Semiografia i pismo asemiczne w praktyce książki artystycznej. Studium autoetnograficzne

The article proposes perceiving an artists’ book as an interface that models reception and interpretative processes through material and temporal parameters. It demonstrates that form, orientation, and volume of the book, pagination, density of writing, pauses, and editorial framework (cover, titular page, number of pages or elements) create procedural reading: recognition of rules and behaviour of characters that precede – and sometimes replace – lexical reading. In this field, there are two working categories: semiography and asemic writing. The first one means designing systems of characters for artistic use (dictionary of forms, rules of composition, generative procedures) which manage the behaviour of characters within the book’s space. The second one is defined in the article as the writing with-out predefined lexical reference while maintaining characteristics of traditional writing (gesture, graphic order, division into lines, simulation of text layouts), and therefore facilitating reading on the level of rhythm and relations. The research is an autoethnographic study: it is an analysis of the author’s own selected works –– Semiografia (Semiography) Semiografia 1.0 (Semiography 1.0), Semiografia 2.0 (Semiography 2.0), calligraphy books Asemic writing E1 and Asemic writing E2, Symetrie (Symmetries), as well as Pamiętniki pandemiczne (Pandemic Diaries) and Pamiętniki postpandemiczne (Post-pandemic Diaries) – focused on a number of variables: rhythm and number of verses, shape of characters, and angle of the tilt of the writing. These variables, in turn, set the density, tempo, and trajectory of reading. Methodology is based on formal and process analysis (material, layout, editorial framework, reception mode) mixed with reflections on the relationship between a character and a quasi-character in asemic practices. Results of the research allow us to categorise a set of project tools responsible for procedural reading – from the grid, through repetition and pause, to segmentation and the flip tempo – and to clarify the status of the quasi-character in the context of asemic writing. This leads to certain consequences for the book theory (book as an open system, work of which can be negotiated), as well as for the ethics of designing the reading interface (orienting the recipient without reduction of complexity). The article confirms that in an artists’ book, the meaning is born out of rules – measurable and possible to test – while language, if it appears, is secondary to the reception.