Asemic Writing and the Desire for the Esoteric

Asemic writing is, by definition, meaningless. It is wordless writing. But what attracts artists and viewers alike to the art form is the way that certain marks can appear meaningful. The scrawls and strokes can be so reminiscent of a natural language or system of glyphs that they look as if they could be read…

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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…

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Asemic Writing: The Drive to Create Imaginary Languages and Alien Alphabets

I have long been fascinated by the artistic drive to create imaginary languages. Countless numbers of them exist. And some of them have made their way into public consciousness since they have been integrated into the fictional worlds and universes portrayed in popular books and television shows. These fictional languages include Elvish in the works…

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