AI-semic Writing by Alicia Starr Ryan (New Jersey, USA)

 

Asemic writing experiment using the MidJourney app 

by Alicia Starr Ryan (Maplewood, New Jersey, USA)

AI art apps & asemics

Asemic writing is a 21st century genre, even when rooted in calligraphy, that is shared globally at a feverish pace & that evolves rapidly contingent upon its internet presence; its distribution is not dependent upon institutions nor official validation & gatekeepers. 

Asemic writing is post-literate in many ways, including the fact that - unlike traditional fiction, poetry & rhetoric - its present existence is not burdened by centuries of printing & material technologies (including paper) & institutional manipulations & prescriptions. 

This breathtaking freedom, however, is tempered to the extent that asemics as well as vispo & neo-concrete forms (central to AF2) are susceptible to web fads, trends & generally novelties & cheap tricks that are lionized for a brief time but then discarded. Of course, these rapid advances in technology often aid in helping the new genres blossom. The embrace of glitch apps here at AF2 is a prime example of something I see as tech-positive (although critics abound who insist on the contrary).

The asemic fad of the moment (or the greatest postavant-tech discovery of all time that will change everything if that's how you see it) is the use of AI (artificial intelligence) art apps springing up like weed stores to generate asemic texts. (The impact of AI art apps upon vispo is even more pronounced). Yesterday I noted that Michael Jacobson had posted AI-semics at his influential new postliterates blog. 

In a flash of synchronicity that seemed particularly meaningful, my longtime mail art friend & noted visual poet & collage artist Alicia Starr Ryan expressed her interest in AI-semics. Within a few hours I had obtained the piece that opens this post: Alicia Starr Ryan's first asemic text using an AI app. She writes, "This is from the app/program MidJourney." Her son, Silas, also a talented artist, collabed with her in the process.

I find the result fascinating. I adore the piece. I have worked on a number of mail art (material culture) projects with Alicia & have followed her work for a decade. Seeing a respected visual poet & asemic writer grounded in material culture transition to a new technological mode is an ideal situation for me to assess - at least for myself - the potential of AI-semics. 

I believe when the smoke of frenzied AI-semics clears & the lonely crowd moves on to some other digital fixation, AI art tools will become a mainstay for asemic writers. A very few asemic writers will doubtless rise as innovators & masters of this amazing tool. Deepest thanks to Alicia Starr Ryan for bringing Asemic Front 2 into the brave new world of AI apps.

- De Villo Sloan