Visual poetry by Federico Federici (Italy) (2018)
(Image courtesy of the Asemic Front Archive)
A Response to Federico Federici's "Misreading Asemic Writing
as Kitsch: Scientific Forms and Structural Depth"
by De Villo Sloan
Followers of the Asemic Front Project know of my admiration for the visual poetry and poetic theory of
Federico Federici. He has published an essay at his Weisses Werk website that I
believe is of particular relevance to themes consistently appearing here at
Asemic Front 2: “Misreading Asemic Writing as Kitsch: Scientific Forms and
Structural Depth.” By all means hasten to the primary source:
Frederico Federici is a postmodern Renaissance person. He earned a degree in physics from the University of Genoa (Italy) and is a practicing scientist. He is also a prolific and acclaimed visual poet who publishes and performs worldwide. Federici offers us valuable insights of importance to the community. Here are some of
my thoughts about the article:
1) “Misreading
Asemic Writing as Kitsch” primarily discusses the presence (or lack thereof) of
structures in asemic writing/composition. I am a believer in asemic forms,
especially as they are proposed by Federici. The late, brilliant Belgian poet Guido
Vermeulen argued with me publicly saying, 'Form in asemic texts is
theoretically impossible.' I wish my dear friend Guido were here to read Federici’s
essay and consider its subtle nuances. Federici untangles the threads.
This passage from "Misreading Asemic Writing as Kitsch" explains the primary binary opposition in his main premise (although Federici transcends the binary in his discourse):
"Science, sharpened by methodological uncertainty, resists any closure: its pursuit of simplicity is not an aesthetic concession but the hard-won outcome of falsification and reduction. Kitsch, by contrast, operates through immediacy, relying on recognizable signs emptied of critical function and shaped by cultural clichés or personal resonance. It is thus evident that the symbolic thought underlying scientific notation differs radically from, and is irreconcilable with, any aesthetic-emotional perspective.
"Labelling asemic-scientific works as kitsch assumes that their scientific forms are deployed merely for their technical appeal. Yet, absent rigorous evidence, one could argue that the hybridization of asemic writing and scientific language operates on a cutting-edge plane, shaped by natively void signifiers and formal systems rather than semantic content. Hence, the asemanticisation process does not apply to the signifiers themselves but reveals the structures that bind and articulate them. This approach parallels symbolic computation, where signifiers function relationally without intrinsic content." (Federico Federici Weisses Werk)
2) My own
forays into using scientific and mathematical signification systems in my own work are largely intuitive and often use found material. But my instincts – as Federici’s reasoning affirms –
tell me these modes of discourse hold unprecedented opportunities for visual
poets exploring the outer reaches of language and image. Many asemic writers
are conducting similar experiments with musical scores and notations.
I venture tentatively to suggest the cutting-edge of asemics today belongs to this – still early
– experimentation with non-rational (irrational) systems. (The Leftwich & Gaze notion of
asemic writing is one of the more complex linguistic-philosophical koans of
the century!).
My own involvement with asemic theory that I have – half jokingly
– named “Asemiotics” requires new thought outside existing paradigms. (We struggle with imprecise terms and things that do not yet have names.) Given a
resurgence of interest, I would suggest asemic writers become fellow travelers
with Pataphysicians. Pataphysics can provide a synthesis of the humanities, sciences,
and math required for this depth of inquiry.
From Deconstructions by Jim Leftwich (2006)
(Image courtesy of the Asemic Front Archive)
3) I believe
Frederico Federici’s main bone of contention in his multi-faceted essay is a
concern over the designification of scientific, mathematical, and other systems into
a Kitsch (faux) vispo that is churning through global currents of both pixilated ether and
print journals.
Stepping
away from physics for a moment, I believe Jean Baudrillard’s (not optimistic) notions
of commodification, collapse of the sign, and now the death-spiral of the Simulacra
itself are visionary.
In
hyper-reality we are bombarded and engulfed in the self-referential process
of commodification, consumption, and control. Forms are replicating and mutating. We are experiencing the
hyper-real over-production of images. As Australian visual poet Kristen Szumyn has explained to me, "The Meta-Modern is alive and well and shattering into an infinity of particles." How does a new form of discourse – asemic
writing – factor into this revolution?
I
generally agree with Federici that asemic writing is a well and the power is in
its depths; however, Kitsch might not be the best descriptor of the
aesthetic. I have had conversations about Kitsch with European friends, and the
designation seems negative.
In the USA, we have “Popular Culture,” which seems
more egalitarian than Kitsch, somehow, should you have those ideo-cultural concerns. Inevitably, a faux "asemic art" has taken root; I am in complete agreement with Federici. For me, an asemic work is defined by its textuality, which deflates the "art" aspect.
I ask
Frederico Federici to take into consideration the current interest among visual
poets in Guy DeBord’s The Society of Spectacle (1967) (and its offshoots), the Situationists, the
Lettrists, and others who challenged the system by reflecting back through, a
sometimes distorted, mirror that expressed protest. Andy Warhol’s popart embodies this aesthetic. This particular approach has produced innovative results in vispo via the application of glitchart (or as I call it GlitchText).
My
criticisms of “Misreading Asemic Writing as Kitsch: Scientific Forms and
Structural Depth” by Federico Federici are few and minor. I think the piece is
remarkable because it addresses so many issues receiving attention in the vispo
and asemic writing communities now. This essay offers clear insights and elucidations to anyone seriously exploring asemic writing.
- De Villo Sloan
July 24, 2025
Elbridge, New York, USA
Response by Federico Federici to De Villo Sloan's Commentary on "Misreading Asemic Writing as Kitsch" July 26, 2025
Below is a response from Federico Federici to questions and insights from readers about his "Misreading Asemic Writing..." article including Australian visual poet Kristen Szumyn, Terry Reid, Daniel E. Stetson (and myself) along with others. We have had a lively and wonderful discussion. Here are the words of Federici:
"First of all, I thank those who read my piece attentively. I respond here, briefly and in the form of notes, to some of the valid observations that have been raised.
"To state that 'the symbolic thought underlying scientific notation differs radically from, and is irreconcilable with, any aesthetic-emotional perspective' does not mean stripping the resulting insight of philosophical—nor, as scientists like Einstein or Feynman teach us—of aesthetic value.
"What I mean by this statement is that the symbolic manipulation that produces the forms and formulas of scientific notation does not presuppose any aesthetic or emotional foundation in itself: there are precise rules, and these may be dictated by the need for adherence to the universe or by the mere internal consistency of a formal system that does not require any further interpretation. Nor is there any democratic or moral rule, for that matter. Often in physics one hears that certain forms are 'beautiful because they are simple,' but the point is that this is a consequence—they were not constructed with that goal in mind, nor manipulated for it. Their simplicity, moreover, almost always presupposes extreme complexity in interpretation.
"To state that mass and energy are equivalent and that the proportionality constant is the square of c raises interpretative questions that cannot be resolved through aesthetic-emotional reasoning. Of course, one may say, 'What a magnificent product of the human mind! Such a simple formula at the foundation of the universe!' But then what? The entire relational system of the universe is called into question: the concept of space, of time, of the combined metric of the two dimensions. Nothing simple—far from it. In fact, Minkowski’s metric was already known in mathematics before it was discovered that it could describe Einsteinian spacetime—further proof that, symbolically, content is not required.
"Popular science books, which constantly deal with paradoxes that are not paradoxes at all (see, for instance, the twin paradox), demonstrate how the mediation between natural language and scientific notation is not immediate. At times, it is 'irreducible' as in the case of the words 'wave' and 'particle' between classical and modern models. Addressing these issues formally is not within everyone’s reach, and even for those who can do the math, there remains the problem of 'translating' the meaning of those equations into a conventional language that was not forged with those ideas in mind. Consider the concept of time, the tripartition of past, present, and future—all things wiped away (in common sense terms) by Einstein, as Joyce’s work exemplifies in the artistic field.
"When, for example, I insist on the absence of content that does not preclude the existence of the work, I am reiterating the same concept in another form. I do not need to know what a mathematical object represents in order to represent or manipulate it. Whether one likes it or not, this is a fact: that a + a = 2a is independent of whether we’re counting deaths in war or apples on a tree. So: are we grieving for the slaughter or rejoicing for the harvest? This point is—in my view—fundamental for placing emphasis on the metric-relational discourse that seems to me to be at the heart of an asemic page’s raison d’être.
"In science, it is a constant interplay between practice and theory (so, to put it simply: between content and its symbolic form): the point is that the content of an experiment cannot be modified or steered by the experimenter’s emotional expectations, nor by their need for beauty or simplicity.
"The recent developments in artificial intelligence—which, contrary to what is sometimes said, is not just a stochastic parrot—demonstrate precisely how at times 'it is not necessary to know what one is saying in order to say it well' (which, in itself, may seem absurd, but if one considers the previous example, one can count in the abstract and the result holds). Machines do not know what they are saying, and yet they manipulate texts and information in extremely plausible ways, and they are machines built to simulate the human brain. Clearly, this does not, as of today, reduce humans to machines (or vice versa), but it does bring machines closer to humans—and as the complexity of not only the algorithms but also the hardware on which they run increases, I believe we may one day reach a point where human and machine truly touch.
"This morning, unaware of these comments, I was listening to a piece by Archie Shepp and thinking about how magnificent the coherence of all the notes was, even if they were barely distinguishable from one another, nor could one assign a 'content' to them. For this reason, all explorations that bring music together with the asemic world seem to me full of potential for new perspectives and ideas.
"My critique—maybe a direct one—is not aimed at the use of kitsch in itself—far from it! What I wanted to clarify is that the association between scientific notation and kitsch is by no means automatic and, in fact, that there are few footholds for transforming one into the other, unless one is willing to reduce the discourse to extreme simplifications. Joyce’s letters and notes during the drafting of his most complex works are proof of how intricate (and necessary) it is to gain full awareness of certain concepts in order to transpose them into the artistic domain."
Depeest thanks to both Federico Federici and the readers, from around the globe and from different disciplines and cultures, who shared the work and ideas so closely.
De Villo Sloan is a concrete poet living in Upstate New York. He writes frequently about postavant culture and is the director of the Winifred & De Villo Sloan, Jr. Charitable Fund.
