Meshuggah, Transhumanism, and the Allure of Cults

In one of Meshuggah’s most well-known tracks, New Millennium Cyanide Christ, we find an exploration of the themes of transhumanism and cults. Drummer Tomas Haake, who writes the lyrics for the band, said of the track in an interview with Greg Prato: That’s more of a dystopian take on a sectistic or extremist kind of…

View Post

Book Review: Glyphs of Uncertain Meaning by Tim Gaze

Tim Gaze is an Australian artist residing in the Adelaide Hills. Since the late 90s, he has been an active poet, writer, publisher, and performer. He is also notable as an artist specialising in asemic writing (expressive mark-making that has the appearance of a language). In 1997, Gaze, along with fellow artist Jim Leftwich, applied…

View Post

DMT-Inspired Artwork by Harry Pack

Harry Pack is a British artist whose artwork is inspired by experiences with the potent psychedelic DMT. Along with INCEDIGRIS, Pack is unique in his ability to accurately represent the strange realms and beings that one encounters when under the influence of this substance. The distinctly DMT-esque aspects of his work include the clownish, child-like,…

View Post

The Paradox of Asemic Writing

In my first post on asemic writing, I ended by pointing to the paradoxical nature of this art form: the marks involved are at once meaningless (since they have no semantic meaning) and meaningful (since, as an art form, there can be meaning behind their creation – the intention, emotion, or state of mind expressed…

View Post

Pseudographia: Automatic Asemic Writing

Pseudographia is the term I use to refer to either the practice of automatic asemic writing, that is, wordless, artistic writing created in an unconscious way, or the unconscious drive to engage in such writing. I have recently been revisiting the work of the Belgian poet and artist Henri Michaux, as I feel his asemic…

View Post