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0.2the asemic

edition

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an

publication

Published byAvantexte Press Oakland, CA

For more visual and experimental poetry, visit our website at Avantexte.com.

EditorsMara Patricia Hernandez & John Moore Williams

Cover & Interior Design byJohn Moore Williams

Special Thanks Go toOur talented and generous contributors.

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the bleed 0.2featuring Jakub Niedziela. Billy Mavreas. Tim Gaze. Marco Giovenale. Bruno Neiva. Vaiva Cyvaite. Keith Higginbotham. Massimo Sannelli. Alice Young.

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Jakub NiedzielaBilly MavreasTim GazeMarco GiovenaleBruno NeivaVaiva CyvaiteKeith Higginbotham Massimo Sannelli

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What the f#@! is asemic writing anyway?Well, in a way, you just used it.

The fact is that, alien as the term may seem, asemic writing is not at all unfamiliar or mysterious to most of us. In f#@!, asemic writing is applied as a form of code, one which obscures familiar speech in order to enable its socially transgressive use. It is language, writing, no matter how obscured because it remains cognizable, communicative—we all know what the author intends.

But such is far from the only available application of asemic writing. It has appeared countless times throughout our history, from the logoretic effusions of Artaud to the mescaline-tinged scribblings of Michaux to the unsteady script of a child. It is language attempting to communicate via its own elision.

Destroyed, rendered null and void by its author’s own hand, language attempts, like iron filings drawn by a magnet, to reform itself, to speak against its own silencing. The process by which such writing is “read” is analogous to the perceptual processes by which we smash clouds into mad, dancing goats and massive merry-go-rounds, see faces in the gnarled convolutions of tree bark and rock crevice, or see stories unfolding in an abstract painting’s confusion.

No matter how we struggle to fragment and divide the phenomena we see around us—particularly those of our own creation (no matter how we confuse them with

objective realities), such as language—remain those “fragments [we] have shored against [our] ruins”.

Whatever the significance of this struggle against chaos and unmeaning might be, the fact remains that asemic writing proves a vital, creative, and possibly even intuitive form of expression whereby the means, tools, media, and formats of written expression are more or less brutally applied to the making of some as-yet-ill-defined kind of meaning, be it emotional, aesthetic, or cryptolinguistic.

And in this issue of the bleed, we present a small host of today’s many innovative explorers of this new/not-new territory that is writing rendered silent. The means and methods by which they approach this mute speaking are many and varied, and not all may seem either asemic or writing to the perceptive reader.

Indeed, the experiments archived here range from the hyper-elegant calligraphy of Jakub Niedziela—wherein the semic attains its negation through a sinuous beauty—to the scanned fields of the blank and dark of Massimo Sannelli, from the low-res web-app-created spidery scribblings of Keith Higginbotham to the text-in-search-of-transcendence strivings of Bruno Neiva. Each author approaches this battlefield where meaning and emptiness struggle incessantly from their own route, illuminating the vastness of the field on which this war is waged.

In a sense, then, the term “asemic” is a bit of a dodge—in these works we may leave language and its (standard) ways of meaning aside, but the hunt for it goes on.

by jo

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will

iam

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Jakub NiedzielaJakub Niedziela, born 1986 in Krosno, Poland. Exploring the worlds of thought and words as a student of English linguistics and Polish philology, in his art he attempts an intuitive and imaginative expansion of their landscapes, making the themes of book and script his main inspiration. Having no artistic prejudices, he melds different traditions and techniques into a unique visual hybrid. Working with very mixed media, mostly with calligraphy, collage and oils, he juggles with surrealism, abstract art and conceptualism. The result is an art which reveals a love of mythologizing, of juxtapositions, and of mystery.

Niedziela had one individual exhibition in 2009 and has taken part in several collective ones—recently showcasing his work at Trijenale Vizuelne i Eksperimentalne Poezije in Valjevo, Serbia. He is a multiple winner of the main prizes at local art shows and competitions. His works have been published in: „Principia Aesthetica” (Vol. 0, May 2006), an anthology of contemporary Slavic arts called Między Ochrydą a Bugiem [Between Ohrid and the Bug] (2010), the Serbian magazine „AKT” (2010), the fanzine „Virus. Jezgro. Ikona” (Vol. 6,47. 2011), and also in The Art of Collage Yearbook 2010-2011, among other minor publications and blog features. He created two digital books, Metaphoricon and Luminalchemist’s Diary, which you can find at Issuu.com.

His other artistic activities include commissioned work illustrating volumes of poetry, book cover designs, and lettering. Recent destinations on his creative path include the domains of asemic writing, minimalism, traditional collage and drawing. To follow Niedziela’s search for a mysterious kind of beauty, drop by Between Habit and Myth at versatis.wordpress.com, a personal art travelogue.

Edict of the Eclipse (opposite)

Detail from Accused of

Immortality (below)

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Billy Mavreas is a Montreal based artist as well as co-curator and resident-at-large of Monastiraki, a gallery/boutique in Mile End, Montreal. His art practice is informed by his activities as a collector, archivist, teacher and curator.

He is the author of two graphic novels, one book of posters and countless mini books, zines, pamphlets and assorted ephemera.

He is also a co-founder of Expozine, one of Canada's largest and most well respected Small Press Fairs.

His foray into concrete poetry and asemic writing started early via a love for mysterious symbols, rock ‘n’ roll lettering and SF&F. Xerox manipulations and mail-art sealed the dealed in the early 1990s.

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tim gaze

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mar

co g

iove

nale

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aff

Bruno Neiva

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detachment.

dilettantism.

the state of affairs is aff: brincar à brincadeira.

disengagement.

affair.

18“MANOJI SCHEMA”

19“MANOJI SCHEMA”

from MANOJI SCHEMA 86cm × 61cm paper, ink, acrylic, feather, roller, needle, knife 2009

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Abandonment

Filet (opposite)

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Keith Higginbothamlives

in Columbia, South Carolina. His chapbooks/ebooks are Carrying The Air on a Stick,

Prosaic Suburban Commercial, and Theme From Next Date.

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Massimo Sannelli

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massimo sannelli was born in 1973. He lives and works in Genoa, Italy, where he works as an editor, translator, actor, and writer. He collaborated with the Italian director Pietro Marcello in order to make “La bocca del lupo” (2009, Caligari Preis, Berlin Festival; Nastro d’argento; David di Donatello). As an actor, he likes working with voice and music. He translated Emily Dickin-son’s Poems (La Camera verde, Rome 2008) and two of Eric Suchère’s books (Fissa, desola in inverno; Dans l’atmosphère de). His website is: www.massimosannelli.splinder.com

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Morning Dervish15in x 30in

acrylic on canvas

Amarantine 36in x 18in

acrylic on canvas (opposite)

On a good morning—those mornings when I don’t stumble directly to the

kitchen for coffee—I start the day with the five Tibetan Rites. The first

rite is whirling, like a dervish. And so Morning Dervish came to be.

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Alice Youngwas raised in southern Ontario, on the rocky shore of Lake Erie, surrounded by the rhythms of wind, waves and beach grasses. Thus began a lifelong appreciation of rhythm—in nature, music, art and calligraphy.

Now settled in Shawnigan Lake, British Columbia, her current work encompasses both verbal and non-verbal calligraphy. Inspiration comes from many sources including music, lyrics, poetry, prose, Asian art, historical western manuscripts and the dramatic beauty of the west coast landscape.

Alice’s objective is to evoke a sense of wonder and mystery in the viewer. She alludes to the beauty in her world and also suggests other worlds, other cultures, other views and other viewpoints.

Her work has been featured in the Italian design magazine Graphis (October 2005) and has been selected for inclusion in the American publication Letter Arts Review for their Annual International Awards issues for 2005 and 2006. In July 2007, her work was included in a juried American calligraphy exhibition, Responding to our World.

She is an active member of Victoria’s Fairbank Calligraphy Society, and editor of their newsletter. She is also a member of Cowichan Valley Warmland Calligraphers. She teaches workshops and also continues to study at every opportunity with top international calligraphers.

Amarantine is an ancient word, which means eternity. At the time I painted this, I didn’t know that … I was simply inspired by the song of the same name by Enya.

The calligraphy in this piece is asemic.

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Matina Stamatakis & Carmen Racovitza

NC-17 NO ONE 17 AND UNDER ADMITTED

“hallucinatory prose-poetry that will have you scraping flecks of DNA from your radioactive vulva nipples quicker than you can imagine Kenji Siratori savagely rimming Benjamin Peret with an LSD-tipped dildo.”

—Robert Chryslerauthor of

Every Exit Impossible To Imagine With Wings

“A last breathing through synapse tentacles, rich with signals but leaving no trails: puke greens, nicotine yellows, micromanipulation gametes. Motherhood images with no madness. A book like spitout sperm, distant yet material."

—Florian Cramerauthor of

Words made flesh - Code, Culture, Imagination

0012247812579

ISBN 978-1-257-00122-490000

Also available from Avantexte Press

The ChongDong MisfitsHallucinatory prose-poetry that will have you scraping flecks of DNA from your radio-active vulva nipples quicker than you can imagine Kenji Siratori savagely rimming Benjamin Peret with an LSD-tipped dildo.

—Robert Chrysler, author of Every Exit Im-possible To Imagine With Wings

A last breathing through synapse tentacles, rich with signals but leaving no trails: puke greens, nicotine yellows, micromanipulation gametes. Motherhood images with no mad-ness. A book like spitout sperm, distant yet material.

—Florian Cramer, author of Words made flesh – Code, Culture, Imagination

the bleed 0.1featuring:

Pieces from Eric Goddard-Scovel’s LINESTelevispo, by Nico VassilakisFive from Mike CannellFive Pieces from Staunch by Sean BurnFive from Carlyle BakerSome Speartips, by Zachary Bossınır yine sınır: border again border, by Aysegül TözerenThree lexical works from John M. BennettFour from Bernd ReichertThree from Andrew TopelHow the Poem Is Born, by Peter CiccarielloAnchor What, by Vernon FrazerTwo from Márton KoppányThe Shape of Poems, by Rosaire AppelPlus On a Letter Sufficient for Visual Poetry, an essay by Iain Macdonald Matheson

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Coming soon

[stexxt::viscerreality]the pwoermd as vispo

featuring:

Geof HuthCecil Touchon mIEKAL aNDVernon FrazerJohn Moore WilliamsAlan RevichMárton KoppányNico VassilikasMike CannellStephen NelsonJohn M. BennettMara Patricia HernandezTed Warnell

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[hand]writing does not just contain semantic information. it also con-tains aesthetic information (when seen as a shape or image) and emo-tional information (such as a gra-phologist would analyze). because it eliminates semantic information, asemic writing brings the emotional and aesthetic content to the fore-ground.