to be honest
I haven’t done much “visual” poetry
(mostly performance or regular books)
but lately I've been a bit obsessed with typing
and kinda smudging Catullus' most famous poem
(that one of “vivamus mea Lesbia atque amemus”)
and it could be significant
of what I do
of my brain situation
and also perhaps of cultural transmission in Iceland
and in the modern world...
actually
I've always worked in my career
with the idea of finding forgotten/discarded images
and then forging a poetic frame
that keeps them alive
thanks to the construction of a text
(because without that frame
they would have disappeared)

bookkeeping was not made for feelings
that’s why I left behind the accounting nature
of word-docs
and started a little performance
on paper

the idea of these series was memory vs. oblivion

I wanted to create a topography of
what’s lost and what persists
noticing emerging patterns

I have no general title yet
but let’s say I’m developing “landscapes of oblivion”
I’ve also used óminnisnáttúrur in Icelandic
so perhaps “natures oubliées” (as opposed to “mortes”)
is a better rewording
though in Icelandic it might imply that these natures
are the ones who cause oblivion

this is the main series
which I call “NeSciamus” (Latin for ‘so we won’t know’)
where I use ode n°5 repetitively mistyped
as a basis

my obsessions here were:

memory & transmission
harmony vs. chaos
figurative vs. abstract

and considering signs
I would also add:

 standard+arbitrary+meaningful   font
vs.
spontaneous+organic+empty fluidity 

on a first æsthetic sight
these topics manifest by overlapping contrasts:

white + black
paper + ink
printed + faded
repeating + disappearing
intelligibility + unintelligibility
lineal + non-lineal
horizontal + non-horizontal
uniformity + unevenness
… 

since these are aesthetic elements
one doesn’t have to confer them more depth than the mere visuals
however
considering the written Latin
more topics emerge:

 living-language vs. dead-language
still-current-text vs. outdated-text
carpe-diem vs. morals
carpe-diem vs. death
carpe-diem vs. envy
love vs. bookkeeping
… 

all these ideas are old
(both in my career and in Art/Literature in general)
but there was a novelty for me here
these visual poems came as a creative work to do
while having headaches
due to a non-treated brain concussion
so for me
oblivion and the disintegration of things
(language included)
are very connected with my brainal problems…
a few days ago
I was officially diagnosed with autism
(technically with what used to be called Asperger)
and –I don’t know–
the fact that I'm repeating this text
to remember it
but I don't remember it
while words also get misprinted…
and also that I'm deleting
with the flow of ink
in a very aleatory/chaotic way
but it also creates quite a rigid structure…
perhaps there’s some attitude or some stimming
in this smudging ceremony
that is quite autistic (?)

I still have to re-consider things
from this new light on my life and my work
believe me
now it seems that many of my assumptions
thinking avantgarde poetry
as something universal and liberating
might not be so true
'cause the gregarious thinking of neurotypical humans
limits what I'd call “spontaneous eccentricity”
and thwarts most people from taking pleasure
in unexpected aesthetics
or word combinations that twist their reasoning…

humans don’t feel safe with oddities
(which is something darwinistically understandable)
they’ll reject eccentricity unless it’s served
in a standard well-known recipe

personally
I feel ‘vaccinated’ when there’s fresh Art
and a bit of mindfuck
in my surrounding culture

endless things could be said about Catullus’ n°5
but here I’m interested in a very secondary aspect:
it brings an optimistic example of oblivion
as a strategy to protect one’s feelings...
in a broader sense
this helps me to throw new light on cultural transmission
(or non-transmission)
with no resentment

as a carpediem-phenomenon
forgetting may be a conscious decision
facing the adversities of society
and our changing world

at the same time
I think it could give me some hope
if I ever in a very very distant future
end up developing Alzheimer

something happened on the first whole “NeSciamus” that I made
while revising it
I was feeling sick and craved for coffee…
but I spilled it on the card
first I felt extremely angry
but I ended up liking it
the coffee was brewed as thick and dense as my headache
but thanks to that it looks good

I haven’t dared to repeat the lucky strike
but it’s funny that people assume
that these splatters were made on purpose (!)

this brings me back to the idea of
what’s deliberate and what’s not
or are intentions more meaningful than natural randomness
what’s (a)semicity in the end?

if an alien culture would find these sheets
which elements would they consider the meaningful part?
those typewritten signs look regular and human-made
but they’re totally arbitrary and meaningless per se
the flowing lines however
might not be readable for us but
we instantly feel that there’s a form of expression there
though we don’t know what they say...
personally I perceive those patterns as very figurative
guess of what!

this always makes me philosophise a bit
these images have no plan
and drawing means making decisions
on the spot
as the ink advances
but still
there’s harmony in this randomness
by the fact that every structure is related to the others

an element only moves to where there’s space
an opportunity a possibility
and this movement may create new room behind
for other elements to slip into
as well as it may displace others
in a way
these changing structures are fighting/dancing together
for harmony

change is uncertain but not random

it happens only there where it can happen
and its chain of consequences follow
the basic logics of causality
the final result may be unpredictable
but it’s rational

for me
this doesn’t only mean physics and thought
it’s also ethics
this awareness urges us to take responsibility of reality

perhaps doodling doesn’t seem like a very transcendental sport
but I’m sure that people in impro-arts
often feel their job is the biggest allegory
of life