Illuminated Script
Guest edited by Andrew Topel
Guest Editor's Statement
2011 marks my tenth anniversary of involvement with visual poetry so this special edition is a great way to celebrate. i remember my first encounter with visual poetry/sound illumination -- i was stunned, confused, fascinated, intrigued & inspired. it is my hope that current practitioners of this hybrid form of art as well as future generations may also be inspired. consider this issue an entry point into visual poetry and its allied hybrids -- minimalist poetry, calligraphy, book art, mathematical poetry; under a wider label, "sound illumination" -- from which you will hopefully never exit. may this work also serve to enrich cultures around the world & create a spirit of communication, collaboration & learning of & from one another.
- Introduction – Illuminated Script
by Karl Kempton"A visual poem may be defined simply as a poem composed or designed to be consciously seen."
- VVIISSIIOONNS and Other Selected Work
by Andrew Topel"My art is an exploration of possibilities, an exploration in the beauty of the shapes of the alphabet. It is a way of thinking and viewing that embraces unity rather than division, for the way I see it, writing alone, or art alone, is like walking into a bakery while holding your nose, unable to experience the richness of all five senses working together."
- Selected Work
by Scott Helmes - Selected Work
by Carol Stetser"Lacking duration, outside the oral tradition, without grammatical structure, often asemic, the visual poetry of the 21st century is truly without boundaries or restrictions. It too is global in scope but without any need for language translation. It is experienced all at once, in a flash, intuitively before intellectually."
- Selected Work
by Constantin Xenakis - Selected Work
by Dmitry Babenko - Selected Work
by Ebon Heath - Selected Work
by Fernando Aguiar - Selected Work
by K.S. Ernst - Selected Work
by Hassan Massoudy - Chewed 05 & 10 and Other Selected Work
by Karl KemptonFor me, experiments are not final but draft works.
- Selections from Wired
by Karl Kempton and Loris Essary - Selected Work
by Kaz Maslanka"I serve the concept of polyaesthetic and mathematical poetry by viewing mathematical equations and the variables within the equations as capable of providing the structure for poetic metaphors. If one has a flexible view concerning what possibilities variables may take, then virtually anything can substitute the variable. This freedom transforms equations for uses other than scientific. Furthermore it pushes the boundary for the use of mathematical equations from the traditional role of denotation into a new role of connotation."
- Dero Abecedarius and Other Selected Work
by Klaus Peter DenckerDero presents the [Statue of Liberty], a sort of public-relations symbol, in several variations. This allows me to explore the theme of freedom -- poetically and theoretically -- as it relates to the somewhat absurd representations of it that abound in consumer culture.
- Selected Work
by Marilyn R. Rosenberg"Interacting within themselves and with the viewer/reader -- content, vehicle, form, medium, and word, in editions or in unique works, within a concept, pull together merging the themes and the means. But continuing survival may be the underlying subject. As phantoms reappear in the grid, fears and imagined fabulous possibilities, connected to the future, continue."
- Selected Work
by Márton Koppány"I have nothing against linearity, story-telling and similar old-fashioned things. But I'm unable to conceive of full beginnings or full endings -- and I must express that, too. In a sense there's no alternative to in medias res. Generally I have a basic image first which just emerges. But most of my visual poems significantly (or completely) change in the process of their elaboration, thanks to the call coming from the unexpected "blemishes" of their digital carriers. It is a dialogue, I hope."
- Selected Work
by Paul Zelevansky