Nico Vassilakis - the independence of fear

Nico: I find it’s true, letters arrange themselves - it’s never a word first. They take time, they take their time, one letter at a time. A word is built, it doesn’t simply appear. We have forgotten, we live our lives at such velocity that words emerge fully formed, an effortless fact. But it is not that way, alphabets are the history of human sound applied visually. A word is considered a convenience, a formation of letters that represents an object. Letters are the construction and compositional material of societal communication. The ingredients, if you will, of talking, of writing, of thinking, of getting by in our everydayness. This piece consists of layers of the phrase “letters arrange themselves - it’s never a word first.” One on top of the other till meaning is obliterated, till the words break open and the letters are released. The words explode and letters find themselves liberated to explore their original visual and/or verbal functions. The letters unmoored from their word captor is my visual poetry. 

Comment: As far as words ago - I agree with Nico's sentiments exactly. I always picture letters as nanites, busy working before we think, speak - and never mind write. And then, once they've arranged themselves - willingly or unwillingly, they're out there, never to be retracted. They may be forgiven/forgotten/erased/reconsigned meaning, but their separate elements - the letters - remember. As far as the concept of vispro goes in terms of the image, the layering, the page size and format, the sharpness of visual text which feels very edgy, (as dangerous as a well written character) and a lack of 'poetics' seem to fit a description of visual prose, but begs the question, does intent create a work of prose rather than poetry? 

Nico: I think in terms of visual poetry as the umbrella term for the full array of “writing” endeavors. My work is usually a phrase or word that gets obliterated by movement, by the removal of the adhesive material between the letters of a word. The quality that seems common in vispro is layering, the thickness of overtype. The sentence vs the paragraph perhaps. The obfuscation of each. They fall under the same tent poles, of course, but there is a distinction. And that is the viewer’s assignment.

Comment: So this could be described as the narrative? This explanation falls well into the area of prose, but the image? Just trying to tie-down the WHY's. 

Nico:  Writing, in its physical, graphic form, is an inseparable suturing of the visual and the verbal, the "imagetext" incarnate." - WJT Mitchelle.