Workshop: Filling Space with(in) Script

In his ‘poesie der fläche’ (poetry of the space), Franz Mon describes how the arrangement of writing – for example the ‘expansion, nesting, sequencing, jamming, dropping and many other gestural movements’ – adds value to the written text. As he states, the ‘optical gesture naturally joins the phonetic and semantic – as a supplement, extension, tension, negation.’ [1] While Mon only refers to two-dimensional written artefacts, this is also relevant for three-dimensional artefacts with inscriptions, where a haptic dimension is included.

The workshop will focus on the visual organisation of texts, in particular on the conceptual handling of the space between the characters of the main text. It will be investigated whether and with what this space is filled and what status these elements have. Are they pictorial representations, additional texts or purely coloured highlights? Are they merely ornamental or do they have further implications for the ‘core text’ that expand or interpret the content or transform the writing itself? Additionally, the question of how writing in various written artefacts, and even within architecture, can structure space and influence it beyond the actual content will be explored.

The aim is to identify differences and similarities between the various epigraphic and written cultures on the one hand and between the different categories of written artefacts (manuscripts and inscriptions) with regard to one particular aspect on the other. The workshop will provide a new approach to the question of the significance of space in and around the text and the relation between content, visual organisation and material.

[1] Franz Mon, zur poesie der fläche, in: Eugen Gomringer (ed.), konkrete poesie. deutschsprachige autoren. Anthologie, Stuttgart 2001, pp. 169–176, here pp. 171–172. (transl. by the authors).