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UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository)

Writing and the 'Subject'

Greve, C.

Publication date 2004

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Citation for published version (APA): Greve, C. (2004). Writing and the 'Subject'. Pegasus.

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Download date:11 Oct 2021 66 PALIMPSESTS. VISUAL POETRY BY RYNIKONOVAANDD SERGEJ SIGEJ

Ryy Nikonova (Anna Tarsis) and Sergej Sigej (Sigov) are perhaps the most inter- estingg visual poets of Russia today. No other poets or artists have in a more directt way attempted to unite the artistic and poetic problems of the early Russian avant-gardee with the ideas of the contemporary Western and Russian avant- garde.11 Moreover, the visual poetry of Nikonova and Sigej has a definite con- gruencee with the early Russian avant-garde experiments in the integration of textt and image. This is obvious with regard to their techniques and modes of artisticc expression, as well as their ideas and conceptions. The ideas of the early avant-gardee are consistently brought into play in their poetic ideas and work. Thus,, the work of both Nikonova and Sigej can be seen as an attempt to re- thinkk some of the central issues of the early avant-garde: the close relation betweenn literature and art, the literally material and physical object-quality of script,, poem, and book (appealing to multiple senses), the performance element,, and the (unstable) status of the author. Bothh Nikonova and Sigej began their literary and artistic production around the beginningg of the 1960s (Nikonova in 1959 and Sigej in 1962). During the sub- sequentt 40 years, they continuously experimented with almost every possible poeticc technique and style. In 1965, Nikonova founded the Uktus School in Sverdlovskk (Ekaterinburg). Between 1962 and 1964, Sigej had been a member off Anarfut, a group of dada-futurists in Vologda. In Sverdlovsk he was one of thee founding members of the Uktus School. The group produced the handmade (andd handwritten) sami%dat)o\im2l Nomer of which a total of 35 unique issues weree made. Nomer lasted until 1974, when the group fell prey to suppression fromm the Soviet authorities. In the same year, Nikonova and Sigej moved to Ejskk near the Azov Sea. Here, they produced the sami^dat journal Transponans of whichh 36 editions appeared of 5 handmade copies each between 1979 and 1987. Thiss was the main organ of the group of transfurists to which Nikonova, Sigej,

217 7 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT' andd Boris Konstriktor (Aksel'rod) belonged.2 Inn die 1980s, Sigej became acquainted widi Nikolaj Chardziev, die Moscow col- lectorr and researcher of the early avant-garde, Igor Bachterev, who was a for- merr member of the absurdist OBERIU-group,3 and Vasilisk Gnedov.4 These meetingss were to have a profound influence on Sigej's work. The 1980s also gavee Nikonova and Sigej the opportunity to partake in the literary underground lifee of Leningrad and Moscow. In Leningrad they appeared at performances and poetryy readings. From 1986, taking part in mail-art projects, they had their first directt contact with Western experimental poets and artists. From 1987 they began too send their work to international mail-art and visual poetry exhibitions, and in 1990,, they were visited in Ejsk by Western artists. In recent years, Sigej and Ni- konovaa have made collaborative books with contemporary avant-garde visual poetss and artists. Collaborators include: Use and Pierre Gamier, Vittore Baroni, Johnn M. Bennett, R. Crozier, Carlo Belloli among others.5 The couple lived in Ejskk until 1998 when they emigrated. They now live in Germany. Throughoutt the years, Nikonova and Sigej have produced numerous hand- madee books (Nikonova has produced around 500), two sami^dat journals (No- merandmerand Transponans), and a handmade journal for international vacuum poetry {Double).{Double). They have participated in exhibitions of visual poetry and mail-art in Canada,, Brazil, Italy, Germany, and Mexico as well as in Russia, and extend theirr production not only to art and poetry but also to research and theoretical writings.. Yet, little of their work has been published.6 In Russia, a number of theoreticall articles aside, only a couple of booklets containing their work have appeared.7 7 Myy study in this chapter on the work of Nikonova and Sigej will be based on publishedd as well as unpublished material, and on interviews and conversations withh the poets. The focus will be on image-text relations in their work and in particular,, in their visual poetry. Although the poets are married and have workedd together since the mid-1960s, their approach to poetic experimentation andd visual poetry is very different. I will therefore analyze their work separately andd from different points of view using the palimpsest as a uniting element. In itss broadest definition, this is a model describing the overwriting of texts by

218 8 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ texts.. In the poetics of Nikonova and Sigej it is applied to discern a relationship betweenn present and previous texts, and is equivalent to their concept of trans- ponirovanieponirovanie [transposing].

Transposition n Transpositionn is a musical term signifying the transfer of music from one musi- call key to another, for example into a key which suits the voice of a particular singer.. In this case, music is transposed into the singer's personal tonality. This elementt of acquisition is central to the concept as used by Ry Nikonova. She usedd the concept for the first time in 1968 to characterize the transfer of somethingg already existing to a qualitatively changed mode or expression. One of her firstfirst transposed works was an American book of technical drawings featuring ann excavator. Nikonova added her own drawings on top of the technical draw- ingss thereby transforming it into a work of art. The basis for such works can be anyy text or image including literary texts, photographs, or graphic art (Nikono- vaa 1993: 255). Thee concept is also connected to Transponans. This sami^dat journal not only coveredd transposed works, but almost any kind of integrational, visual, conceptual,, minimalist, action, vacuum, gesture, pictographic, %aum\ and abstract poetryy or prose (Nikonova 1993: 255). It stood for an integrational line which was centrall to the concept of transfurism

HAefll TpaHCc|>ypH3Ma npocra: MM noAaraeM HCOGXOAHMMM pa3BHTHe Bcex AOCTTOKeHHHH HaniHX npeAUieCTBeHHHKOB H CHHTC3 3TOrO TpaAHUHOHHOrO pKee pyccK. aBaHrapAa c coBpeivteHHOH nosTHH. KyAbTypofi. (Kuzminsky 1986:: 547). (Thee idea of transfurism is simple: we see it as imperative that all achievements of ourr predecessors are developed and that a synthesis of this traditional Russian avant-gardee with the contemporary poetic culture is reached.)

Thus,, in the poetry of Nikonova and Sigej and in the poetics of transfurism, two themess are recurrent and play an important role. The first is the relation to pre- viousvious texts* Unlike the early avant-garde, their manifestos are devoid of the almost violentt attempt to free themselves from past high art culture. The relation of

219 9 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT' thee new avant-garde with previous texts appears to be an interplay between past andd present texts, as a series of returns and projections. Ry Nikonova characterizess this relationship as that of a parasite. Similar to the technique of the palimpsest,, the new text uses the originaltext as a background or as a potential:

P.H.. PIapa3HT — coBepmeHHo 3aKOHHHH npeAcraBirreAb c|)ayHM, B TOM HHCAee H XyAOiKeCTBeHHOH. CPopMM napa3HTHpOBaHHfl XVAOJKeCTBeHHMX npHHimnoB,, «HaAaraTeAbHue» TCKCTW, nirraionrHeai noTeHrjHaAOM npeAHAymeroo coAep>KaHHH, npeBpameHHoro HMH B 4>OH... HacKOAbKo napa3HTHHeHH naAmnncecT H noAOJKirreAbHoe AH STO HBAeHHe — IIOAHC|>O- HHHH noGeAHTeAH u noGe>KAeHHoro (pe^b o TeKCTax)? TpaHcnoHHpoBaHHe —— 3TO BeAt> TO»e HcnoAi>30BaHHe roTOBOH cJjopMH. C.C.. [...] npe>KAe Bcero, naAHMncecr - STO coBMecTHoe TBopnecTBo, rAe HeTT noGeAHTeAH H no6e)KAeHHoro, HO rAe ecu Hncrafl KOAAaGopamüi... Hoo Aa>Ke ecAH aBTopw He AoroBapHBaioTCH 3apaHee o COBMCCTHOM raop- HecTBe,, TO BHeApeHne B npKoe BOBce He «BARCTCR yHHHTo>KeHHeM. [...] OAHHMM CAOBOM, ceroAHKinHHH naAHMncecT — STO yBeAHHeHHe oGteMa HCKyccTBa.. (Nikonova and Sigej 1995: 26-27)

(R.N.. A parasite is a completely legitimate representative of the fauna, including thee artistic. Forms of parasitizing artistic principles, superimposing texts, living on thee potential of previous texts' content, turning them into a basis... To what ex- tentt is the palimpsest a parasite, and is this a positive phenomenon - the poly- phonyy of the conqueror and the defeated (with regards to texts)? You know, transpositionn is also a utilization of ready forms. S.S.. [...] First of all, the palimpsest is a joint creation, where there is no conqueror andd no defeated part only a pure collaboration... But even if the authors did not comee to an agreement about the collaborative work beforehand, then the intrusion intoo the Other is never destructive [...]. In one word, the palimpsest of today is an increasee of art's capacity.)

Inn the palimpsest, the original writing is erased or rubbed out to make place for a secondd new text. The earlier writing is effaced and superseded by a latter, which sometimess leaves traces of the earlier text. Thus, this technique used as a model off the relationship between existing and new texts contains an element of destructionn of the previous text, though is not completely destructive. It has an elementt of appropriation, though is not completely appropriating (traces are left off the previous text). The palimpsest is an encapsulation of a simultaneous

220 0 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ presencee of previous and new text and of orignal znd imitation. In hes Paradis artifi- ciels,ciels, Baudelaire describes the special state of mind conjured by opium. In this state,, memory is experienced as an immense conglomerate of previous events, ass a euphoric superimposition:

Whatt is the human brain, if not an immense natural palimpsest? My brain iss a palimpsest, as yours is too, reader. Innumerable layers of ideas and feelingss have fallen one after another on your brain, as gently as light. It seemedd as if each were swallowing up the previous one. But in reality none hass perished... Forgetting is only momentary therefore; and in such sol- emnn circumstances, in death perhaps, and generally in the intense excite- mentt generated by opium, the whole immense, complicated palimpsest of memoryy unfolds in an instant, with all its superimposed layers of dead feelings,, mysteriously embalmed in what we call oblivion... Just as every action,, thrown into the whirlwind of universal action, is in itself irrevoca- blee and irreparable, an abstraction of its possible results, so each thought is ineffaceable.. The palimpsest of memory is indestructible. (Quoted in Genettee 1982: 228)

Thee past can be seen as a reservoir of potential material, which can be integratedd into new constellations.9 Such a relationship is not so much a relation- shipp of quotation and intertextuality, but more a relationship of appropriation. Thiss overturns the status of previous texts as completed and untouchable workss and of the author as the incontestable originator of this or that work of art.. In an interview, Sergej Sigej ironically compares the author-function with thatt of the cattle-breeder. The sign of authorship is merely a stamp of appro- priationn just like the cattle-breeder brands his cows with a mark different from thatt of his neighbor: "This is my cow, therefore on the cow we burn a mark, thuss in order to appropriate, we have to put a stamp. I stamped it, thus it is mine"" (2003). The second important theme in the works of Sigej and Nikono- va,, therefore, is the function and status of the author.

6.1.. Ry Nikonova. A poetics of infinite permutation Inn studying and describing the work of Ry Nikonova one faces certain difficul- ties.. Hardly published, her work is, consequendy, in a constant state of manuscript.100 This non-static condition of Nikonova's work enables her to use and

221 1 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT' re-usee individual parts of her work and create a multitude of text variants accordingg to a variety of poetic techniques.11 Nikonova describes this multitude as aa carpet of possible styles.12 These individual realizations of possible techniques cann be said to be mapped out as a number of sites dominated by different tech- niquess or styles: one site describes the possibility of using coordinate systems, anotherr of using gestures, a third of using medicine, and so forth. This kind of mappingg seems to aspire to universality, to the writing of a Book of all known orr possible techniques.13 In the overall "carpet" of Nikonova's work, no sys- temss are prior to or better than others, though an attempt is made to integrate alll parts into one unit:

OO AHUM CAOBOM, BaAeHTHOCTb no3Ta craHOBHTCfl BcenorAomaiomeH. MHTerpaiiHOHHwee TCHACHUHH B HeAOBenecKOH Ae>rreAbHocra ceroAHH HBCTBeHHSI,, Ha CTMKe MeAKHX CneUHC^HKaUHH pO>KAaiOTCH HOBbie HayKH H HOBHee TexHHKH, HO, KaK MHe KajKeTCH, HMeHHO HCKyccTBo B cHAax o6-be- AHHHTbb BCE CHOBa. (Nikonova 1993: 251)

(Thee poet's valency becomes all-encompassing. Today, the integrational tenden- ciess in human activities are obvious; at the junction of fine specifications new sci- encess and new techniques thrive. But, so it seems to me, the arts have the power too unite everything anew.)

Thiss is the horizontal or integrational axis found in Nikonova's work. However, herr work can also be described along a vertical axis, or along what I call a de- constructionall axis:

TpaHCnoHHpoBaHHee Ha 4>opMaAbHOM — BemecTBeHHOM — ypoBHe noAb- 3yeTCHH npneMOM Ae-KOHcrpyKimji, AonoAHeHHH H 3aMemeHrai, TO ecn> AeKOHCTpyKiiHHH KOMneHCHpyeMHx. B AeKOHcrpyKHHio B CBOIO onepeAb BXOAHT:: CABHT, Koppeioypa — 3aHepKHBaHHH —, MaHHnyAHpoBaHHe reo- rpaqbHeHH o6i>eKTa, HeKOTopue SAeMeHTH BaHAaAH3Ma, KyAHHapT H TOMy noAoÖHoe.. (Kuzminskij 1986: 553).

(Onn a formal (object) level, transposition makes use of the de-constructional techniquee of supplement and substitution, i.e., deconstruction of equilibrators. Deconstructionn includes displacement, correction (crossing out), manipulation withh the geography of an object, some elements of vandalism, culinart, and so on.)

Here,, deconstruction should be understood as an alternating decomposition

222 2 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ andd composition; i.e. a manipulation with the minimal units of the visual signs off a text. It is connected to the early Russian avant-garde concept %aum\ It is a strategyy of destabilizing the signifiers. These two axes in her work should not be seenn as yet another dichotomy between paradigmatic and syntagmatic chains, butt rather as an interrelated and interactive relationship, as two principles, whichh permeate all levels of her work.

Mathematicss and poetry Sincee Nikonova's poems are usually dated, it is possible to reconstruct a (genetic)) chain of transformations of one (often very simple) minimal poem into numerouss more complex poems.14 I see this vertical axis of Nikonova's work as beingg based on a constructivist principle of mechanical manipulation with a fi- nitee number of distinct elements. Thus, it is not the genesis of such a chain but thee process of transformation which is significant in the work of Ry Nikonova. Therefore,, I wish to emphasize this process character of her work: every indi- viduall text is endlessly manipulated, or modulated, corresponding to what Ni- konovaa has called "mathematical operationalism".15 Ryy Nikonova has repeatedly stated her fascination with mathematics, and has actuallyy written poems based on numbers.16 Her attraction to numbers seems to bee inspired by their abstract and conventional aspects.17 With mathematics and thuss with numbers, we are able to describe the world without naming things'.

Numberss are the most familiar form of the mathematical because, in our usuall dealing with things, when we calculate or count, numbers are the closestt to that which we recognize in things without deriving it from them. (Heideggerr 1993: 277)

Nikonova'ss use of numbers in poetry may be related to her acquaintance with Jasperr Johns's number-paintings in the 1960's. She quotes him as saying that he includedd numbers in his paintings to avoid images: "pisat' tol'ko cifry, ctoby izbe- zat'' 'obrazov'" ("To paint only numbers in order to avoid images"; 1995: 223).18 Onee element of the mathematical in the poetics of Nikonova therefore seems to bee the ability to use numbers as signs without denoting things, thus presenting numberss as more immediately present in their new, defamiliarized situation. On

223 3 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT' aa more fundamental level, the mathematical can be seen as the underlying principlee of her poetics. Sincee its Phoenician origin, the alphabet has been linked direcdy to numbers:

Onee of our most priceless possessions is the established sequence of the alphabett with its twenty-odd letters in their fixed order. [...] Numbers are indissolublyy linked to the fixed sequence of the alphabet: the first letter standss for the first number, die next letter for the next number, and so forth.. (Menninger 1969: 262)

Inn both Hebrew and Greek, letters have numerical values according to their or- derr in the alphabet Another common idea is the anagrammatic conception of thee (world-)text as consisting of a combination of a finite number of letters withh a number value: "All the innumerable words that make up the language are resolvedd into a limited number of some 20 to 30 individual phonetic symbols" (Menningerr 1969: 264). Here, it is natural to think of Leibniz's interest in creat- ingg a philosophical language, which should function as a calculus.19 Similarly, Chlebnikov'ss interest in numbers was fed by a neopythagorean idea of the unity off numbers and music and was reflected in the creation of a universal language.200 Both of these attempts to construct universal languages were based on thee idea that the detachment of letters from sound makes the letters function in thee same way as numbers. Accordingly, letters - when detached from sound - cann be used like numbers as a finite series of units. This is a fundamental elementt in writing, as Derrida famously remarks: "The history of the voice and its writingg is comprehended between two mute writings, between two poles of universalityy relating to each other as the natural and the artificial: the pictogram andd algebra" (1997: 303). Thus,, the letters of the alphabet can be seen as a finite series of purely visual signss which do not necessarily have to be connected to sound and which, therefore,, can function in the same way as numbers. Accordingly, in the poetics of Nikonova,, the image, the letter, and the number seem to merge in a construc- tivisttivist principle of free manipulation of elementary units (the letters). Such a principlee uses tautology as a basic structural element: "Alfavit svjazyvaet Puskinaa i Gorbaceva, Barkova i Bednogo, u vsech bukvy odni i te ze, pora èto

224 4 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ zametit'"" ("The alphabet connects Puskin and Gorbacev, Barkov and Bednyj; theyy all use the same letters. It is about time we notice this"; Nikonova 1993: 252). . Correspondingg with Borges' well-known proposition, that everything has already beenn written, a poem consists merely of yet another alphabet combination.21 Repeatedd and endlessly combined, the alphabet is a finite series of signs. On this meta-level,, the infinite possible mutations of such signs comprise the real event inn literature. Every new combination constitutes a new pattern in an (endless) chainn of possible patterns. In one chain of transformations, the first (fairly traditional)) two-lined poem ("Smotrju na tebja / Pogibnes' ty" ["I look at you / Youu are dying"] is then manipulated in four subsequent poems. In the first transformation,, the first line of the initial poem is isolated and doubled, the first syllablee is subtracted and the preposition "na" is substituted by "de" in the secondd line ("Rju na tebja / Rju de tebja"). In the second transformation, the constructionn is manipulated into a two-voiced dialogue:

11 2 (1 1 2 2 Pioo Pio Rju u Rju u Haa Ae na a de e Te6aa Te6fl tebja a tebja) ) Inn the third, the letter 'r' is added ("Rju dre trebja"); and in the fourth and final example,, the letters 'rn' and 'rp' are added to the sentence ("Rjurna tebjarn / Rnjuu dre trebjarp"). Anotherr chain shows both the free manipulation of letters and a gradual merging withh numbers. The simple minimalist poem consisting of two R's placed verti- callyy on the page is manipulated and modulated through the years.22 The letter 'R'' may stand for the initial letter in Nikonova's pseudonym Ry, which is evi- dentt in the development and transformation of this minimalist poem. In the secondd poem in this chain, the Russian letter 'y' ((blr) in the name "Ry" is doubled.. In the third poem, the initial letter 'R' is laterally reversed, and instead of thee entire letter 'y' only the second half of the letter is left, making the poem lookk like a palindrome. At the end of the fourth poem, a sign similar to the numberr 9 substitutes the reversed letter 'R'. The entire sequence bears some

225 5 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

resemblancee to the number P6169. Finally in the fifth poem, the second 'y' is extendedd with an additional line consisting of the second half of the letter V' formingg the number P61611. Unlike the previous chain of transformations, this chainn has a distinctly visual character. Some letters are cut into pieces and some resemblee numbers more than letters. The final three poems are purely visual, detachedd from sound and unreferential. Thesee transformations and manipulations of an initial poem express a formal constructivistt principle in which every sentence, word or letter can be isolated andd subtracted, multiplied or added in a free combination of distinct units. Ni- konovaa provides an illustration of this principle in her poem 'A Poem which explainss the process of the Literary Work':

CTHX,, yHCHflioirjHH npoiiecc (A Poem which explains the AirrepaTypHOHH paöoTM process of the Literary Work aBree acfe ++ + 6A>KMM bdgm

a66 BA DK eM ab cd fg em

66 BA - M b cd - m

aa r>K e a fg e) ([1981]] 2001: 119)

Accordingly,, the poetic work is based on a (de-)constructional principle that allowss for the free manipulation and combination of distinct units (the letters) thatt function like numbers in mathematics.

Transpositionn between different sign systems Ryy Nikonova repeatedly cites Cicerin as one of her most admired predecessors. Moree than anyone, Cicerin opened up poetry to a multitude of possible signs.23 Inn his poetics, the borders between different artistic or non-artistic systems weree transgressed and a multitude of different signs were integrated within one

226 6 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ artisticc text, regardless of the code required to interpret these signs. According too modern information theory, it is the inherent property of artistic systems to bee able to integrate non-systemic material without eliminating these anomalies, insteadd allowing them to take on structural meaning, and be transformed into information: :

Artt - and here it manifests its structural kinship to life - is capable of transformingg noise into information. It complicates its own structure ow- ingg to its correlation with its environment (in all other systems the clash withh the environment can only lead to the fade-out of information. (Lot- mann 1977: 75)

Inn Nikonova's work, there seems to be no limit to the kind of signs that can be integratedd into a poetic text. In a third chain, the simple "Zuet Abissinija / cvetyy / cveta alljuminija" ("Abyssinia masticates / flowers / of an aluminum color")) is constructed according to a number of rhythmic repetitions, with the wordd "zuet" [masticates] as the only divergence. In the following transformation,tion, the tautological structure of the poem is visually demonstrated in the form off a coordinate system. The words "Abissinija" and "alljuminia" are located on eachh side of the left horizontal coordinate line, while the words "cvety" and "cveta"" are located on each side of the right coordinate line. On the vertical line abovee the other words, the word "zuet" is placed (figure 32).

Fig.. 32

227 7 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

Heree the visual element is a mathematical coordinate system that structures the similarr or divergent elements on left-right and up-down axes. Moreover, vectorss are drawn between the tautological elements, and arrows are drawn to indi- catee reading-orientation. In this way, the mathematical element indicates repeti- tiontion or deviation in the formal structure of the poem, and seems not to corre- spondd or augment the semantic content of the initial poem. A cross-section of Nikonova'ss work shows such chains of transformations of individual poems. Thee chain of transformations of the poem 'BR' includes five visual poems that encompasss many of the elements most often found in Nikonova's visual poetry.. These elements draw on mathematics (tables, vectors, coordinate systems, doublingg and so forth) and on physics (atoms, molecules, quantum field theory too name a few).

Fig.. 33

228 8 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ

Fig.. 34

Fig.. 35

Fig.. 36

229 9 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

Ryy Nikonova's so-called "architextural" constructions consist of "building- blocks"" of tautologically collected letters. The visual element is a grid structur- ingg the text, which is similar to the way in which computer models describe an image.. In electronic imaging, the images we see are constructed of flows of electricc pulses spelled out in matrices of long series of letters and digits, trans- latablee into on-off or yes-no choices. In the architextures of Nikonova, the blankk spaces (the vacuum) in the grid-structure are merely an offot no choice in thee series of tautologically structured modules.24 Furthermore, vectors are drawnn between single isomorphic constituents whose role Nikonova describes ass a kind of memory-technique, fixating the interactive isomorphism hidden in thee poem's sound-structure. These vectors are indices of events in the text, movementss or trajectories of travelling elements. Thee visual poems in figures 33 and 35 are architextural constructions. The first constructionn has the repetition of the initial poem 'BR' as its basic structure, whilee vectors unite the letters 'e', 'o', and V in the one-line poem "Brebrabr' v oknoo svetit" ("Brebrabr shines through the window"). The second poem is constructedd like a mirror with "Br" and "db" on either side of the centerline, thee letters T and 'ch' beneath on either side, and finally the letter 'f under the centerr line. Vectors emanate from the construction though do not appear to leadd to any particular direction. The same poem is given in a coordinate variant, in figurefigure 36. This poem is written in Latin letters and is constructed with a coordi- natee system (or musical sheet?) as the basic form, though it repeats the constructionn from the previous variant. The grid and the vectors do not seem to be inn congruence with any propositional content in the individual texts; they merelyy reveal the iterative mathematical structure of the text as a fundamental conditionn for any textual structure. The final poem in this chain is a complex compositionn of circular, triangular and square forms, letters, vectors and dots (seee figure 37).The poem in figure 34 is integrated into the bottom of the composition,, enclosed by a circle. A similar simple composition of the letters 'b' andd 'r' is integrated at the top, enclosed by a square. In between these forms, singlee 'b's or 'r's 21e. flowingi n the system though they seem to be divided betweenn the bottom and center (which has mostly 'b's) and top (which has mostly

230 230 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ

'r's).. This image is very similar to how one might imagine a molecular model. Accordingg to such a model, matter can be broken into a number of molecules, thee molecules into atoms and the atoms again into a quantum field or vacuum. Thus,, the world is countable, structurable and describable according to a mathematicall model. The elementary units (the atoms) can be combined end- lesslyy in an ungraspable variety of forms and structures. The richness and com- plexityy of the entire universe is in reality just a combination of a few modular elements.255 Projected onto literature, the alphabet is a series of such modular elementss which when combined, construct literary patterns and when decon- structed,, can dissipate into minimal units: a quantum field, or vacuum.

231 1 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

Vacuumm poetry Thee intensified attention of modernist poetry to the graphic mark on the page, too the spaces between them, and the (white) margins around them,26 leads to a conceptionn of the page in which every (minimal) mark, even a fold obtains sign status.. This conception ultimately walks hand in hand with the fascination with silence: :

Wee live inside the act of discourse. But we should not assume that a verbal matrixx is the only one in which the articulations and conduct of the mind aree conceivable. There are modes of intellectual and sensous reality foundedd not on language, but on other communicative energies such as thee icon or the musical note. And there are actions of the spirit rooted in silence.. (Steiner 1979: 31)

Thus,, the last page of Vasilisk Gnedov's book from 1913 Smert' iskusstvulis emptyy except for the tide: 'A Poem of the End'. Sergej Sigej has compared this bookk of 15 poems with the garden of (15) stones in the Ryoanju Buddhist tem- plee near Kyoto. Of the fifteen stones in this garden only fourteen are visible at anyy one time, the fifteenth becomes visible only through deep meditation (Brookss 2000: 53). It is not known if Gnedov had this garden in mind when makingg the book. However, it is likely that this image is familiar to Nikonova, whoo is probably also familiar with John Cage's ideas regarding the "void", as Nataliee Crohn Schmitt describes:

Cagee has often expressed his ideas about the "void": "The sand in which thee stones in a Japanese Garden lie is also something". "No silence exists thatt is not pregnant with sound". There is, Cage believes, no such thing as non-activity:: in art as in nature, no space, no sound, no activity can be dis- countedd as background, as inconsequential, irrelevant, or nonexistent. (1990:: 24)

Thiss image clearly exemplifies the new conception of silence. To a modern sci- entificc mind absolute silence does not exist nor does completely empty space. Thus,, there emerges a conception of silence and emptiness as a potential. Ac- cordingly,, Nikonova's conception of silence and emptiness is marked by an un- derstandingg of this space as a field of possible but not yet visible texts: "Sfera

232 2 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ mokhh interesov v iskusstve - vozduch, prostranstvo, kotoroe POKA dosta- tocnoo prozracno" ("The sphere of my interests in art lies in the air, the space, whichh is jA'//sufficiendy transparent"; Nikonova 1993: 247). Itt is interesting to consider Nikonova's visual poetry in relation to field theory inn quantum physics. In the vocabulary of her poetics, terms like energies, vectors,, quantum, lines of force, gravitation, and so forth frequendy feature. A parallell with quantum field theory is therefore an instructive metaphor for her approachh to the page. This metaphor was used by Umberto Eco to characterize hiss concept of the "Open Work":

[When]] we encounter an artist who uses scientific terminology to define hiss artistic intentions we will not assume that the structures of his art are a reflectionn of the presumed structures of the real universe; rather, we will pointt out that the diffusion of certain notions in a cultural milieu has par- ticularlyy influenced the artist in question, so that his art wants and has to bee seen as the imaginative reaction, the structural methaphorization, of a certainn vision of things (which science has made available to contemporary man).. (1988:86)

Accordingg to the popular interpretation of quantum field theory, the classical distinctionn between solid, indestructible particles and the void is invalid. Parti- cless are not material substance, but condensations of energy which come and go.. These particles are not only composed of energies, they also emit energies themselves.. They are organized in modules or patterns to create matter, though matterr can just as easily lose its individual character and dissolve into the under- lyingg field, or emerge again in a new constellation. Thus, the whole universe appearss as a dynamic, changing web of energy patterns. Particles must be con- ceivedd of as condensations of a continuous field present throughout space, whilee at the same time determine the structure of this space. According to this view,, only endless transformations or creations by transformation exist; there is noo original moment and no end, no void and no chaos, only a dynamic inter- dependencee between these.27 Applying this theory as a metaphor for the work off Nikonova, I do not however intend to invoke it as the essential model for herr poetics. In reality, her work appears to interact with any possible field of culturall phenomena: mathematics, biology, music, painting, and so forth. How-

233 3 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

ever,, as she frequently uses concepts derived from quantum physics, it is in- structivee to use this theory as a metaphor for certain aspects of her work.

Thee Black Square Inn the visual poetry of Ry Nikonova, Kazimir Malevich* Black Square plays an importantt role as an icon of the ideal synthesis of literature and painting. The BlackBlack Square is seen as the ultimate palimpsest, as the supreme finality of all literature: :

ECAHH paccMaTpHBaTb rneAeBp MepHoro KBaApaTa KaK AjrrepaTypHMH KOAAanc,, BMecTHBuiHH B ce6» Bee CAOBa Bcex BpeMeH H HapoAOB, TO BH- XOAA CHOBa B Bep6aAbHyio cchepy CTaHOBHTca H3AHIIIHHM. (Nikonova 1998:82) )

(Iff one regards the masterpiece of the Black Square as a literary collapse which con- tainss all words of all times and peoples, then turning again to a verbal sphere be- comess superfluous.)

Thiss is most plainly visualized in her poem 'Transponirovanie kartiny K. Male- vichaa v cernyj bespauznyj stich' (Transposition of K. Malevich' Picture to a Blackk Poem without Spaces') (figure38). However, a potential transgression of thee Black Square emerges in the thinning of the edges of this visual poem result- ingg from an apparendy arbitrary transgression of the geometrical lines of the squaree by blurry unstructured letters. Thus, it can also be seen as a reservoir of potential: :

HaicoiiAeHHbiHH 3TOH «nepHOH Ahipofi» HCKyccrea KOAAocaAbHHH noTeH- miaAA MO>KeT CKOAAancHpoBaTboi B OAHy TOHKy, HcnapHTbCH AO 6eAoro KBaApaTa,, AO BaKyyMHoro HCKyccTBa riAaT(|>opMbi [...] HO Mo>tceT irpocro npopacTHH SHepmefi BeKTOpoB. (Nikonova and Sigej 1990)

(Thee colossal potential accumulated by this "black gap" of art can collapse into a dot,, evaporate to a white square, to the vacuum art of a platform [...] or it can simplyy grow vectors of energy.)

Onee possibility, therefore, is to reveal the so-called energies hidden in the black geometricall form. These are realized as vectors springing out from the geometricall form, leading apparendy no-where at times.

234 4 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ

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235 5 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

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Fig.. 40

236 6 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ

Anotherr equally persistent possibility is the vacuum which can be seen as the totall dissemination of text, as in the next visual poem (figure 39). This poem is comparablee to a field of not yet condensed black dots, with the possibility of formingg letters and in the end of forming a text. Or perhaps this has already beenn a text and only traces of the original text remain? Similarly, the architextures, ass I have shown, are grid-structures which correspond to the iterative mathematicall structure of the text. The example given in figure 40 shows an architec- turall transformation of Nikonova's article 'A Gesture of Square Freedom' in English.. Numerous examples can be given, some very simple, others very complex.. In the end, the text does not seem to be necessary to support such an ar- chitecturall grid. The grid itself can survive as a kind of empty form.

Disorientation n Ann important element of Ry Nikonova's visual poetry is her clear intention to disorientatee the reader. The architectural grid and vectors guide the reader's ga2ee away from the European way of reading (the strict left-right orientation on thee horizontal axis and the up-down orientation on the vertical axis). Although Nikonovaa regrets the architectural construction's lack of possible reading direc- tions,, the grid-structure does offer a vertical axis, a Chinese axis of reading text. Inn light of the aforementioned parallel to quantum physics, the following ex- ampless given by Nikonova under the heading: 'Svobodno konvertiruemye stichi'' ('Freely Converting Poems') are perhaps too emblematic of the intended disorientationn of the reader. Commenting on the first poem (figure 41), she writes: :

CraxoTBopeHJiee BOKpyr coAHua «B» o6Hapy>KHBaeT TOABKO HeKOTOpwe H3 CBOHXX Ayneii c noTOKaMH corAacmjx. B HeM noAHepKHBaeTCH cerMeirrapHOCTbb 3axBaneHHoro rrpocraHCTBa. «B» HcnycKaeT IÏOTOKH KBairroBB [...] BeKTopHaa 3Heprafl cmxoTBopeHHH HeBHAHKa, OHa He no3BOAflerr AyneBOMy craxoTBOpemno npeBpaTHTbCfl B ccJjepuMecKoe, CHfliomeee nAiopaAH3MOM TCXHUKH HTCHHA. 3Aecb Bcero AHIIIB 2 MaHepw HTeHHKK B03M05KHH: oGbiHHaii eBponeficKafl (cAeBa HanpaBa) H KjrraHCKafl (cBepxyy BHH3). (1992)

237 7 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

(Thee poem around the sun *B' reveals just some of its rays with flows of consonants.. In this poem the segmentation of the seized space is emphasized. The 'B' emitss quantum flows [...] The poem's vector energy is not large; it does not allow thee ray-poem to transform into a spherical poem, which is radiating with a plural- ismm of the reader technique. Here, there are only 2 manners of reading possible: thee ordinary European (left-right) and the Chinese (up-down).)

Itt is correct that we involuntarily read the letters on the horizontal line from left too right and the letters on the vertical line from top to the bottom, but in doing soo the reader-direction clashes with what is supposed to happen chronologi- cally.. If we see the letters as emitting from the sun 'B' (as the arrow-like vectors indicate),, the letters 'n, n' on the vertical line are emitting before the *b' letters. Consequently,, we actually read the movement backwards, which makes this poemm a lot more interesting than Nikonova's own comments would have one believe. . Nikonovaa characterizes the next poem (figure 42) as a triangular shaped poem consistingg of four quantum elements with vectors around it seeking "verbal food".. Indeed, if the reader stops for a moment to contemplate this poem, he orr she involuntarily seeks a continuation of the fragmented syllables and letters, thoughh it is not certain whether such a continuation exists. One poem, figure 43,, is only an indication, a beginning characterized as a "proto-poem". The formm of the 'O' in the top right corner of me coordinate system echoes the formm in the bottom left corner. However, this form is broken. Perhaps the beginningg has already been deemed a failure? Another technique is the crossing overr of words as in figure 44. This poem is remarkably rich with potential significance.. According to one interpretation, the crossing out of the words ne- gatess both "tut" [here] and "tarn" [there]. According to another interpretation, thesee crossed out words are involuntarily read. In the first reading, here and theree are equaled to no-where, and in the second reading, here and there seem too be the same, both here and there. In this poem and in the other poems mentioned,, there is no one reader orientation; the reader is disorientated. Further- more,, the interpretation is dependent on the reading subject him- or herself and onn the way he or she chooses to interpret the visual signs.

238 8 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ

J» »

O O Fig.. 42 oo I vj

Fig.. 43 TAM M HE E TYT T HE E TYT T HE E TAM M XXt t Fig.. 44

239 9 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

Vector-poems s Itt is clear that the page is seen as a field of energies and in the poetics of Ry Ni- konova,, it is of great important if there has already been a text or if the text is stilll to come. Approaching the page this way actually implies that there is always aa possible (but not yet realized) text before the text:

ECAHH TAyÖOKO BHHKHyTb B BaKyyMHïie 6e3AHH, TO AK>6oH TeKCT, HaHOCH- MHHH Ha HHcryio GyMary, — 3TO npouecc BhraBAemifl y>Ke cymecTByiomHx Haa 3TOH GyMare TCKCTOBHX B03MO>KHOCTeH, TO ecTB BaKyyMHaa AirrepaTypa -- 3TO CBoGoAa HHTaTeAK) npeAnoAaraxb TCKCT. Etpn AOcraTOHHo iimpo- KOMM B3rAHAe AioGaa HHcrafl CTpamma ecn> eMKocTb e GCCHHCACHHMM KOAHMeCTBOMM HeBHAHMHX TCKCTOB, a npOHeCC BblGopOHHOTO BOCnpHiTTHfl -- He GoAee HeM npouecc oGeAHeHHfl TaKHx crpaHim. (Nikonova 1998: 83) (Iff one was to look deep into the vacuum abyss, then any text, which has been markedd down on a clean piece of paper is a result of a process of revelation of the textuall possibilities which already existed on this piece of paper, i.e. vacuum litera- turee is the freedom of the reader to propose a text. Seen from a sufficiently broad pointt of view, any clean page is a capacity with an immense quantity of invisible texts,, and the process of selective perception is nothing more than a process of impoverishmentt of such pages.)

Conceivingg it this way, the page with disparate black dots is an image of endless possibilities.. Every actual realization of something decreases the possibilities:

Xonyy OTMeTHTb oAHy HHTepecHyio oco6eHHocn>, B03HHKaK>nryio BBrairra- HHHX.. ECAH B BaicyyMe ecn> BCE, TO BbTHirraHHH nero-AnGo OH npHoGpe- TaeTT CnELUiAAH3ALlHIO, T.e. HanpaBAeHHocrb, BEKTOPHOCTb [...].. Hy, a ecAH, npeAiiOAOJKHM, H3 BaicyyMa MO>KHO GWAO 6M Bwnecrb noHTHH Bee, a ocraBHTb eAHHCTBeHHyio ero nacn», a HMCHHO - Ajrrepa- Typy?? Tan H B03HHKaeT AirrepaTypa, nyTeM BHHAeHeHHH H3 oGmeii Maccw, HH noAynaeTca, HTO OHa - Bcero AHiiib KBaHTOBWH BaKyyM, HOH ero. (Niko- novaa 1982-83)

(II would like to mention an interesting peculiarity that is becoming apparent in the processs of deducting. If the vacuum contains everything, then when deducting somethingg it acquires specialisation, i.e. direction, vector quality [...]. Well, but if, let uss suppose, from the vacuum there could be deducted almost everything, and theree would be left only a single part, namely literature? In this way literature arises,, by the way of deduction from the common mass, and it appears that litera- turee is merely a quantum vacuum, a particle of such a vacuum.)

240 0 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ

Thee development of vector-poems and gesture-poems is closely connected to thee image of the Black Square. The creation of the book of vector-poems, Foro, forr example, Nikonova describes in the following way: Beginning in 1980, the Fof»-cyclee consisted entirely of vectors on the basis of the Black Square without letterss and gesture elements and with a purely decorative meaning. Then in 1981-1983,, letters were added to the Fora-theme after which the forms were apprehendedd as visual poems (see figure 45). Later, in 1990, the motives were transferredd with a stencil technique which enabled reproduction. In 1983, gesturee elements were added as the possibility to perform in front of a Leningrad audiencee emerged. The vector-poems were raw/with gestures, and through a cut-upp abstract painting (as in figure 46). In this way a revival of the Foro-cyc\z occurred.. This is a revealing description of the process of creation, which con- sistss of what can best be described as variations on a theme: a basic sound, poem,, or technique is modulated and developed into multiple variants. Inn the vector-poems, the Black Square explodes into scores of directional vectors.. These can be seen as trajectories of energies, or as traces of particles. They appearr as a mixture of gesture and diagram, or as a kind of writing. Guy Brett describess the similar phenomenon in the drawings of Gordon Matta-Clark. Brettt characterizes these drawings as art-works that use graphic devices to "visualizee energy":

Thee relationship between a literal trace and a sign - a configuration with pre-thoughtt and more complex meanings - therefore becomes multivalent andd ambivalent, with traces acting as signs and signs acting as traces. In the transcriptiontranscription of energies drawing often approaches script, or writing. (2000: 40) )

Takingg into account Nikonova's relationship with Malevich' Black Square, the vectorss springing from the square can be seen as a kind of pre-writing or even ass post-writing: the gestures appear after the collapse of all literature into a big, blackk gap.

241 1 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

" "

Fig.. 45

242 2 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ

Fig.. 46

243 3 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

Poemm - performance - gesture Inn the 1980s, a performative element was added to Ry Nikonova's visual poetry whenn the opportunity to perform in front of an audience arose. These per- formancess were most commonly rooted in her visual poetry. In the develop-

mentt of the above-mentioned book Foroy the movement from visual poetry to gesturee was a part of the transformation of the vector-technique. This book developedd from purely decorative compositions with vectors into visual poems basedd on the Black Square. The vector-poems were read in front of an audience withh gestures:

OAHa>KAww B AemmrpaAe, nepeA Heoo^HiiHaAbHHM nosTHHecKHM Bwcry- riAeHHeMM B OAHOM H3 KyALTypmix noABaAOB Ha FleTpa AaBpoBa, H 3aAVMa- AaCbb O TOM KaK 6bl MHe AeMOHCTpHpOBaTb BH3yaAbHHe BeKTOpHhie CTHXH, HH noHAAa: 3TO HaAo AeAaTb >KecraMH. MaHycKpHirmoe ABn>KeHHe nopo- AHAOO ABPMteHHe no33HH B npocTpaHCTBe - >KecTe3HK>. (Nikonova 1993: 248) )

(Oncee in Leningrad, before an unofficial poetic appearance in one of the cultural basementss on Peter Lavrov Street, I considered how I could demonstrate the visuall vector poems, and realized: this has to be done with gestures. The manuscript movementt gave rise to movement of poetry in space - agestry.)

Nikonovaa often describes the first move from visual poetry to gestures as a de- velopmentt from a musical score to gestures. As Sergej Sigej points out, it is in- terestingg that the script is transferred into gestures, thus reversing what is gen- erallyy historically recognized as the development of writing.28 Usually described ass a development from gestures through spoken language to writing, gestures aree seen as a kind of pre-language. Thiss initial impulse towards gestures and mute language is similar to the per- formancee elements in the historical avant-garde.The early avant-garde performances,, however, were not directly related to poetry. Vasilisk Gnedov apparendy introducedd this aspect by performing poems with gestures from his book Death toto Art. The book's 15 poems were of decreasing size, with the next to last poem consistingg of the letter 'Ju' only. According to one memoirist, this poem was performedd in the "Brodjacaja sobaka"(Stray Dog) nightclub in St. Petersburg

244 4 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ

Gnedov]] paused and then threw both arms upwards, [...] a hole of about twoo vershoks'm width formed between the end [of his waistcoat] and the start off his trousers, and he inspiradonally cried out: "Yu!". (Brooks 2000:16)

Similarly,, 'Poem of the End' was performed with a soundless gesture. Descrip- tionstions of such recitations have been given by a number of memoirists of which Vladimirr Markov cites a few: AA memoirist described such a recitation as follows: "[This poem] had no wordss and consisted only of one gesture, the arm being quickly raised in frontt of the hair, then sharply dropped, and then moved to the right". Ig- nat'evv [...] gave the following description of the gesture: "He read [this poem]] with a rhythmic movement. The hand was drawing a line: from left too right and vice versa (the second one canceled the first, a plus and minus resultt in minus). 'Poem of the End' is actually 'Poem of Nothing,' a zero, ass it is drawn graphically". (1968: 80)

Thiss performance seems not to have had the same purely provocative nature of thee parades and public readings. It seems to be a controlled and purely aesthetic elementt emerging as a consequence of the emptiness of this last page in Gne- dov'ss book.29 Inn the gesture-poetry of Ry Nikonova, the emptying of words in poetry and the transformationn of this "vacuum" to deaf-mute gestures exhibit an additional elementt that seems to be based upon her constructivist poetry. Some of these gesturess approach an actual language based on a gesture "grammar". Initially, an attemptt was made to structure the gestures using the coordinates of the body: vowelss for the hands, and consonants for the legs. However, according to Niko- nova,, this technique proved to be too complex and required too much explana- tion.tion. Therefore, the most commonly used structuring technique is the use of color.. Nikonova performs her poems wearing colored gloves to differentiate leftt and right: red for the right hand and green for the left. This is similar to the simplee language of a traffic light, or that of flag signals. In addition, home-made coloredd megaphones, cuffs in the form of disks of different color and shape, and necklacess (a picture frame or a chain of megaphones) are used. Later, Nikonova startedd to use fans that are waved accompanying the articulation of abstract sounds. .

245 5 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

Thee colors on the megaphones and disks match the pronounced sounds of the oftenn abstract poems. This syncretism of sound and color was based on an idea off the merging of graphic and gesture elements. Integrated into the variety of Nikonova'ss gesture vocabulary are sometimes literary or painterly elements. Somee cuffs have a collage of letters on them, and one has the color and shape off Malevich' Black Square (the basis from which vector poems were created). Sometimess a picture frame is used through which the gestures are made. At others,, a picture with cut out parts (see figure 46). As in even- other aspect of Nikonova'ss work, these new developments are transformed further into multi- plee variations of gestures and gesture-poems.

Fig.. 47

246 6 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ

f!— —

[ [ ll |H| aa f»:sgBSR>»£i j »fff ___ JL 1 1 /Jl"?2^B B LT^iff ''• 1E E

Fig.. 48

Fig.. 49

247 7 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

Thee book-form served as a kind of documentation of which there are three types. Inn the first category is Font, categorized by Nikonova as a book of vector- poemss with gestures around the Black Square. In the second, are the books of so-calledd gesture scores, which are either stenciled or drawn by hand. One such bookk is Vartitura %esta (A Scone for Gestures) Vol. 1 from 1989-90. In this book, gesturess are stylized into figures using hands and feet to illustrate gestures. The bookk A Score for Gestures Vol. 2 (1990) belongs to the third category. This book includess abstract compositions, which are stenciled as a negative (see figure 47). Thee forms of some of the abstract figures bear some resemblance to bodies with longg gesturing arms and fingers, while in other compositions, the arms and handss are substituted by arrows. The book is also a catalogue of documentary photographss from 1984-85 reconstructing the performances of gestures taking placee in Leningrad in 1984-84. The scenarios for the performances were written inn the period between 1981 and 85. Thus, photographs document the transformationn of the scenarios to gestures. Apartt from the books, visual poems were made as a development of the gesture-poems.. In figure 49, the photograph with a reconstruction of a performance withh gestures is transformed into a series of stylized gestures with arrows and letters.. This visual poem was developed from the 1984 original performance to thee 1985 photograph of the reconstruction and reached its current form during thee years 1999 to 2001. In another visual poem the cut-off photograph of Ni- konova'ss arms (in gesture-like position) is mirrored a number of times (see fig- uree 48). Each photograph has the English word "On" or "No" inserted in the compositionn with arrows and hands. The word spells "On" when the hands are turnedd to the right, while it spells "No" when the hands are turned left. Characteristicc of all these gesture-poems is the stylization of gestures into what appearss to be a number of standard positions. These gesture-poems often use arrowss or letters as additional elements, which only emphasize the stylized vo- cabularycabulary of the gestures. The stenciled scores, however, seem to take on their own artisticc life and acquire various forms of decorative qualities. In some of these figuresfigures the photographed gestures are entirely unrecognizable. Although the stenciledd figures have gesture features, it is wrong to see them as merely picto-

248 8 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ grams.. The poses on the photographs are far simpler and more stylized. Fur- thermore,, from the photographs it becomes clear that Nikonova is using the bodyy as a kind of coordinate system, giving the gestures a possibility of left/rightt or up/down positioning (emphasized by colored gloves). These types off gestures are significandy different from the gestures or performances of the earlyy avant-garde. Clearly Nikonova plays on the possible semiotic coding of gesturess similar to traffic lights or flag signals. The books of gesture-poems seemm to be both documentary collections of such gestures and transformations off the gesture-theme into artists' books.

Thee book as a kinetic object (2) Inn the 1960s the artist's book appeared. These were defined as "books or book- likee objects, over the final appearance of which an artist has had a high degree off control: where the book is intended as a work of art in itself' (Bury 1995: 1). Contraryy to such an integrated book is the Hvre depeintn. This kind of book is definedd as "a luxury item featuring original graphics given over by a painter or sculptorr to an elegandy typographed text" (Hubert & Hubert 1999: 8). The dif- ferencee boils down to the degree of integration of the various parts (binding, paper,, printing, text, and so forth) in the book as a whole. In books following thee tradition of a tivre depemtre, the text has a privileged place in relation to the otherr aspects of the book (however important they may be). The artist's book onn the other hand, must be perceived as an integrated unity: "The artist book, howeverr disruptive of tradition, strives for cohesion among its constituent parts byy giving equal status to images, typography, binding, page-setting, folds, col- lages,, and text" (Hubert & Hubert 1999: 11). Inn accordance with this definition, the artists' book can be seen as an inter- mediaa creation. I interpret the concept of medium as a conventionall system of interrelatedd material, symbolic, functional, institutional, cultural, perceptive, productivee and self-representational features. Regarded as a medium, the book offerss certain possibilities to the visual artist, which are inherent qualities of a traditionall book: It is a collection or sequence of pages contained within a rela- tivelyy cheaply produced and distributed object, it is customarily portable and

249 9 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT' easilyy stored, its contents are conveniently accessible (it can be experienced by oneselff at one's own speed), it is more spatially economical, it allows its reader randomm access, it is replicable and in principle limidessly reproducible and it has manyy buyers as opposed to both a traditional artwork, as well as any more in- ventivee works of art such as performance art, video installations, movies and so forthh (Kostelanetz 1985: 27-29). Forr the poet on the other hand, the artists' book possesses some of the quali- tiesties which are inherent in a traditional work of art: It enables the artist/poet to makee an integrated unity of the textual as well as other elements of the book object,, thereby emphasizing the material quality of writing. In this way, the bookk is perceived in much the same way as a traditional painting and is experi- encedd as a thing which is unique and authentic due to the limited numbers of copiess (and because production methods make it often impossible for one copy too be identical to another). Usually just a few copies are made and sometimes justt a single unique copy, a collectors' item, which is exhibited as opposed to archived.. The book artist usually controls all phases of the book's production fromm the writing of the text to the page layout, binding, cover design, and sometimess even the publishing and distribution. Inn the performances of Ry Nikonova, the book appears to play an important role.300 In the avant-garde, the book appealed to experimentation. It gave the possibilityy of emphasizing and including a diversity of material in terms of cover,, paper, and binding and so on. It had the sequence (the turning of die pages)) as a fundamental characteristic, and the three-dimensional 'real' space appeall as an inherent quality. Recalling the early avant-garde, Ry Nikonova characterizess this appeal:

Bpama»» crpammbi BOKpyr ocH-KopeuiKa, oGmaflCb c KHHTOH nocpeAcr- BOMM BHpblBaHHH HAH OKHTaHHfl CTpaHHII HAH, HaoGopOT, BKAeHBaHHH CBOHXX TeKCTOB, pa3AHHHMX AOnOAHeHHH [...] Mbl C03AaeM H3 KHOTH KHHeTHHecKHHH oG-beicr, a BOKpyr Hero — aTMoedbepy coyHacnw ecAH JOK Hee B co3AaHHH, Tan B pa3pyineHHH oö-beicra. (1998: 80)

(Turningg the pages around the spine as an axis, and communicating with the book byy tearing out or burning its pages, or, on the contrary by inserting our own texts andd all kinds of supplements [...] we create the book as a kinetic object and the

250 0 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ

surroundingg atmosphere of participation, if not in the creation, then at least in its destruction.)31 1

Thee turning of the page stresses the process of reading, appeals to a sensory perceptionn (touching), and actively involves the perceiver. Thee performance element was taken to a literal level when some books were performedperformed'in'in front of an audience. A book-flute ('A pneumatic flute' see figure 50),, was activated by the reader/performer blowing through it. The flute sounds whenn the shreds of paper rustle as the reader/performer breathes or blows into it.. Not only does this book appeal to the senses of sound, touch, and sight, it also undoubtedlyy alludes to the traditional idea that writing is the materialized spirit (thee word made flesh - the incarnation of the word of God), and the book the recep- taclee of the spiritual word. In the performance of the book-flute, the author/ creatorr (who is also the reader) literally blows spirit into the book.

Fig.. 50

251 1 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

Thee most renowned work by Ry Nikonova and die group of Transfurists is die sami^datsami^dat journal Transponans. This journal contained early avant-garde poetry, prose,, and manifestos (by Aleksej Krucenych, Velimir Chlebnikov, and Iliazd amongg others), works by a large number of the unofficial literary scene (Boris Konstriktor,, Vladimir ErP, Leon Bogdanov, Dmitrij Prigov, Andrej Monastyr- skij,, Il'ja Kabakov, Lev Rubinstejn, Sven Gundlach, Konstantin Zvezdocetov, Vladislavv Len, Lev Kropivnickij, Genrich Sapgir and so on), poems by early (Western)) avant-gardists (Hugo Ball, Kurt Schwitters, Artaud), and translations off contemporary (Western) avantgardists (Hans Arp, Frans Mon, Gerhard Rühn)) (Janecek 1987). It included pictographic, conceptual, minimal, vacuum, actionn and other kinds of poetry. From the 28th edition of Transponans onwards, thee standard design of the journal followed the so-called Restructure. From 1991,, Double, an international journal of visual poetry was initiated with the samee Restructure. Invitations were sent out to visual artists all over the world requestingg material for the journal to be sent (see figure 51). The only require- mentt was that the format (with certain permissible variations) of the contribution matchedd the standard template of the Restructure, a triangle and square far from thee standard format of a book. The challenge of this book-form is a creation of aa kinetic object which is perceived and handled like a sculpture. It is not easily storedd and creates another sensibility towards the book-form. Furthermore, in thiss structure, the archetype of Nikonova's form-language - Malevich' Black SquareSquare - can be recognized. Once again, the Restructure challenges not only our perceptionn of the book-form but the finite form of this painting, which Niko- novaa perceives as a visual-verbal collapse. Thiss structure enabled the idea of transposition as a physical form. It allows the differentt layers and therefore, the works of different authors to interact in a directt way. Such a literally collaborate form appeared perhaps for the first time in NomefeNomefe 8th issue. In this edition, empty spaces were left on certain pages. Thesee were gradually filled with readers' comments and writings. Some readers evenn glued in their own productions on these pages. Thus, the idea was developedd to leave empty spaces in the journal under the heading; "Write your own!". .

252 2 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ

im*im* row AST.W CÖM«» Ï» can {«r **o) «f mm ? swMts <*> 50Ï.SXWS X* camiKBis. fi,SA3ï,, CSIfllXAW. C/O Ut ïlKSmXK osna/taosna/ta n ait. tem s»ouj« vuem&nvuem&n tag #8; ïTRiL I.S090

'1 1

Fig.. 51 Nikonovaa saw this as a new avant-garde answer to the early avant-gardes in- scriptionn "Read and tear to pieces!" For her, the preservation and interaction of previouss texts is central:

XVAO>KHHKK npeACTaeT KaK 3aHHTepecoBaHHbifi HHTaTeAb, BbranTHBaiomHH H33 nepBoGbiTHoro MaTepnaAa CBOH AHHHMH aBTOpcKHH TCKCT. 3TO npeA- noAaraeT,, HTO AAH CAeAyiomero aBTopa-HHTaTeAH HOBbie TeKCTbi Moryr CHOBaa npeACTaTb He K neiny He oOJBbiBaioiiiHM MaTepnaAOM. EAHHCT- BeHHOHH OrOBOpKOH AOA>KHO 6bITb HX THpa^KHpOBaHHe, TaK KaK BHeApeHne BB pyKOAeAbHBIH nOMHHHHK eCTb aKT AHHHOCTHOrO B3aHMOOTHOIHeHHfl. (Kuzminskyy 1986: 553)

(Thee artist appears as an interested reader who abstracts from the original material hiss or her own personal text of which he or she becomes the author. This presup- posess that for the following author-reader the new texts can appear anew as a ma- teriall without any commitment whatsoever. The reproduction of these texts shouldd be the only reservation, because the intrusion into the hand-made original copyy is an act of personal interrelation.)

Inn Nikonova's work, this principle can be seen on numerous pages from which windowswindows have been cut allowing the text on the previous page to be seen.

253 3 VCTUTINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

Fig.. 52

254 4 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ

Inn figure 45, we see a complex integration of two visual poems due to the cut- outt window in the middle of the page. The same can be seen on numerous pagess of Transponans. This is a double act of destruction and creation; i.e. the destructionn by overwriting the work of a previous author, and the creation by allowingg this "previous" work to become a direct (collaborative) part of the new work.. This principle constitutes the artistic principle of the journal Double's production.. Because of the cut-out windows throughout the journal and the transgressionn of one layer of pages over another, an interaction and collabora- tionn between various artists and poets is made possible (see figure 52). Conse- quently,, this journal involves the reader/producer/performer in a creative act in whichh the status of the author is played upon. One artistic text is integrated into anotherr overlapping and therefore overwriting the work of the previous author. Thee very form of the journal invites such a co- or over-writing between the textss of different authors.

AA poetics of flux Accordingg to formalist criticism, a poem can be described as a poetic constructionn containing energies in matrices of architectonic tension.32 However, while formalistt criticism connects architectonic tensions to a propositional content, thee propositional content in Ry Nikonova's work is the architectonic tension itself.. Regardless of semantic content (or lack of such content), the main object off Nikonova's poetics seems to be the experimentation with and demonstration off (endless) possibilities of styles and techniques. Moreover, these experiments includee the transgression of possible and/or conventional limits, both in rela- tionn to known techniques, and in relation to systemic and disciplinary limitations: :

AyHinee BWCTpaHBaTb reHeTHHecicyio uenoHKy H3 BapHatrroB OAHoro CTHXOBOTpeHHfl,, AeAaTb ero >KeCTOBHM, nOAH(hoHHMeCKHM, KOOpAH- HaAbHWM,, TaKTHAbHMM, MaxeMaTHHecKHM, BaKyyMHMM... EAiDKe Bcero K noMTHioo «accemïHfl no33HH», Ha MOH B3rAHA, caM npouecc, H3rn6w M03ra.. (Nikonova 1999a) (Thee best would be to collect a genetic chain of variants of one poem; make it a

255 5 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

gesture-poem,, polyphonic, coordinate, tactic, mathematical, vacuum... Closest to thee concept of the essence ojpoetry, in my opinion, is the very process, the twists of thee brain.)

Similarr to the mathematical principle of permutation, Nikonova's poems trans- formm and permute infinitely according to technical, stylistic, structural, systemic, orr disciplinary patterns. In both the transposition within one artistic system and thee transposition between different artistic systems, an underlying constructivist andd auto-referential principle seems to dominate. Forr Ry Nikonova, the page is a platform, where anything can happen. For her, thee revelation of possibilities is an exploration of the platform, i.e., not the emptyy white sheet of paper, the possible text, the margin, and the spaces, but thee interdependent relation between all these elements. Consequently, the clas- sicall dichotomy between the empty white space of the page and the black letterss of the text is transformed into a dichotomy of the imagined, potential or previouss text and the real text, or between the empty page and the potential. On thee one hand, every trajectory of minimal movement or energy on an empty page leadss to order and therefore to a limitation of possibilities. On the other hand, suchh an approach to the page opens up a wealth of possibilities, a wealth of possiblee realizations, which take form and are transformed and modulated in accordancee with numerous possible techniques. Byy constandy rewriting and transforming her texts, Nikonova places herself at thee center of the work as the omnipresent creator of a universal system. How- ever,, in the process of describing Everything, Nikonova undermines her own authority.. The author is first the author, then the reader, and then again the author andd so forth, using and reusing her work as the material for developing new variants.. For her, the preservation of and interaction with previous texts is central.. This is evident from the transformations of her poems, from her books, and fromm the ^-structure of the journal Double. A literal inscription of one work into anotherr characterizes this relationship between new and previous texts. The work inn its entirety appears as an unstable conglomerate of writings, contracting or expanding,, emitting offsprings, i.e., a Black Square in a constant state of flux.

256 6 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ

6.2.. Sergej Sigej's visual poetry - an inventory of indices Inn 1990, Sergej Sigej proposed a controversial definition of visual poetry that clearlyy refers to the early avant-garde's close and interactive relationship betweenn poets and painters. This relationship expressed itself in an attempt to createe a visual-verbal language, which was to be understood by everybody re- gardlesss of native language barriers. Chlebnikov's renowned sentence: "We wantt the word boldly to follow painting" is reflected in Sigej's definition of visuall poetry:

ApVTHMHH CAOBaMH, - II03TH npeBpainaKJTCH B XyAOJKHHKH, HO co3AaeT npHH 3TOM CTHXH. BH3yaAbHafl n033Hfl HCKAIOHaeT pa3rOBOp O H3HKe KaK cpeACTBee oömeHHfl. OH MOJKCT 6HTB pyccKHM HAH AK>6MM ApyraM, HO ecAHH OH xoneT craTb ceroAHfl nosTHHecKHM, OH npeBpamaeTCfl [. -.] B «HepHMHH amHK», He HyjKAaioiuHHCfl B nepeBOAe, H6O BH3yaAi>Hoe CTHXO- TBopeHHee roBopHT 3pHTeAio H3MKOM >KHBonHCH no npeHMymecTBy. (1992:: 32) (Inn other words, the poets turn themselves into artists, but create nonetheless poems.. Visual poetry excludes any talk about language as a means of communication.. It may be Russian or any other language, but if it is to be poetic, it must turn [...]] into a "black box", without the need of translation because visual poems speakk for the most part to the spectator in the language of art.)

Inn visual poetry, the attention shifts from the signified to the signifier, from representationn to presentation. It appears as a reaction against the language as a meanss to communicate. Roland Barthes expresses this in The Pleasure of the Text Lasdy,, the text can, if it wants, attack the canonical structures of the languagee itself (Sollers): lexicon (exuberant neologisms, portmanteau words, transliterations),, syntax (no more logical cell, no more sentence). It is a matterr of effecting, by transmutation (and no longer only by transformation,, a new philosophic state of the language-substance; this extraordinary state,, this incandescent metal, outside origin and outside communication, thenn becomes language, and not a language, whether disconnected, mimed,, mocked. (1975: 31)

Inn this, it is similar to vpum\ to a destabilizing of the relation between signifier andd signified or to a complete disruption of this relation. The meaning then is thatt of a shifter.

257 7 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

Accordingg to Sigej, a distinction has to be made between the visualization of poetryy (as in the case of Apollinaire, Mallarmé, and later of many concrete poetss like Eugene Gomringer) and visual poetry. This distinction can be difficult too uphold, but it seems justified when comparing the visual poetry of Sigej, with thee broadest definition of visual poetry (which includes any text with an in- creasedd attention to the place of the sign on the page). In a more narrow defini- tionn of visual poetry, the visual element is taken a step further, and it becomes stilll harder to distinguish such work from visual art. The textual element in visuall poetry is reduced to a material and has a visual quality. It can be manipulatedd just like any other material in visual art.33 It is a material in a very direct way:: it is literally any found fragment and piece of texts and images. Thus, the textuall is visible and manipulated in the same way as is the material in visual art. Inn his conception of visual poetry, the relation to these already existing texts andd images as material for his own art and the handling of this material are central. . Inn analyzing Marcel Duchamp's ready-mades, Rosalind Krauss compares the readymadee with the photograph because of its instantaneous isolation from real- ityity and its inherent dependence on the existence of this reality at the same time. Inn die inclusion of an object within the realm of art, it loses its fixed meaning; it gainss signification in the same way as the index:34

Thee readymade's parallel with the photograph is established by its process off production. It is about the physical transposition of an object from the continuumm of reality into the fixed condition of the art-image by a moment off isolation or selection. And in this process, it also recalls the function of thee shifter. It is a sign which is inherendy 'empty', its signification a function off only this one instance, guaranteed by the existential presence of just this object.. It is the meaningless meaning that is instituted through the terms off the index. (1999a: 206)

Thee interesting thing about Duchamp's ready-made art objects as for example his urinall is not so much that the urinal is a thing (a urinal) but that this thing from thee continuum of everyday life has become a sign, a shifter. In Duchamp's ready-mades,, the artist does not naively transport fragments of reality into the picturee space. The things are transformed in that practice. Although they are

258 8 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ pointingg to 'reality', they have at the same time become signs of an absent ref- erent;; they are to he. filled with significance (1999a: 206).35 Duchamp undoubtedly playss a significant role in Sigej's visual poetics and in the relation of his own workk to works by other authors, which he sees as an act of signing or appropriation.. Thus, especially significant is what he calls Duchamp's "moustache- technique"" referring to Duchamp's adding a moustache to Leonardo da Vinci's imagee of Mona Lisa and thereby appropriating this work of art, "signing" it as it weree his own work.36 Accordingg to Bachtin, in communicating, the speaker is not the originator of words:: "The speaker is not the biblical Adam, dealing only with virgin and still unnamedd objects, giving them names for the first time" (1986: 93). He or she willl always seek to assimilate the other's word and engage in a dialogue with it: Thiss is why the unique speech experience of each individual is shaped and developedd in continuous and constant interaction with other's individual utterances.. This experience can be characterized to some degree as the processs of assimilation - more or less creative - of others' words (and not thee words of a language). Our speech, that is, all our utterances (including creativee works), is filled with others' words, varying degrees of otherness orr varying degrees of "our-own-ness", varying degrees of awareness and detachment.. These words of others carry with them their own expression, theirr own evaluative tone, which we assimilate, rework, and re-accentuate. (1986:: 89)

Sincee in authoring, the author always relies on his memory reserve of others' wordss (texts), this act relates to the sphere of his own individual memory. The authorising,authorising, on the other hand, relates to the sphere of public memory. This sharedd memory is ordered and the individual elements (works) are classified and differentiatedd according to a convention of authority and originality?1 Thus, the institutionn of authorship paradoxically relies on signs of originality. However, in modernn poetry, Roland Barthes argues, these signs of authority and subjectivity havee become shifters. Therefore, the point of origin has been deferred; language referss only back to language itself. The text is a "multi-dimensional space in whichh a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissuetissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture" (1977:

259 9 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

146).. Thus, writing is a palimpsestdc construct consisting of quotations from the culturall net of signs.38

Instrumentss of writing Accordingg to Sergej Sigej's definition of visual poetry, a poem written with at- tentionn to the location of the signs on the page and therefore with an increased significationn to the place of the sign, is not necessarily a visual poem but instead aa "visualization" of a poem. In this he sees the difference between his own poetryy and concrete poetry. Moreover, Sigej stresses the signification of instrumentss used. While the dis-placement of the signs on the page of the concrete poett is primarily obtained with help of the typewriter, this instrument is in visuall poetry just one of many instruments. Moreover, it is not only used for utili- tariann purposes but also as an object for artistic manipulation: the artistic gaze is turnedd to every step in the production-process. Likewise, the xerox which is anotherr favored instrument of the concrete poet, is not just used for reproduc- tivee purposes, but is manipulated (Sigej 1993: 68). Thee reproductive utilitarian possibilities of both the typewriter and the xerox weree especially important for the Soviet sami^dat culture. Both instruments be- camee (to some extent unobtainable) symbols of free expression for the unoffi- ciall artist, poet, scientist, religious grouping, and so forth. But also the manu- scriptt acquired an almost sacred status within this culture.39 However, visual poetryy and the art-book scene should be seen as sami^dat in the "second degree".400 Consequently, the xerox, the writing machine and the manuscript be- comee objects of artistic manipulation and acquire semiotic signification:

KcepOKomifll — Me^rra caMH3AaTHHKOB H B 3TOM KanecrBe OHa, KOHCHHO, He CAHIIIKOMM HHTepeCHa, CKpMTHe B HeH B03MO>KHOCTH TBOpHeCKOH TeXHHKH HaHHHaioTT omymaTbCfl TOABKO np« HecbopMaAbHOM ee HcnoAb30BaHHH. (Sigejj 1993: 68)

(Xeroxx is the dream of the sami^datciks and in this respect it is of course not terri- blyy interesting. Its hidden possibilities of artistic techniques are beginning to be feltt only when it is used in an informal way.)

Indeed,, reproductive methods of various kinds are explored and manipulated

260 0 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ almostt endlessly by Sergej Sigej:

[K]a>KAoee nosTHMecKoe COCTOHHHC TpeöyeT AAH CBoero 3aKperiAeHHfl oco- 5oroo MaTepnaAa... no33H« HanHHaerai, KorAa nosT o&bflBAfleT CMepn. pyKoimanvtt H nepHOBHicaM, Bbi6npaH eAHHCTBeHHHH BepHNH cnocoG cpeAHH rpaBiopH Ha AHHOAeyMe, rpaBiopbi Ha KapTOHe, TpacbapeTa, cbpoT- Ta>Kaa BbinyKAoro HAH BAaBAeHHoro inpHchra, npo3panHOH 6yMarH HAH öyMaraa KonHpoBaABHOH, Band H cnnneK, nypGaHa H Tonopa. [3]Aecb K AaAeKK OT MHCAH Koro-AH6o anaTHpoBaTb, nocKOABKy rrpoÖAeivia MaTe- pnaAaa H onpeAeAeHHOH TCXHHKH AHKryeTCH npoÖAeMOH THpa>KHpoBaHHfl: BHee THpanca no33iw HeAeHCTBHTeAbHa. (Sigej 1995: 296)

(Inn order to consolidate itself, every poetic position demands a special material... Poetryy begins when the poet has announced the death of the manuscripts and drafts,, selecting the only true means among the linocuts, cardboard engravings, stencil,, frottage of script in relief or imprinted, transparent paper or carbon-paper, cottonn wadding and matches, blocks and axes. Here I am far from the thought of shockingg anyone, since the problem of material and a certain technique is dictated byy the problem of reproduction: without reproduction poetry is ineffective.)

Thee issue of reproduction was crucial for the sami^dat culture as well as for the historicall avant-garde. The constant lack of reproductive possibilities, of paper, color,, and so on were problems facing Krucenych, Goncarova, Rozanova, Larionov,, Malevich, and U'ja Zdanevic (Iliazd) at the beginning of the century andd especially during the First World War and the civil war that followed. How- ever,, the limitations imposed by reality on the avant-gardists (such as a constant lackk of material), were turned into artistic value. The handwriting, collage, and thee primitive reproduction techniques were used for artistic purposes to create aa number of books, which transgressed the limitations between the arts. Sergej Sigejj expresses a similar awareness of the interplay between reproduction and artisticc value:41

RR He 3Haio HTO Tanoe oKOHHaTeAbHaa cbopMa KHHI-H, H36e>KaTb KaHOHH- necKoroo TeKCTa - HaMepeHHe? - npoijecc! / BooGme, ecn> ABe npoÖAeMbi npnn H3roTOBAeHHH X3HA-M3HA KHHH npoÖAeMa THpaJKa H npoÖAeMa xyAO)KecTBeHHOCTH.. (1993: 70)

(II do not know such a thing as a finished book-form. Is the avoidance of a ca- nonicall text intentional? - It is a process! In general, there are two problems in

261 1 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

connectionn with the making of hand-made books: the problem of reproduction andd the problem of artistic value.)

Ass an unofficial artist and poet, Sigej always experienced a lack of the most elementaryy materials and reproductive instruments.42 For a long period of time thee only possible reproductive method was copying by hand. Sigej was an eager studentt and researcher of the historical as well as the contemporary Western avant-gardee and spent hours in the library meticulously copying programmatic textss and poems of Kandinskij, Chlebnikov, Malevich, Krucenych, Iliazd, and soo forth. Later, type written copies or clip-outs of texts by John Cage, Isidore Isou,, and Chlebnikov, among others, were added to this collection of avant- gardee documents. These handwritten or type written copies and cutouts gradu- allyy became the material for Sigej's visual poetic work. Thus, the two book- objectss Krucenych and Velikajajuturnalia: eta okom (The Great Futurologia: to be Read withwith the Eye) have developed over a period of more than 20 years. The first book-objectt is dated 1973-1995 and the second 1976-1999. They both contain hand-copiedd texts by the Russian historical avant-garde, and they both take the naturee of a collection. Thee first book-object is a case with two strings fastened to the cover, which makess it possible to lock the case with knots. It is necessary for the reader to unknott the strings in order to enter the book-space. When unfolded, three sin- gularr booklets appear, along with some individual pages with drawings. All the bookss look like exercise books and bear Krucenych's name as well as that of Sigej.. One book bears Krucenych's name on the top written as an imitation of Krucenych'ss own signature. Below, Krucenych's name and the title, "Slovo o podvigachh Gogolja" ("A Tale about Gogol's heroic Deeds"), are handwritten onn white paper and glued onto the cover. At the bottom, Sigej has signed and datedd the book 1985/95. Another book has the cover illustration for Kruce- nych'ss book Old-Time Love glued onto its cover. The drawing is overwritten with thee English word "Cannibalism". Thee second book-object is a black suitcase, which contains a number of objects. AA long piece of sackcloth can be unfolded. It is painted in red, orange or blue andd has white painted Russian letters, and some round cardboard pieces with

262 2 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ whitee Latin letters glued onto it. When this long piece of cloth is unfolded, a numberr of small letters stand up at the bottom of the suitcase and a book appears.. This book is evidently a notebook with copied texts from the early Rus- siann avant-garde. It also contains golden paper pieces and strings. Some pieces off paper indicate the texts of Krucenych (Kru), Iliazd and so on. Figure 53 showss the handwritten copy of Gnedov's manifesto 'Smert' iskusstvu!' ('Death too Art!'). It has red circles drawn over the text and a brownish color (dirt?) has beenn smeared inside. To the binding, an extra white and golden piece of paper hass been added. This extra page has red circles on it and the names Gnedov, Chrisanf,, Zdanevic, Pariach, Terent'ev, Krucenych, Cicerin, Ignat'ev, Sersenevich,, Sever) anin, and Sigej.

Fig.. 53 Whenn turned, the left page has an almost unreadable text of what seems to be ann index for the book. The pages are illustrated'with drawings on top of the text. Thesee illustrations are simply drawn fantasy figures with big square heads and

263 3 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT' onee eye, two legs and large male genitals drawn in red. This overt sexual sym- bolismm is also present on the tabs in the margin. The letters "Chu" (reminiscent off "chuj" [dick] and "chudoznik" [artist]), three hard signs, and at the bottom, a letterr 'f is written in the form of a penis (from which drops fall into the golden marginn below). The penises, the drops in the margin, and the big red circles suggestt blood and sperm. This overt sexuality can be seen as a metaphor for thee handling of the texts and the book: the unlocking of the suitcase, the un- folding,, the letters rising, the opening, the turning, the touch, and the act of reading.. The reader/ perceiver is indeed in direct physical contact with the book,, as was the copyist and illustrator, Sergej Sigej, who has handled the text, manipulatedd it and appropriated it before it became accessible to our gaze and touch.43 3

Handwriting g KrucenychKrucenych and The Great Vuturologa should not be seen as visual poetry, but as book-objectss with illustrations. They have certain similarities with sentimental memorymemory chests (nostalgic and sentimental assemblages containing objects of affec- tionn or commemoration).44 In this sense, they contain the strange double sense off the collective fanaticism of a youngster: collecting, ordering, enclosing in (se- cret)) catalogues, locking the collection with locks, hiding it and handling it care- fully;; and the chaotic and unkempt look of an old toy. Central to this collective fanaticismm is the handwritten copied text, which constitutes the background of thee illustrated assembled pages. Inn the visual poetry of Sergej Sigej, the importance of handwriting is obvious. Inn light of the above-mentioned sami^dat culture, handwriting is a substitute for thee longed for 'Text", access to which is extremely difficult or has been given upp on. The "Text" is turned into an almost sacred text or a fetish, and the readerr into a monk meticulously copying it. This act is both symbolic in its religious/sexuall devotion and as a cultural act of reproduction or preservation. It is aa memory reserve but also a personal intervention, a cultural institution and an objectt of fantasies. The personal intervention in the copyist's original text can be seenn in the personal mark of the hand-written text. It is a mark of the copyist's

264 4 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ presence,, an indicator of his (bodily) intervention. However, this presence, I will argue,, is a consciously transformed presence to a sign representing 'presence'. Inn Sigej's visual poetry, the "author" (and the "subject") is a theme which is developedd and manipulated in a number of different ways. Inn the poetics of Serge j Sigej, the indexicality of handwriting is a sign of an aesthe- tictic attitude towards writing in a double sense: as poetic and painterly. Inscribing himselff in the tradition of the early Russian avant-garde, Sigej sees handwriting ass the first step from the visualization of poetry to the actual visual poem itself:

npoTHBonocraBAeHHee pyKH H nonepKa crporofi ynopflAOHeHHocm rano- rpa^cKoroo Ha5opa OKa3aAocb nepBMM inaroM K npeBpamemiio CTHXO- TBOpeHHfll B HeMTo, noABAacTHoe xyAO>KHHKy. (1992: 29) {Thee opposition of hand and handwriting to the strict regularity of the typo- graphicc typesetting proved to be the first step towards changing a poem into somethingg controlled by the artist.)

Handwritingg appears as a mediator between visual and verbal languages. In its ultimatee consequence, the signs are reduced to purely visual signifiers as in the poetryy of Cicerin. In the manifest 'Kan-Fun', he proclaims the death to verbal languagee and the superiority of the image. The poem can include any available signn and material, exemplified in his book Mena Vsech (Change of All) (1923) in whichh the visual gains an increasingly important role and in the end completely substitutess the linguistic code. In his book Mena vsech esce ra^ (Change of All Once Again),Again), Sigej creates a tribute to Cicerin (fig. 54). The book (which has not (yet) beenn assembled) consists of a number of pages with assemblages of pictorial signs,, stamps, graphs, symbols and so forth. The stylized image of Cicerin is includedd on several of the pages along with logos, stamps, and images derived fromm the early Russian or Dada avant-garde. In the pages shown here, the rub- berstampp of John Held's recent performance The Fake Picabia Brothers is included.. Moreover, the poem 'Avekivekov' ('Unto Ages of Ages') and the penul- timatee untitled poem in Cicerin's collection are included.

265 5 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

spree spree

Fig.. 54

266 6 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ

Thee words in Sigej's poems are actual images, the meanings of which are fairly simple.. Similar to a rebus, they appear to be various icons and symbols from thee avant-garde along with images of glyphic or hieroglyphic writings and che- micall and other scientific symbols. On these pages, the material poses as signs. However,, the images refuse to be translated to a verbal code. Inn addition to the direct reference to Cicerin in many of his visual poems, Sigej alsoo frequendy mentions the work and theories of Isidore Isou (a member of thee French lettristgroup founded in the late 1940s). In order to subvert the symbolicc code of language, this group includes all kinds of marks ranging from gestural,, somatic, trace signs of the automatic tradition to all kinds of invented signss which engage with an alternative tradition of the hieroglyphic character andd its mythic visual propensity (Drucker 1998: 67). The letters are distributed onn the page producing the graphic equivalent to drawing. Thereby, the letters aree stripped of their linguistic function. Sigej clearly inscribes himself in this traditionn in which the sign is reduced to a visual signifier. The purely visual writingg turns into a glyphic script:

Thee only recourse left to the spectator is to focus on their visual pro- perties.. Lacking verbal identity, letters function exclusively as pictorial signs,, with the result that their significance derives according to the rules governingg abstract art. (Bohn 1996: 176-177)

Lingeringg between hieroglyph and gesture, a writing estranged from its linguis- ticc code can only be read as a personal-somatic script.

Palimpsests s Inn Krucenych and The Great Futurologa, the copyist has left a personal mark (his signature)) on the enclosed copied text-fragments. Thus, by copying a text by hand,, the text is digested by the artist and transformed into his or her personal text.. Copying is turned into an act of appropriation. It is an example of Sigej's techniquee of "metamtekstoz" (a neologism created from the words "metem- psychosis"" and "text"):

ripHCTpacTHee K nepenHCHBaHHK) CBOHX H ny>KHx TCKCTOB TO>Ke 3aBOAHAo BB Ae6pn: B>KHBHTb co5cTBeHHoe B TKam> ny>Koro — ocymecrBHTb «nepece-

267 7 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

AeHHee AyuiH» oAHoro TeKcra B ApyroH - «MeTaMTeKCT03». (Sigej 1993: 73) (Thee predilection for copying one's own and someone else's texts also led into a labyrinth:: to breathe one's own into the texture of another's - to carry out a "mi- grationn of the soul" of one text into another — "metemtextosis".)

Thee superimposition of a personal mark on the body of the Other text is a sign off appropriation, of over-writing the original text with a new one. It is also a se- riess of returns and projections: returns to previous texts/images and the projec- tionn of these texts and images into the artist's new work. It is a migration of the soull between texts, a "metemtextosis". Inn 1968, Sigej applied the technique of "metemtextosis" to Velimir Chlebni- kov'ss poem 'Saman i Venera' (The Shaman and Venus'). Sigej copied this text andd added an extra word to almost everyone of Chlebnikov's. The idea of overwritingg - 'Vpisat' svoe v cuzoe" ("inscribing one's own into the other") - however,, is also connected to Sigej's idea of the palimpsest (an act of erasing, overwriting,, suppression, and adding). It implies the co-existence of the original textt as a trace and the imposing on this orignal a new text. Initially, Sigej identi- fiedd this technique with one of over-writing (with black ink or white correction fluid)) on printed texts. During die years 1969-1973, this was a favored technique.. One example is the over-writing of what appears to be a book of fairy- tales.. In 1971 it was changed into the book Vorokov (The Eye Thief). Single letterss or syllables were substituted by fat black dots to create a rhyuSmic pattern. AA new %aum -like text appears from the remaining letters. Some lines from the bottom,, die text reads: "Pobezala, chvala veki 2amachnula na Anu Alpul' venik krikomm zal na lieu. Na rog ona stolknula Tajnusko" ("She ran off, praise raised herr eyelids to Anu Alpul' birch besom stung witii a scream on die face. She stumbledd over a horn Tajnusko"). However, it is the black dots that stand out witfii tfieir almost hypnotic effect (see figure 55). Inn 1980-1983, the book Ir-faer-was created. The term "irfaerism" was invented byy Sigej and Dmitrij Prigov and means roughly the same as transposition: a text iss transposed into another text or textual system.45 However this term signifies nott only the principle but also the technique of overwriting one text enabling anotherr text to appear. "Irfaerism" was applied to an Ossetian book in a col-

268 8 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ laboratee work by Sergej Sigej, Ry Nikonova, Boris Konstriktor and Dmitrij Prigov.466 On certain pages only letters foreign to the Cyrillic alphabet remain (thee rest are painted over), while on other pages, complex drawings are included.477 The ink-dots and lines of the reworked text develop into patterns of glyphicc script. It has similar features to that of the Morse alphabet or Morgen- stern'ss renowned poem 'Fisches Nachtgesang' (1905), but it can also be seen as indicess of writing, as a kind of gesture script.48 Writing has become a trace, an extremelyy condensed text - as presentation - to the line.

To|oa## 3||ep^|453|3Bec|y. —— AaM|MOio*y|«y!- -||TPe6Ma;i« A^||##. — «|# HaéfM*? ? —— OHWfnHT, - cKa3aaaPfaH«. —— fe4i)é«T?-n||aK|. •-—— HeffoKaiKy. —— Tkimtl, if *T|a|aTi>, «*? MM#r|t||y||| Mnaac|Ky. P^WammuM-M

** M'4NI#yKO^,(ic4tNe»f no.*. tpyuiyfffcpacHo|| M#TOM#«*>M n»É|H|y.iMN# MMofl. ;|o|r(( npoaefétl ««epea (Mtfiuty | H.icii#y4acb B >• tym|yy ctèfttoft. Toraaa #JHH p|o<||fl«.ia||: Vxo||| ii3 ii3#H! - NKpUma oaa. - Vxo|| H3 M- UCH|I4<5M! ! rio6e»n,ia,, Isaacs BCIIKJH aaMSXHyaaH Ha A||néy. V*l||| ll"yÏM*b Bei»IK| f | KpHKOM |MI«M| HS J.1H- ty.. Ha ifpot-lotia cT

WW t%fc««Hfrli>'i ;-i Ao/êa#%%Ma- féK-':;!! flawe lto|piMa BCH!

Fig.. 55

26') 26') WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

Fig.. 56 Thiss script has become Sigej's trademark. In a number of works, it appears alongsidee letters and words which have been extended into partly or completely unreadablee words. These extensions add wave-like tails to the letters sometimes transformingg them into ideographic-like signs (the so-called sobukvy) and sometimess into doodles or wavy lines. Sobukvy are special signs invented by Sigej, thoughh relate undoubtedly to Roman Jakobson's idea of "splety bukv" [liga- turess of letters] in which two or more letters are interlaced in order to create a moree economical and immediate perception of a word.49 However, according too the author, the impetus for the creation of sobukby was the realization, that suchh interlacing letters had not yet been made (1996). Sigej's sobukvy have a touchh of ideographic script. Thus, in the word "echo" (echo) the Russian letter 'é'' is mirrored to create an echo, or the letter 'ju' in "ljubov"' (love) is drawn

270 0 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ withh a heart. These constructions remind one at times of Pavel Filonov's picto- graphicc script for the book Derevjannye idoly! {Wooden Idols!) with poems by Veli- mirr Chlebnikov. However, some of the letter-constructions seem to have been developedd for purely decorative reasons, much as the decomposition of Russian letters,, or the further development of wave-like tails on certain letters.

Fig.. 57

271 1 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

Inn figure 56, a number of elements are included: die fat ink-lines and dots similarr to Sigej's glyphic script, letters with prolonged tails, and ideographic-like letters.. The text is formed mainly from the word "ljubov"' [love], and the Russian letterr 'ju' is transformed into a ideographic sign containing a heart. Several b's havee prolonged, wavy tails similar to small sperm cells. The letter 'ju' and the V formm a unison of a heart and a sperm cell, the female and male, within two membranes.. These textual elements can also be found in a palimpsest dated 19911 (figure 57). Two autographic text-fragments by Jules de Goncourt and Edmondd de Goncourt form the basis of the composition. The first includes scenicc illustrations, and die other some crossed out words. Both are signed. On topp of these curious French texts, circles with Sigej's glyphic script are drawn togetherr with the already mentioned sobukvy 'ju' and 'b'. As in The Gnat Futurv- logija,logija, these added elements have overt sexual connotations. Finally, the back- sidee of the composition has a thinly woven cloth glued onto a text about Jules dee Goncourt. The addition of transparent cloth through which printed text is visible,, is another of Sigej's favored techniques. It adds a sensory aspect to the texttext and a sense of a double layer - a grid is seen through the grid. This is an as- pectt of the palimpsest that can be seen in another type of visual poems. In thesee compositions, large typographed letters and numbers constitute the background.. On top of this a loosely woven cloth is spread. The chaotic and partly erasedd typographic lettering is overwritten or effaced by the textual grid of the clothh (Sigej 1998: 22).

Visuall language Inn the composition in figure 57, a number of stamps are included. Twice the wordd "Palimpsest" is stamped on the composition, the word "zaum" is stampedd in the upper left corner, and a circle with Sigej's address in Ejsk and thee word "zaum" is stamped in red at the bottom next to his signature. In the widestt sense of the word, the palimpsest characterizes Sigej's visual poetry, a characteristicc he recognizes and appreciates:

naAHMncecT:: c OAHOH cropoH&i THnorpacbcKafl KHHxcHafl crpaHHna cymecTByeTT AAH MeHfl KaK HHcrafl 6yMara / BTopon CAOH: noAHepKH-

272 2 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ

Banna,, BMMepKHBaHHH, pHcyHKH iioBepx TeKcra, 6yKBH nosepx pHcyH- KOBB H T-A-/ HO C ApyrOH CTOpOHW fl AeÜCTBHTeAbHO IIJïCaTeAb HO>KOM «...caTeABB HO*OM)>. (Sigej 1993: 76) (Palimpsest:: on the one hand, for me the typographic book-page is a clean piece off paper (the second layer: underlining, erasing, drawings on top of the text, letterss on top of drawings and so forth), but on the other hand, I am really a writer withh a knife "...ter with a knife".)

Thee selection, manipulation, and appropriation of other texts are acts which re- quiree an easy recognizable signature. Sigej gives such a signature the name sfor (ann abbreviation of the words "sobstvennaja formula" [personal formula]) and cann be applied to any artistic or non-artistic text or object.50 These signatures aree usually round stamps containing the poet's name and address. In the outer ringg is written: "Serge Segay, Visual Poetry", and in the inner ring: "Ostring 79, 241433 Kiel, Germany" (in the pre-1998 works, an address in Ejsk is featured andd contains house-number 175). The 175 was previously featured, as a stamp inn the form of a triangle. In some visual poems, this number has an almost magicall signification. Thus, in the poem in figure 58, a letter-like figure similar too the Cyrillic letter 'B' is painted in black in the middle of the page. The pro- portionss of the letter-sign are measured in terms of the number 175: the large blackk circle measures 175 dm, the bending part of the tail measures 17,5 km, thee tail measures 175 mm, and the wideness of the tail is 1,75 of an unspecified measurement.. The proportions are completely irrational, but Sigej is undoubtedlyy playing on ancient laws of architectural measurements. At the same time, thee number 175 is the author's signature in the same way that the stamps with thee texts "Made in zaumland" and the circular stamp at the bottom of the page, orr his signatures in Russian and English are too. The poem is also dated in the author'ss own handwriting. Thee poem in figure 59 is a chaotic collage of writing and images. Included is a tiltedtilted fragment of a handwritten letter, a picture of Picasso apparently bent over aa work, (a musical score?), an image with Raul Hausmann's dada construction withh a head Uesprit de notre temps (1919), and a fragment of a poem in what appearss to be Sigej's handwriting. On top of these fragments are superimposed

273 3 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT' somee larger letters "TI", "Z Z", "ETI". These bring to mind the name of the Italiann futurist, Marinetti. There are also heavy black lines, and several stamps: "ZAUM"" (in a square in the upper right hand corner), "Made in zaumland" (in thee bottom right corner together with the circular stamp from Ejsk), and Sigej's Englishh signature. In the left hand corner are drawn some handwriting-like wavyy lines which have Sigej's Russian and English signature beneath it. The textss and fat calligraphic lines which slide into each other, are superimposed on topp of each other, and overwrite each other creating a textual plethora, characteristicc of some of Sigej's work. It is difficult to say which text is primary, and whichh is superimposed on the very top. Sometimes an illusion of interlacing textuall threads is created between the handwritten text and the tilted black tri- angularr shape of calligraphic writing in the bottom right corner. It seems like thee handwritten text cuts through the fat black lines.

JeMff MMAf

Fig.. 58

274 4 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ

Fig.. 59

275 5 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

Fig.. 60

Somee visual poems are simpler as in the poem in figure 60. This includes a fragmentt of a letter from Professor Marzio Marzaduri from the University of Trentoo in Italian. It appears to be an official letter stating the payment for a lec- turee about Il'ja Zdanevic given by Sigej in Trento. The text includes the name off the university, the name and signature of Professor Marzio Marzaduri, and thee name of I. Zdanevic and Sergej Sigej. Included on the letter-page is a visual poemm by Kurt Schwitters (see Dencker 1972: 70) into which Sigej has added his ownn sign. This sign is the letter 'Jat", which was excluded from Russian orthog- raphyy in 1917. It is perhaps the single most frequendy used sign in Sigej's visual poetryy and has become a signature along with the number 175, and his stamps. Thee sign is included in various versions in the glyphic script, which is painted onn top of the composition. This appropriating of a visual poem by Kurt Schwit- terss provides the signs and stamps with yet another dimension. Not only is the

276 6 PALIMPSESTS.. VISUAL POETRY BY RY NIKONOVA AND SERGEJ SIGEJ

OtherOther text included in the textual-visual composition, a link is also made betweenn the names of Sergej Sigej and Professor Marzaduri (a researcher who specializedd in the Russian avant-garde and in the Caucasian avant-garde particu- larly),, ITja Zdanevich (the prime representative of the Tiflis avant-garde), and Kurtt Schwitters (an artist and visual poet). Thee enumeration of proper names being a nomenclature of the avant-garde, it iss ironic that Sigej includes his own name in this list. This intervention into the nomenclaturee of the avant-garde is extended to other artists with whom Sigej feelss kinship. In a similar visual poem a page from an art history dictionary with ann image of Leonardo da Vinci has been placed centrally on the page. The text iss tilted and the borders are deferred so as to create a portrait. On top of these fragments,, a square has been drawn, some lines cross the text horizontally and a numberr of circular membranes with various signs are placed over the text. Thesee membranes usually surround the variations of the letter 'Jat"> a simple wavyy line, or a cross. The page is signed and dated, but the main signs of ap- propriationn are the circular shapes with the letter 'jat". Thee examples of Sergej Sigej's visual poetry analyzed here are multi-layered compositions.. The visual poem appears to be a scene of conflict, i.e. a scene for ann erotic or perhaps even a violent act of intrusion and appropriation of Sigej's ownn or others' textual-visual material. Both in respect to the copying of texts andd in respect to the palimpsest, Sigej sees himself (and the visual poet in general)) as a monk handling a parchment, preparing it for copying, meticulously copyingg foreign texts, and preserving the texts of previous copyists.51 Texts are cutt out, scraped away, crossed out, but also assembled, glued onto, overlapped, andd superimposed in a plethora of textual-visual elements. Inn Sigej's work, the lines of the historical and modern avant-garde are immedi- atelyy before the eyes of the reader/perceiver. Sigej deliberately uses the names off Terent'ev, Iliazd, Chlebnikov, Krucenych, and so forth, with Marinetti and Tzaraa in a complex interplay of indices, signatures, and proper names. The in- teractionn between various levels of texts, between the earlier and the new and betweenn the foreign text and Sigej's own text are important and central aspects. Alll of these aspects become part of what can be called Sigej's visual language.

277 7 WRITINGG AND THE 'SUBJECT'

Inventoryy of indices AA number of simple recurrent elements are repeated and re-used in various com- positionss in Sigej's work. His hand copied texts by futurists and numerous names off avant-gardist poets and artists (Schwitters, Krucenych, Chlebnikov, Ter- ent'ev,, Gnedov, and especially Iliazd) appear with his own name. Sigej's various signaturess (Sergej Sigej, Serge Segay, Sig), the glyphic script similar to the Morse alphabet,, sobukvy, various stamps (175, the round stamps with the Ejsk- or Kiel- address,, Made in Zaumland, Zaum, Second Layer), membranes and circles with variouss signs ('jat", hard sign, soft sign, or a cross) and so forth, are recurrent signs.. These signs constitute the vocabulary of Sigej's indexical language. Cen- trall to the meaning of these signs is Sigej as a (male) visual poet. Thee signs signify Sigej's intervention into a foreign text and the appropriation off this text. They also signify his ironic intrusion into the nomenclature of the avant-garde,, and they signify the sexually connoted handling of another's text. Thus,, Sigej's visual poetry is an undisguised play with indexical signifiers, which imposess a very direct and sensory experience upon the reader. His poetry is at oncee a multi-layered chaotic and almost euphoric superimposition of textual material,, and a fanatic's relation to objects of sentimental affection. The (textual) objectt is a fetish and a simple piece of paper, a collector's item and a found object. AA visual language appears to emerge as a display of indices (imposed upon any givenn text) as an ironic commentary on the institution of the author.

278 8