Xerolage 48 – Poemics (POEtry + coMICS) by Poemic Blog
http://xexoxial.org/is/xerolage48/by/poemic_blog
New work by Potr Szreniawski, Mateusz Suchecki, Nelle Hannes, Rosaire
Appel, Satu Kaikkonen, Jonny Gray & Sven Staelens.
from the intro:
There are many definitions of poemics. Poemics can be understood as an
art combining elements of poetry and comics, the space between poetry
and comics, or a place where poetry and comics meet. Sometime poemics
are classified as visual poetry, sometimes as experi- mental comics,
and sometimes as both. We think poemics can be a great way of
expression, perhaps that is why we create them.
—
Spoken Image: Speech Balloons in Poemics is where rigamarollers
crunch amid the awkward bones of half-eaten word burgers! Pszren and
crew fill bellies with poemics as knobby as the carapace of expired
foie gras and as delicious as the misdeeds of mammy! Seconds please.
—Andy Martrich
The Poemics issue of Xerolage 48 features work by Piotr
Szreniawski, Satu Kaikkonen, sven staelens, Mateusz Suchecki, Nele
Hannes, Rosaire Appel, and Jonny Gray. The introduction by Piotr
Szreniawski says “Poemics can be understood as an art combining
elements of poetry and comics, the space between poetry and comics, or
a place where poetry and comics meet.”
The work in Xerolage 48 indeed looks both like visual poetry and
comics. Panels and ‘thought bubbles’ are present, but they’re
typically not driving a storyful narrative as a more poetical
exploration of language or epiphany or philosophical inquiry or
presentation of thoughts on poetics.
There’s some thoughtful, provocative work here. For instance,
there’s a piece by Jonny Gray called EXCESS that includes this text:
“He said that what gets left off is central to the design. Absence is
usually more important than presence. Talk is cheap.” The panels are
silhouettes of ripped male torsos. With schematic diagrams overlayed
in the white areas. I’m trying to lose some weight at the mo. Ya my
design is to leave some of that stuff off.
And there’s a piece by Satu Kaikkonen called co’nnec ti’on that
consists of linked thought bubbles. and the things in the thought
bubbles are, themselves, sometimes linked to some of the other thought
bubbles or things in thought bubbles.
—Jim Andrews
New hybrids arrive because a need for dual expression exists that
requires attention. In this case, visual poetry and comics have
decided to merge into a group of artists calling their hybrid –
POEMICS. The entirety of purpose here is housed in the speech balloon
and how it lives in any given situation. More specifically, in this
sampler of POEMICS, the speech balloon is placed amidst signage and
symbol, alphabet and phoneme. Speech is, of course, intimated by the
balloon, but what utterance ensues is a quirky mirror of visual
thought. You see what could be said about seeing, and the content of
that utterance is revealed by the image itself. There have been
several forays into POEMICS in the past, but this latest incarnation
seems more vibrant and cohesive. We hope its legs are strong, and we
see even more work soon.
—Nico Vassilakis
The primary investigation of Xerolage is how collage technique of 20th
century art, typography, computer graphics, visual & concrete poetry
movements & the art of the copier have been combined. Each issue is
devoted to the work of one artist.
24 pages, 8.5 x 11, $7 includes postage
Subscriptions: 4 issues/$20
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