Asemic Writing: Precepts -- jim leftwich -- september 1, 2019
Asemic Writing: Precepts
jim leftwich
september 1, 2019
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Jim Leftwich, from an email to Peter Schwenger, dated Nov 20, 2017:
The wheel of asemic writing has been invented several times, but only once did it lead to what is currently known as the asemic movement. When Tim Gaze and I (re)invented asemic writing in 1997-98 both of us were coming directly from a textual poetic practice. There are readily available examples of our work from those years in John M. Bennett's Lost and Found Times and in my Juxta/Electronic.
Jim Leftwich, from a letter to Tim Gaze, dated Jan 27, 1998:
A seme is a unit of meaning, or the smallest unit of meaning (also known as a sememe, analogous with phoneme). An asemic text, then, might be involved with units of language for reasons other than that of producing meaning. As such, the asemic text would seem to be an ideal, an impossibility, but possibly worth pursuing for just that reason.
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The first thing to know about asemic writing is this: it is a kind of writing. When I use the word "writing" I am not attempting to use the word "art" and failing miserably in my attempt.
The second thing to know about asemic writing is this: strictly speaking, there is no such thing as asemic writing. In the vast spectrum of human experience there is no such thing as asemic anything. Human experience is always everywhere the experience of an excess of meaning.
The third thing to know about asemic writing is this: the prefix 'a' is not synonymous with the prefix 'poly'. When I write the word "asemic" I am not attempting to write the word "polysemic" and failing miserably in my attempt.
The fourth thing to know about asemic writing is this: the practice of asemic writing is an aspirational practice. To make quasi-calligraphic drawings and call them asemic writing, or to make letteral and gestural marks and call them asemic writing, is to set for oneself an unattainable goal. The struggle to attain that unattainable goal will leave as its trace a variety of works which would not have come into existence in any other way.
The fifth thing to know about asemic writing is this: asemic writing has nothing whatsoever to do with aesthetics.
The sixth thing to know about asemic writing is this: there is no asemic writing in nature. Only if we accept the notion of asemic writing as simply a descriptive term used to identify a specific variety of quasi-calligraphic drawing, or gestural and letteral mark-making, are we able to locate in the natural world things that are more or less closely analogous to asemic writing. There is an odd kind of pareidolia at work in that mental process, similar to seeing the faces of religious figures in greasy frying pans.
The seventh thing to know about asemic writing is this: the practice of asemic writing can be compared to a spiritual discipline, like zerufe otiot (also transliterated as tzeruf otiyot, tzeruf otiot, and Tzeruf ha-Otiyyot). The practice of asemic writing is one way among very many ways of conducting experiments in the laboratory of the self. A practitioner should be prepared to make many thousands of asemic works, over the course of many thousands of hours. Imagine someone after sitting zazen for thirty minutes asking a zen monk: is that all there is to it? The zen monk might reply: that is all there is to thirty minutes of it. The same is true for the practice of asemic writing. Do it for two hours and you might be forgiven for thinking it is not worth doing at all. Do it for two decades and you will have a very different opinion.
jim leftwich
september 1, 2019
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Jim Leftwich, from an email to Peter Schwenger, dated Nov 20, 2017:
The wheel of asemic writing has been invented several times, but only once did it lead to what is currently known as the asemic movement. When Tim Gaze and I (re)invented asemic writing in 1997-98 both of us were coming directly from a textual poetic practice. There are readily available examples of our work from those years in John M. Bennett's Lost and Found Times and in my Juxta/Electronic.
Jim Leftwich, from a letter to Tim Gaze, dated Jan 27, 1998:
A seme is a unit of meaning, or the smallest unit of meaning (also known as a sememe, analogous with phoneme). An asemic text, then, might be involved with units of language for reasons other than that of producing meaning. As such, the asemic text would seem to be an ideal, an impossibility, but possibly worth pursuing for just that reason.
|||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||
The first thing to know about asemic writing is this: it is a kind of writing. When I use the word "writing" I am not attempting to use the word "art" and failing miserably in my attempt.
The second thing to know about asemic writing is this: strictly speaking, there is no such thing as asemic writing. In the vast spectrum of human experience there is no such thing as asemic anything. Human experience is always everywhere the experience of an excess of meaning.
The third thing to know about asemic writing is this: the prefix 'a' is not synonymous with the prefix 'poly'. When I write the word "asemic" I am not attempting to write the word "polysemic" and failing miserably in my attempt.
The fourth thing to know about asemic writing is this: the practice of asemic writing is an aspirational practice. To make quasi-calligraphic drawings and call them asemic writing, or to make letteral and gestural marks and call them asemic writing, is to set for oneself an unattainable goal. The struggle to attain that unattainable goal will leave as its trace a variety of works which would not have come into existence in any other way.
The fifth thing to know about asemic writing is this: asemic writing has nothing whatsoever to do with aesthetics.
The sixth thing to know about asemic writing is this: there is no asemic writing in nature. Only if we accept the notion of asemic writing as simply a descriptive term used to identify a specific variety of quasi-calligraphic drawing, or gestural and letteral mark-making, are we able to locate in the natural world things that are more or less closely analogous to asemic writing. There is an odd kind of pareidolia at work in that mental process, similar to seeing the faces of religious figures in greasy frying pans.
The seventh thing to know about asemic writing is this: the practice of asemic writing can be compared to a spiritual discipline, like zerufe otiot (also transliterated as tzeruf otiyot, tzeruf otiot, and Tzeruf ha-Otiyyot). The practice of asemic writing is one way among very many ways of conducting experiments in the laboratory of the self. A practitioner should be prepared to make many thousands of asemic works, over the course of many thousands of hours. Imagine someone after sitting zazen for thirty minutes asking a zen monk: is that all there is to it? The zen monk might reply: that is all there is to thirty minutes of it. The same is true for the practice of asemic writing. Do it for two hours and you might be forgiven for thinking it is not worth doing at all. Do it for two decades and you will have a very different opinion.
posted by jim leftwich at 9:42 AM
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