I guess the idea that is being expressed in these readings is the idea of "visual poetry." Like Niko Vassilacis mentions on her site, "In the manual, letters are not monogamous - they don’t belong to any particular word, but are free to roam and explore themselves." the idea being explored is the significance of the poem. Is its artistic value limited to its meaning? or can the arrangement add to the artistry of a poem?
Opinions that were expressed in "Networked Art," about purely visual poems: There is no meaning, and letters do not express a writer's emotion.
The appeal of just letters taking the place of something larger baffles me. Arabic letters are not particularly interesting to look at; they're most blocky and simple; arrangements of them hardly add to their intrinsic interest. Because of the nature of Asian language (being more ornate and complex) they would often arrange their words in artistic ways, way before this idea was proposed by visual poets. With no visual and intellectual/literary appeal, then these visual poems are merely conceptual. The concept? Letters are beautiful. And that might be nice for some people...
But, the concepts often evolved in to something more substantial. Like in Augusto de Campos's "cidade city cite," he incorporated the element of auditory motion in to his poem.
Well, obviously, arabic letters aren't reduced to their traditional appearence. The letterists definitely pushed the image of letters in to a state of more appeal, some would say past the appeal of a Woman....whatever. But I like the concept of making letters--everyday objects--more artistic. I wonder if the advancement of lettering started with the letterists? The idea of calligraphy is pretty old, but, like, did they inspire fonts that we find on our computers?
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