Asemic

Background Asemic writing has no fixed meaning. Vivid semantic compositions can be evidenced in the codework of Mezangelle; the concrete poetry of Mallarmé; Luigi Serafini's illegible Codex Seraphinianus; the mystic abstractions of Hilma af Klimt, the unruly dynamics of pioneering net artists like Jodi whose performances carve out aesthetic spaces through misuse of software. Contribution Nancy Mauro-Flude, guest editor, Runway Journal (RJ) Issue 45 Asemic, produced and curated an exhibition staged in context of the web environment. An artistic cohort was called to think of being in a performance with the paraphernalia of writerly technologies and mediums including machine learning language generation methods, virtual reality and .html code poetry. A suite of 9 art works invite new, variegated reinterpretations of asemic manifestations, revealing the possibilities of anomalies in what Jack Halberstam Prof. Comparative Literature states is a ‘refusal of legibility’ in ‘The Queer Art of Failure’ 2012). Significance The project partnered with Bundanon Trust (representing one of the most significant acts of philanthropy in the history of the arts in Australia). Artists selected through peer review were able to develop their work in the context of the prestigious Bundanon artist residency. Competitive funds were acquired from the City of Sydney. RJ is a digital platform that has been commissioning experimental new work by artists for almost two decades. Formerly hardcopy magazine RJ is an online publication resource that engages critically with current threads of Australian and international interrogating the networked forms of production and circulation that digital publishing can encompass.