A Letter from Lin Zexu to Queen Victoria / EZE, 2021

 

Asemics and the Case of Vocal Intonation: A Set Theory for Writing with Notes from Tim Gaze Appended / EZE, 2021

Asemics and the Case of Vocal Intonation: A Set Theory for Writing (with Reference to Music)

For writing as the act of making graphic, the  ________ between writing iconographically and writing asemically does not seem quite the same as the  ________ between writing phonetically and writing asemically. 

With graphics, anything other than an unbounded  ________ is presence, which at least maps to itself both as graphic and as asemics. The unmapped  ________ is, however, the pointer or the set of pointers that does not reference language, which is generally the  ________ of asemic writing as defined within the  ________ of all writing.

Writing that operates only partially as asemics, i.e., writing that also  references language, whether iconographically or phonetically, is also within the set of all writing. One might argue that asemics itself is never free of language, that within the  ________ of writing, asemics itself only emerges as partial asemics. Indeed, the  ________ of writing that is non-asemics only emerges as partial as such because the asemic  ________ of language is present in any and all writing.

Beyond writing iconographically, where the grapheme comes to the fore, writing phonetically is another consideration.

Here, we consider writing iconographically as graphemic, but we consider writing phonetically as graphemic-phonetic because we are defining writing as graphemic and we are thereby requiring a graphemic presence for phonetic writing. To define writing some other way would require a re-thinking of this set theory.

Without reference to the graphemic-phonemic  ________ of language, writing phonetically occupies an unbounded  ________ as asemics, but with an available reference, writing phonetically occupies the  ________ of, for example, visual poetry. In other words, writing phonetically is, of course, within the  ________ of all writing, but for the question of asemics, how is the ________ of writing shared or not shared between writing iconographically and writing phonetically?

For visual poetry purists, visual poetry requires reference to language, by definition. Yet we have a means to limit the reference to language by mapping writing to the graphemic-phonemic  ________ of language without also conflating the graphemic-phonemic  ________ of language with the  ________ of language itself.

At an abstract level, the graphemic-phonetic ________ maps to music, and here, the ________ of music would seem to encompass the ________ of language. 

What does this mean as a realized practice? Take the example of vocal intonation in the work of Ennio Moricone, especially "Once Upon a Time in the West." What we have in "Once Upon a Time in the West" is not so much an example of asemic writing, but rather, an example of asemic music, a conception which allows us to supplant the graphic aspects of writing with the tonal aspects of music. Not only does its use of vocal intonation reference the ________  of music, but "Once Upon a Time in the West." also seems to posit an unknown language, which it also references, a conception which returns us to the very ________ of language.

As for posited (enacted) language, he Post Office scene in Men in Black II, in particular, the "Pooh Me Nan Ga" dialogue, makes for a wonderful illustration of vocal intonation (asemic music) doubling as language, however unknown or alien, however much non-sense.

Indeed, when music maps from the ________ of music to the ________ of language, we often find a ________ both of asemic music and asemic writing. Here, we encounter a mapping generally defined by onomatopoeia.  Onomatopoeia usually references the  ________ of music indirectly through the graphemic-phonetic  ________ of language, but as we have seen, the phonetics of vocal intonation do not require language because the  ________ of vocal intonation is within the  ________ of music. However, we often use language to establish this mapping, and the mapping of sound from language to language differs as, for example, the sound a rooster makes differs between French and English.

And here are examples of language mapped to/as music:

"Du Doo Ron Ron"

"Doo Wah Diddy"

"Da Da Da"

"Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"

"Iko Iko"

"Musha rain dum a doo, dum a dah

Whack for my daddy, oh"

"Ou W A A A"

"Click Click Boom"

"Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Ooga" or "Uga Chaka Uga"

"Da Boom Na Da Noom Na Namena"

We cannot easily define the total ________ of writing, let alone of writing and of music, and this lack leaves our theory open rather than closed, but we have, in the mapping of the  ________, a means to better understand asemics, even as the default  ________ of the  ________.

Notes from Tim Gaze: 

Check out the Tim Gaze radio show Sound Poetry etc.: Episode 6 included some silly songs and word games. Most other episodes include wordless sound poetry in the tradition of Henri Chopin. Recently, Tim Gaze is getting into a new wave of musical vocalists such as Stine Janvin and Audrey Chen, more or less asemic singing.

two polymorphous builds, by massimo sannelli 

photo: Silvia Marcantoni Taddei, 2021

 

stonesetter / EZE, 2021

 

itch / EZE, 2021

 

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