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UNEASY READING (Format: PDF, Size: 3.5Mb) UNEASY READING _______ Resistance & Revelation in Willem Boshoff’s “Verskanste Openbaring” _____________ Alice Edy - EdyAli001 University of Cape Town A minor dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Master of Literature ___________________ University of Cape Town Faculty of Humanities MMXV - MMXVI The copyright of this thesis vests in the author. No quotation from it or information derived from it is to be published without full acknowledgement of the source. The thesis is to be used for private study or non- commercial research purposes only. Published by the University of Cape Town (UCT) in terms of the non-exclusive license granted to UCT by the author. University of Cape Town “The duty of a writer - the revolutionary duty, if you like - is simply to write well.” _________ Gabriel Garcia Marquez Student Declaration ________ This work has not been previously submitted in whole, or in part, for the award of any degree. It is my own work. Each significant contribution to, and quotation in, this dissertation from the work, or works, of other people has been attributed, and has been cited and referenced. Signature Date Alice Edy _________________________ Supervisor’s Approval Of Submission Of Dissertation For Examination _______ I confirm that I have seen the final version of Alice Edy's dissertation and that it is submitted for examination with my approval. Supervisor’s Signature Date Hedley Twidle ______ Word Count : Faculty of Humanities CONTENTS ____________________ Introduction: Uneasy Reading ............................................................. 9 Chapter I: The Artist & The Work ....................................................... 23 Chapter II: Afrikaans as an Aesthetic Medium .............................................. 55 Chapter III: On Revelations & Resistance .................................................. 71 Chapter IV: Author(ity): the Word in Revelation ............................................. 81 Conclusion: Veiled Unveilings ........................................................... 87 Bibliography Works Cited ................................................................ 91 ____________________ Alice Edy "Blessed is the one who_________ reads the words of this prophecy" Revelation 1:3 6 Uneasy Reading Willem Boshoff - "Verskanste Openbaring" - KYKAFRIKAANS (1978-1980). 7 Alice Edy 8 Uneasy Reading Introduction: Uneasy Reading This project hopes to use an illegible page to read The “poem” (for lack of a better the act of reading. descriptor) which this paper takes as * its subject, “Verskanste Openbaring”, is a verbatim re-typing of the Book of he focus of this paper is “Verskanste Revelation from the New Testament of the Openbaring” (translated into English Bible. Boshoff ’s plagiarism differs from the asT “Entrenched Revelation” or “Obscured original, however, in that the book has been Revelation”), a concrete poem produced printed on top of itself (the artist continually from 1976 to 1980 by South African re-inserted the same page back into the conceptual artist Willem Boshoff — part of typewriter, until he had transcribed the full a larger anthology of experimental poetry 22 Chapters). Text is thus inscribed onto entitled KYKAFRIKAANS (1980). The book text, and the page moves towards obscurity is A4 in format and consists of 90 “poems,” rather than the promised unveiling. Boshoff all created on a Hermes 3000 typewriter. juxtaposes, and superimposes, prophesies Only 1000 copies of KYKAFRIKAANS of enlightenment against realities of were ever printed, published by Uitgewry darkness and confusion. We are left with an Pannevis, a short-lived independent 1 unintelligible palimpsest: the entire Book of publishing house based in Johannesburg. Revelation inhabits a single sheet of paper, The original manuscript was bought in 1996 but, though the content of the full book is by Marvin Sackner, and it is now preserved “present,” it is also completely illegible. in the Sackner Archives of Concrete2 and Visual Poetry, in Miami, Florida. While I refer to the work as a single page, I must add that, technically, the piece exists in two parts: two near- identical blocks of unintelligible text that face one another from across pages 82 1 - Uitgewry Pannevis was started and run by and 83 of KYKAFRIKAANS. The two Marcus de Jong, the owner of a small book shop pages appear exactly alike, except that the in Braamfontein, Johannesburg. Boshoff, Willem. second is slightly lighter. The “double” exists - The Final Judgement, Rev 20:12, circa 1860 Rev 20:12, The Final Judgement, - é Personal Interviews, July - October 2015. because behind the page of “Verskanste 2 - All but one of the original poems, which was lost. Openbaring,” Boshoff had affixed a layer of Gustav Dor 9 Alice Edy carbon paper and another page. So, as the Situating “Verskanste Openbaring” artist reproduced 3the text, the document within the historical context of late- reproduced itself. The results are the two apartheid South Africa, and within the versions of “Verskanste Openbaring” – the frameworks of concrete poetry, book original copy, and the copy of the copy. For history and conceptual writing (but not the purposes of this paper, I refer to the rigidly imposing these frameworks), this piece as a single page, as this is how it has paper seeks to respond to “Verskanste subsequently been exhibited as a screen- Openbaring”’s different modes of resistance print, and how the artist himself refers to — performative, political and poetic. As the piece. such, the work itself will be used as a tool with which to think, rather than viewed * as a patient in need of diagnosis. Over the course of the following chapters, I will be “Verskanste Openbaring” is a text unpacking the text in different directions; that is immediately resistant to conventional exploring both the page’s surface, as well strategies of interpretation. As a piece as the hidden book within. What could a of language, it resists reading — as an consideration of each text offer the reader? artwork, it resists classification. Produced And might we read them together? on a standard office typewriter, it is at once machine-produced, yet it is also strangely Steering this project are the artisanal. Though the text superficially conversations that I have been fortunate resembles concrete poetry, and it is generally enough to have had with the artist over the classed as such, upon closer inspection it course of the past year. I was not expecting seems that “Verskanste Openbaring” does so much as a response to the email I sent not fit neatly into any cannon. What, then, last June, “Dear Mr. Boshoff, my name is one to make of such a text? What do we is Alice…”, let alone the generosity — do with it? in time and ideas — that the artist has shared with me since then. During these In the absence of other options, we interviews, Boshoff has described how can perhaps start by attempting to read this he is often surprised by the unexpected resistance. This thesis, therefore, begins by readings generated by viewers in response pondering the extent to which “Verskanste to his pieces — indeed, he believes that it Openbaring”’s resistant nature can be is a work’s propensity to be read in many taken as an invitation to respond; might we directions that ultimately determines its might read the act of resistance itself? If, as success. When engaging with these works, Leon De Kock reflects, “print culture and it is vital that both parties recognise their its transfiguration of the messy business shared creative responsibility. My hope, in of speech and4 writing are indeed a kind of the following pages, is that I keep my side pacification,” Boshoff ’s (re)figuration of the of the bargain. printed word back into a “messy business” can be understood as a kind of provocation. Even if such a thing were possible The piece agitates our habitual modes of (which it isn’t), the intention of this project engaging with text, provoking the viewer is not to produce a stable, or prescriptive, into new modes of readership — and it reading of “Verskanste Openbaring.” Rather, is the recognition and investigation of I hope to use this thesis as a space wherein this provocation that constitutes the both the generative possibilities presented by foundation and guiding light of this project. this single, illegible page might be explored. With this in mind, I put the following caveat in place: this paper does not pretend to prove, or be proof of, anything 3 - Interestingly, I have not found this duplicate (other than, perhaps, a certain dogged copy mentioned anywhere else, including Boshoff ’s obsessiveness on the parts of both writer own notes. For the artist, the second page is not and reader). What I hope to share here is considered “essential” to the work. Boshoff, personal an assemblage of ideas; a compendium of interview, July 2015. (some) of the possibilities of engaging with 4 - De Kock, Leon. “Metonymies of Lead,” Print, this strange and wonderful text. Text and Book Cultures in South Africa, Van Der Vlies, Andrew (ed.). Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2012 (51). 10 Uneasy Reading In making a case for why this of reading can be approached on dual levels document should exist at all, I refer back – the linguistic process of decoding visual to the work itself. I have undertaken the signs, as well as the literary performance of writing of this thesis (nearly a hundred interpreting a larger body of content. pages discussing a single, illegible, one) as a
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