Cover of art catalog altered by Ferran Destemple (Barcelona, Spain)
with asemic signs made with/by William S. Burroughs
found in The Soft Machine and elsewhere.
(no date) Courtesy of Asemic Front Archive.
Burroughs is a Virus: Ferran Destemple's Asemic
Clairvoyant Dialogs with "Uncle Bill"
I have written a number of Asemic Front 2 articles about a Spanish visual poet - Ferran Destemple - who is doing fascinating work with asemic signs by William S. Burroughs. See the Soft Machine article and other work by Destemple and Burroughs on AF2.
A number of us currently involved in asemics discovered this esoteric practice via the work of Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs. (Many more sources of asemic inspiration can be found and, I think, are worthy of in-depth exploration.)
While examples of Gysin's calligraphic work are readily available, Burroughs' asemic output is less well known. Destemple "writes-over" Picasso (and cultural Modernity) with anti-symbols invented by Burroughs. Destemple's asemics salvage incomprehensible lost languages from the wasteland of WSB's imagination.
Of even more interest to me are Destemple's asemic dialogs with the dearly departed Burroughs. The result is an asemiotic construct of beauty and complexity. We live in a time when musicians collaborate via AI with musical partners dead nearly a half century to make new hits. Ferran's dialogs with WSB are entirely reasonable - even expected.
I look forward to sharing more work by Ferran Destemple. His kind missive explains much and is so articulate I give you the full text:
Dear De Villo,
I am sending you an asemic piece by Uncle Bill (Burroughs). In this work, Bill's asemic writing is inscribed over a Picasso art catalog. It is a dialog between two artists' visions: Burroughs' (writing) and Picasso's (paint), the language virus, the writing virus, injects Picasso's drawings.
Uncle Bill is making more work with printed texts by other artists. He is also working on pieces of asemic writing with AI.
I will send you more work soon.
Best regards,
- Ferran Destemple
April 14, 2025
Cabrils, Spain
From altered art catalog by Ferran Destemple (Spain) with asemic signs by William S. Burroughs.
(no date) (Courtesy of Asemic Front Archive.)
From altered art catalog by Ferran Destemple (Spain)
with asemic signs by William S. Burroughs.
(no date) (Courtesy of Asemic Front Archive.)
From altered art catalog by Ferran Destemple (Spain)
with asemic signs by William S. Burroughs.
(no date) (Courtesy of Asemic Front Archive.)
From altered art catalog by Ferran Destemple (Spain)
with asemic signs by William S. Burroughs.
(no date) (Courtesy of Asemic Front Archive.)