Listening With The Eye An Asemic Notebook Volume 2

These works might be called automatic writing or visual writing or asemic writing. There is no intention to tell a story or to use any recognizable language or symbols. Rather the works function freely with intuition rather than thought, allowing the hand to just do what the hand does; make marks. There is a kind of visual vocabulary however, such as letter-like marks, punctuation-like marks such as chevrons, commas, accents, dashes and dots, the organization for the most part is in lines of markings to suggest a reading of progression. Some are lyrical and look almost like what a visual music score might look like. I experimented with different rhythmic motions, different ways of holding the tool, sometimes in silence and at other times while listening to music. Sometimes I would watch closely as the work unfolded and at other times allowing my hand to move along the page unobserved in order to see what would happen.

The writings presented here were composed specifically for existing in a book environment as unified text. These works might be called automatic writing or visual writing or asemic writing. There is no intention to tell a story or to use any recognizable language or symbols. Rather the works function in free flow with intuition rather than thought, allowing the hand to just do what the hand does; make marks. Touchon uses improvisational approach to mark making as if playing an instrument that records in marks what might otherwise be heard as notes of music and this might be a way to approach the work - to look as if listening; spending time studying the nature of the work; its flow, its progression, its repetitions, etc. just as we might have an aesthetic experience from looking at pages of text in a foreign language that we are not conversant in. In such a case we get to enjoy the work on a purely visual level without the conversion of the characters into linguistic meanings.

Dog Ear explores dog-eared pages of mass-market paperbacks which are photographed to isolate the small diagonally bisected squares or rectangles of text.

In these stunning prose poems-full of family and beautiful birds, loss and quiet observation, color and so much light-McGookey has written lines that will blind you with a luminescence that springs from precision and tender attention to detail.

In October 2013 Rosalia and Cecil Touchon spent a month in Paris, France. While there, Touchon collected paper and made 80+ collages in 30 days. Also include are related photographs taken in Paris and asemic writing as well as examples of several paintings made based on this set of collages.

The Explicit Material focuses on objects as complex constructs of material relations, and points to the increased blurring of boundaries between practices of conservation and curation, thereby announcing a shift in sensibilities and understanding of the objects’ material significance.

The first English translation and publication of a Polish poet whose struggles with spiritual issues spark comparison to Czestaw Mitosz.