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X E R O L A G E 4 6
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Xerolage 46 – STARINGS by Nico Vassilakis

http://xexoxial.org/is/xerolage46/by/nico_vassilakis

This is what an alphabet does when the books are closed and the
letters are off duty. The characters cavort, mate, replicate,
coagulate, instigate, insinuate, explode… Free of responsibility,
the alphabet dances.

– Rosaire Appel

In Starings we enter into a second universe (macro- and
microcosmic at the same time), where letters and punctuation marks are
every bit as real and hallucinatory, transitory and unerasable
creatures as stars, planets, grains of interstellar dust,
microorganisms or atomic particles are in the first one. They
multiply, interweave with each other and with light and darkness, open
frequently like a zip and what we have inside are themselves again in
a different shape. Their presence is so intense that they (and each
contrapuntal pair of their constellations) would start to speak to us
immediately — if only letters could do that. Listen. This is meaning
in the moment of birth.

– Márton Koppány

Nico Vassilakis’ STARINGS occupies us by combining radically
different registers of meaning — violence and play, destruction and
creation, character and scatter. And we are occupied when we enter
each image, as in taken over or filled up, concentrate on or in, we
have control or have lost control of meaning here. Not that there need
be an either/or in these pages. There is only is. So dwell a while.

– Jenny Sampirisi

Most interesting composition results from the mental equivalent of
crossing one’s eyes, tuning to a place between. Vassilakis hits a
sweet spot with the dynamic works in Starings, their textures,
accumulations, and rhythmic repetitions creating instances of chaos
and clarity, recognition and refusal.

– Lisa Radon

from the introduction:

Dear Alphabet’s Demur,
You take lines and shapes and given possibilities and make alphabet.
You use it to make sounds and you map out trajectories of thought. You
make names and call your children by them. This is done everywhere.
And it’s been done for thousands of years until you became bored with
this method — until you surrounded and suffocated yourself with these
products of your creation.

You go through ubiquitous, unrelenting text — you are altered by text,
by its message. You’ve had to alter how you see. You are forced to
alter text itself. You stare your way through words and into middles
of words. You resolve the noise of your eyes. The information you see,
you seek, to find another nature therein.

REVIEW

“The Noise of Your Eyes” by John Olson on Tillalala Chronicles
http://tillalala.blogspot.com/2010/08/noise-of-your-eyes.html

Nico’s more recent books include: Diptych (Otolith), Askew (bbc
press), TEXT LOSES TIME (manypenny press), staReduction (Book Thug),
Disparate Magnets (BlazeVox), Protracted Type (Blue Lion Books),
Irrational Dude with Robert Mittenthal (tir aux pigeons), West Of
Dodge (redfox press).

With Crag Hill, Nico Vassilakis is editing a major international
anthology of visual poetry, The LastVispo Anthology. Over 130
contributors from over 20 countries.

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

XEXOXIAL EDITIONS
10375 Cty Hway Alphabet
La Farge WI 54639