Asemic writing is a provocation to thought; and the thinking it encourages is not that of a system or science. It is open-ended, based in wonder and wondering.
Schwenger 2019
In many of my paintings, you can find asemic writing (see some examples of my asemic writing artworks below). My kids call it “scribble writing,” which I think describes it rather well. But there is a lot more to asemic writing than just scribbles, and that story is rather beautiful, in a philosophical kind of way.
According to the book Asemic: The Art of Writing (Schwenger 2019) the term was coined by a couple of visual poets in the 90s. But postmodern philosopher Jacques Derrida was one of the first to use the word to explain the signifying power of the spaces between words (Raley 2017).
Some related terms you may be familiar with: Semiotics is the study of signs that communicate meaning (eg. words). Semantics refers to the study of the meanings we pull from words.
When the root word ‘seme’ is preceded by ‘a-‘, its normal meaning is neutralized. That is, a-semic writing is an abstraction of words and their meaning. It is writing without language. The writing looks familiar and hints at something comprehensible. Finnish artist Satu Kaikkonen (Schwenger 2019) explains that this familiarity is universal and even a great equalizer – asemic writing is understood equally, no matter one’s level of literacy.
In visual art, asemic writing relates to a tradition in modern art that explores the function of gestures that occur at the instinctive and subconscious level, before thoughts are conceptualized with words (Gaze & Jacobson 2013). In this broad sense, abstract expressionist painting can be considered a form of asemic writing in and of itself. More precisely, though, asemic writing as part of abstract expressionist practice is about freedom from the systems and structures of language. The hints of words in asemic writing offer meaning by way of “aesthetic intuition.” Asemic writing = writing without language.
Below are a couple examples pulled from the regularly-updated asemic writing gallery called The New Post-literate:
I consider my art to be abstract expressionism, asemic writing included. I was introduced to asemic writing in abstract painting by my mixed media art teacher Sonya Iwasiuk. Below you can see how she incorporates asemic writing that is suggestive of stories and personal memories that we can only imagine.
I’m a huge fan of asemic writing in the works of post-graffiti artists, such as Cuban-American artist Jose Parla (below). But I will save a discussion of post-graffiti for another time…
A final thought: I suspect many of you already do asemic writing without realizing it. Do you doodle when you’re listening to a talk or when you’re on the phone with someone? Perhaps you are unknowingly part of the subculture of asemic writers, which is now considered an international movement. The Facebook group has over 20K members! Yes, I’m a card-carrying member (jk, you just have to request to join and answer a few questions).
Have a wonderful day!
Cheers,
Beth