no longer have the same look. New technologies have now invaded the space of language, for the better or the worst. For the worst, by imposing a digital rationalisation of words and sounds. For the best, by providing
language with an infinity of sources and tools. Since the 1950s, technological progress has allowed phonetic poetry to become sound poetry.
The exhibition The Liberated Voice – Sound Poetry curated by Eric Mangion and Patrizio Peterlini in co-production with Bonotto Fondation offers, without any nostalgia, a journey with from voices of the past to the present. It plunges us directly and deeply into these artists who still use words and sounds as an exercise in freedom. Poetry continues to place mankind at the heart of life and art. How to remain human when the world is becoming increasingly multiple? How to affirm your singularity? As the result of research lasting over a year, the exhibition has been conceived as a nonexhaustive journey through sound poetry, from the end of the Second World War until contemporary developments. Intentionally trans-historical and international, representing over
thirty countries covering all five continents, this project has been conceived as a place to be listened in, a transmitter creating a frequency that passes outside the walls of Palais de Tokyo thanks to an application providing an open, free-of-charge download of the exhibition’s sound programme, as well as a multitude of sites, radio stations or reviews which will extend this experience of sound poetry during the entire spring of 2019.»

During spring 2019, a series of sites, radio stations and reviews will thus be presenting sound
poetry events or publications: la Fondation d’Entreprise Ricard, la Maison de la poésie, France Culture, *DUUU Radio, Vizir Radio, Les écritures bougées, RadioO et Revue OR (Paris/France), T.A.P.I.N. (Lyon), Maison de la poésie (Nantes / France) Babel Heureuse (Toulouse/France), Montévidéo et Radio Grenouille (Marseille/France), la Villa Arson (Nice/France), Beton7Art Radio et Metadeftero Radio (Athènes/Grèce), RAI RadioTre Suite, RAI RadioUno Music Club, RAM Radio Arte Mobile et NOW Radio, Auditorium Roma, (Rome/Italie), ArtPartofCulture (Bologne/Italie), Utsanga.it, Nero Magazine, Insideart (Italie), RUC Radio Universidade (Coimbra/Portugal) + LabSynthE, Laboratory for Synthetic and Experimental Poetry, University of Texas (Dallas/ USA), CMMAS (Guanajuato/Mexique), Power FM (Zambie), MEC FM (Brésil), Wonderlust Project, LapTopRadio, Radio Tramontana (Suisse), radioCona (Slovénie), Radio Picnic (Belgique), KunstRadio – Radio Österreich1 (Autriche), Whitechapel (Londres /Grande-Bretagne), Fargfabriken (Stockholm / Suède).

With sound pieces by:

Tomomi Adachi, Arcand Pierre André, Atlanta Poets Group, Martin Bakero, Gary Barwin, Caroline Bergvall, Julien Blaine, Jaap Blonk, Luis Bravo, Anne-James Chaton, Henri Chopin, Carlfiredrich Claus, Bob Cobbing, Felipe Cussen, Augusto De Campos, Paul De Vree, François Dufrêne, Eduard Escoffet, Robert Filliou, Giovanni Fontana, The Four Horsemen, Steven J. Fowler, Jérôme Game, Ilse Garnier, Pierre Garnier, John Giorno, Klaus Groh, Brion Gysin, Sten Hanson, Ian Hatcher, Bernard Heidsieck, Dick Higgins, Ake Hodell, Zuzana Husárová, Isidore Isou, Juan Angel Italiano, Ernst Jandl, Maja Jantar, Bengt Emil Johnson, Eugenji Kharitonov, Ferdinand Kriwet, Nobuo Kubota, Katalin Ladik, Anne Le Troter, Franck Leibovici, Weronika M. Lewandowska, Violaine Lochu, Arrigo Lora Totino, Ghérasim Luca, Jackson MacLow, Kgafela oa Magogodi, Michèle Métail, Enzo Minarelli, Franz Mon, Maurizio Nannucci, Seiichi Niikuni, Ladislav Novak, Clemente Padin, Arthur Peteronio, Anat Pick, Decio Pignatari, Jörg Piringer, Mimmo Rotella, Gerhard Rühm, Rike Scheffler, Carolee Schneemann, Adriano Spatola, Amanda Stewart, Demetrio Stratos, Kinga Toth, Jaromir Typlt, Louise Vanardois, Emmett Williams, Gil J Wolman, Misako Yarita.

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This composite lost sonnet is the last in the 7th and final series of my composite lost sonnets. All composite lost sonnets can be downloaded at http://staleobjectsdepress.tumblr.com/post/178099630405/catherine-vidler-composite-lost-sonnets

A note on the composite lost sonnets: Some time after making my original series of 155 lost sonnets, I had an idea that I could use the lost sonnets from that series to make a new series of ‘composite lost sonnets’. Seven series of composite lost sonnets ensued. Each composite lost sonnet was made from  a pair of lost sonnets from the series preceding it. The pairs were selected via a ‘fold-in’ method, such that, for example, the first composite lost sonnet was made from lost sonnet 1 and lost sonnet 155, the second from lost sonnet 2 and lost sonnet 154, the third from lost sonnet 3 and lost sonnet 153, and so on until arriving at the final composite lost sonnet in the first series, made from two copies of lost sonnet 78. Subsequent series were made via the same method. Thus, the first composite lost sonnet in the second series was made from composite lost sonnet 1_155 and composite lost sonnet 78_78.

A note on the visually discernible textual elements: 'immaculate', 'there', 'out' and 'the'. These words come from a line of a long poem-sequence by Tom Jenks. The line is: 'out there immaculate the sarcasm of rooks'. The poem-sequence is 'Spruce' (BLART books, 2015). Lost sonnets 110 and 119 were made for and from this line, and words from the line re-appear in composite lost sonnets.

The post Composite lost sonnet 2_154_77_79_38_ 118_41_115_19_137_ 60_96_21_135_58_ 98_9_147_70_86_ 31_125_48_108_12_ 144_67_89_28_128_ 51_105_4_152_75_ 81_36_120_43_113_ 17_139_62_94_23_ 133_56_100_7_149_ 72_84_33_123_46_ 110_14_142_65_91_ 26_130_53_103_2_ 154_77_79_38_118_ 41_115_19_137_60_ 96_21_135_58_98_ 9_147_70_86_31_ 125_48_108_12_144_ 67_89_28_128_51_ 105_4_152_75_81_ 36_120_43_113_17_ 139_62_94_23_133_ 56_100_7_149_72_ 84_33_123_46_110_ 14_142_65_91_26_ 130_53_103 appeared first on SCRIPTjr.nl.