AF2 Commentary: Asemic Narratology - Miekal And's "KNOWTS FOR KNEVER" (Wisconsin, USA)

"Page 8 in KNOWTS FOR KNEVER" by Miekal And (Wisconsin, USA) 

(April 2025) (Image courtesy of the artist)

 

Asemic Narratology: Miekal And’s “KNOWTS FOR KNEVER: 

The Rediscovered Codex of X. Elam-Syr”

By De Villo Sloan

Visual poetry pioneer Miekal And is using artificial intelligence to weave complex sci-fi narratives and asemics. This is a fascinating synthesis of Philip K. Dick and Brion Gysin. Cheryl Penn (South Africa) is one of only a few visual poets I know who has attempted to integrate complex narratives into her work on this scale.

The digital narrative of “KNOWTS FOR KNEVER” gives a “speculative reconstruction” for the AI generated asemics that serve as the foundation of the narrative.

During the Asemics 16 collaborative book project, I noticed a popular method of asemic composition evolving: The artists merged visual poetry with the asemantic to intensify the expressionist power of the work. For instance, you might place weathered asemic neo-glyphs over glitched images of ruins.

Miekal And is expanding this genre to include fictions with asemic elements embedded. These have an affinity to graphic novels. Here is an example:

KNOWTS FOR KNEVER: The Rediscovered Codex of X. Elam-Syr

Name: X. Elam-Syr (speculative reconstruction)

Born: c. 1946–1953 (estimated)

Died: Unknown

Nationality: Presumed Martian-American (a symbolic nationality adopted within the work)

Known For: Inventor of the "Seismic Glyphic" and "Kneverline Script"

Field: Outsider Art, Visual Poetics, Scriptural Mysticism, Neo-Futurist Calligraphy

Associated Movements: Post-Linguistic Art Brut, Martian Semioticism, Autogenerative Diagrammatism

Major Work: KNOWTS FOR KNEVER (1960s?–1980s?)

Location of Discovery: Private archive, undated (discovered 2025)

(from "KNOWTS FOR KNEVER" by Miekal And)

"Page 4 in KNOWTS FOR KNEVER" by Miekal And 

(April 2025) (Image courtesy of the artist)

When I fully grasped that Miekal And had created organic, human-centric, folky asemics using Artificial Intelligence (on a number of levels), I came to appreciate the groundbreaking significance of the new medium. While using AI to construct new forms derived from the deepest roots of calligraphy, he has created texts - still rooted in human imagination - that are in actuality metasemic and hyper-real.

In a touch of irony not unnoted here, Miekal And has opened the field for linear narrative, genre fiction & other conventional modes in the asemic process of composition. I hope you will join me in following Miekal And's new work.

- De Villo Sloan

Elbridge, New York, USA

April 30, 2025

"Page 2 in KNOWTS FOR KNEVER" by Miekal And 

(April 2025) (Image courtesy of the artist)

(De Villo Sloan is a concrete poet who writes about postavant lit and art. He is director of the Winifred & De Villo Sloan, Jr. Charitable Fund.)