Tim Gaze Interview #2 by Michael Jacobson

 

MJ: You have a new collection out Glyphs of Uncertain Meaning, can you talk about your book and explain what it is all about?

TG: I reckon I've explained it well in the introduction to the book. From among my many hundreds of pages of glyphs, I've selected a broad range which reproduces well in black & white. They're mostly  minimal compositions, many of them less than a poem. Singly, they might not seem to have much weight, but collected together, traversing many styles and techniques, they add up to something heavier. Overall, I'm using visual rhetoric to argue about human made signs.

MJ: You started the first website dedicated to asemic writing. What is your view about how asemic writing has grown, especially on the Internet?

TG: From roughly 2000 to 2007, I was obsessed with spreading the culture of asemic writing, which included the www. A few years back, I realised that I had let go. It's marvelous to see that the seeds that I and a few other people planted have grown in several different directions.

MJ: Do you still make asemic writing or have you moved on to something else?

TG: I've stopped making full page, deliberate pieces where I stand next to a blank piece of paper before starting. Occasionally, while talking on the phone, I doodle, but these are small, rough & often don't feel finished.

Meanwhile, I was recording sound poetry for several years, culminating in the album Sounds. Since then, I've been putting together a weekly radio show called Sound Poetry etc for sound poetry and similar sounds, acting as collector and curator more than primary creator.

It's a strange time for creativity. I'm exploring and compiling things I did in the past, such as sound poetry or asemic writing, but don't currently feel much of an urge to create fresh works. In October 2020, I did over an hour of improvised sound poetry live-to-air on Copperpipe Radio, which felt really good. If I performed more sound poetry at the moment, it would sound like a less intense, less inventive version of the live-to-air performance. Gardening is a recent interest which I'm giving my attention, especially learning about edible weeds.

MJ: What was your process as far as the creation of your soundpo album Shapes?

TG: Mostly improvising in my home studio, then later choosing the best bits. As with asemic writing, I've learned that being in exactly the right mood before beginning to record my creations is the most productive way to work. If I capture 10 minutes of sounds that I've never made before, then relax and turn off the recorder, I'm satisfied. Later, with fresh ears, I decide which ones move me most strongly, and which ones contrast with each other, or are too similar to each other.

MJ: Are you interested in publishing anymore issues of Asemic magazine?

TG: Probably not. It served its purpose in helping to expand the culture around asemic writing.

MJ: You started Asemic Editions which is the brother/sister press to Post-Asemic Press. What do you think about the current diversity of publishing as far as asemic writing is concerned?

TG: I'm probably not all that much in touch with the current playing field. I'm aware that quite a few literary publications accept submissions of asemic writing. A few publishers that I am slightly familiar with are the Danish publisher Non Plus Ultra and the UK publishers who put out Steven J Fowler's books, such as zimZalla and Hesterglock. My plan with Asemic Editions was to focus on sequences of abstract or asemic work, more like abstract graphic novels than collections of single pages of asemic writing.

MJ: Does Buddhism still factor into your life? Do you meditate?

TG: "Buddhist" was the handiest word that I could find in your first interview, to give some idea of my outlook. Walking, which helps me let go of the internal verbalisations of daily life, is the nearest thing I do to a meditative practice. I'm intellectually curious about traditions such as Zen Buddhism, Chan Buddhism, Sufism, philosophical Taoism and so on. However, I'm aware that this isn't the same thing as seriously practicing any single one of these.

MJ: What would you like to do in the future?

TG: Tidy up my unpublished pages of asemic writing. I have several in styles which haven't been published yet. Tidy up my sound recording. I might get cracking on an older book project that I'd put down. Usually, my intentions for the future don't pan out as I might expect them to in an interview such as this!

Since the late '90s, Tim Gaze has been active as a poet, writer, publisher and performer. In particular, he has been very involved in the field of asemic writing, publishing Asemic Magazine and setting up the first website, www.asemic.net. His works include the graphic novel 100 Scenes, glitch poetry collection noology and sound poetry album Shapes. Recently, he completed a degree in linguistics, and hosts the radio show Sound Poetry etc. Dance music such as batida by the Principe Discos artists gets him going. The Adelaide Hills of Australia, in the traditional lands of the Peramangk people, is his home.

Michael Jacobson is a writer, artist, publisher, and independent curator from Minneapolis, Minnesota USA/Turtle Island. He is the author of Works & Interviews, the senryu poetry collection Hei Kuu, and the noise poetry album Schizo Variations. Two forthcoming books by Jacobson are Somnolent Game (2022) and id est (2023). His book publishing project for longer works of asemic writing and experimental poetry is Post-Asemic Press. Since 2008 he has curated The New Post-Literate: A Gallery of Asemic Writing.

The first interview Michael did with Tim is at Litro and can be read here.

Above are some sample pages and cover art from Glyphs of Uncertain Meaning by Tim Gaze.

GAS Featured Artist Interview with Michael Jacobson by Sylvia Van Nooten

 Michael Jacobson is a driving force in the Asemic art and writing community. As the founder of Post Asemic Press (https://postasemicpress.wordpress.com), his vision for the future of asemics is as inclusive and inspiring as his art itself.  Each of his works feels like a small universe seeking to expand itself by allowing the viewer to experience rather than analyze.  ~ Sylvia Van Nooten 

Sylvia Van Nooten: What is behind your artistic vision? (Why do you do art?)

Michael Jacobson: As far as my personal vision goes I make art to get to the essence of the soul-seed of raw creation. I do art and writing because it is my reason for existence. I try to learn from the totality of experience and pluck out interesting details to run with, and then make up my own interpretation of the duality of hallucinations and reality. One thing I picked up on from other writers such as James Joyce, Xu Bing, Mirtha Dermisache, Basquiat, and Brion Gysin is to make art that pushes boundaries, but still has an entertaining quality, experimental but in a way that spiritually excites and is more interesting to read than accounting numbers. My long hieroglyphic asemic tale Action Figures tells my story from the pit of my mental collapse, and the Action Figures are what helped me climb out of the abyss of schizoaffective hell. For many years I self-medicated with alcohol, but I’m sober now (since June of 2020) with the exception being my meds, but I started to drink non-alcoholic beer to commune with the spirits on holidays.

SVN: How does being an artist help you communicate with the world?

MJ: Everything seems to communicate something, and nature, art, poetry, and music are the pinnacle as far as communication goes. I use my art to amuse myself and as a therapeutic process for coping with existence on this planet. There is so much pain and death in the world and in my personal history, and art helps me get through difficult times. I don’t know how to pray sincerely so I make art, writing, and music to cope and get through the bad days. So far I have published two books: one of asemic writing and one of senryu poetry: Works & Interviews and Hei Kuu. Two other books I am working on are Somnolent Game (2022) and id est (2023). Somnolent Game is a prose poetry novella written in a stream-of-conscious writing style. It’s about a bot maniac who has achieved sentience due to someone else's memories, and is trying to quit violence and start a new life as a clone in paradise. Id est: neo scribalist asemic expressionism is a book I just started working on; it’s a wordless pan-theistic illuminated manuscript (ok no gold is involved) painted using gouache paint on watercolor paper. I plan on working on it through 2022 and publish it through Post-Asemic Press in 2023. 

SVN: Have you built or joined a community of artists around the world? How did you do this?

MJ: I founded the Asemic Writing: The New Post-Literate Facebook group in 2008 as a FB platform for my blog The New Post-Literate: A Gallery of Asemic Writing. Over the years it has been interesting to watch it grow from a small group of kindred spirits, until now where the scribal tribe of Asemica has expanded to the size of a small city. It is completely out of my control now in a good way, especially since I am not as involved with FB as much as I used to be; so thankfully there are others who help administrate it. The widespread community on the internet for asemic writing was first collected by Tim Gaze and Jim Leftwich. I stumbled into the small and dispersed group of asemic writers back in 2005 when I first gained an Internet connection. But I had been inventing symbols for a long time before I learned the word asemic. When I found the online asemic community I realized that I had located my creative home.

I also hang out and drink tea with my fellow Minneapoets Terrence Folz and Jefferson Hansen. We talk about the writing life in Minneapolis and the vibrant local literary community. I am also involved with many authors through Post-Asemic Press which I founded in 2017. On average, I’m publishing 4 books per year of asemic writing and visual and experimental poetry. I’ve published 15 titles so far with another 10 in the works. I may stop when I get to 30 titles or keep on going if the press eventually takes off. So far it is almost self-sufficient as far as money goes, but it’s asemic art and poetry so I’m not expecting to get rich. Recent titles from PAP are Glyphs of Uncertain Meaning by Tim Gaze, Unwritings by Laura Ortiz, and due out in October 2021 is Intimate h&s by Karl Kempton.

 

I am taking a semester off from college to get caught up with my writing and publishing, and to take a Finnish language class (my mother has Finnish Ancestry). I plan on returning to college in January of 2022 to continue studying creative writing and painting. In the future I would like to travel more and see the world like Anthony Bourdain was able to do. 

Michael Jacobson is a writer, artist, publisher, and independent curator from Minneapolis, Minnesota USA. His books include The Giant’s Fence (Ubu Editions), Action Figures (Avance Publishing), Mynd Eraser, The Paranoia Machine,  his collected writings Works & Interviews (Post-Asemic Press), and his autobiographical collection of senryu poems Hei Kuu (Post-Asemic Press); he is also co-editor of An Anthology Of Asemic Handwriting (Punctum Books). Besides writing books, he curates a gallery for asemic writing called The New Post-Literate, and sits on the editorial board of SCRIPTjr.nl. Recently, he was published in The Last Vispo Anthology (Fantagraphics), and curated the Minnesota Center for Book Arts exhibit: Asemic Writing: Offline & In The Gallery. His online interviews are at Full of Crow,  SampleKanon, Asymptote Journal, Twenty Four Hours, David Alan Binder, and at Medium. In the past he created the cover art for Rain Taxi’s 2014 winter issue, and as of 2017 he has become a book publisher at Post-Asemic Press. In 2019 he was written up in the book Asemic: The Art of Writing (University of Minnesota Press) by Peter Schwenger; it has an entire chapter dedicated to Jacobson’s calligraphic work. He also founded and administers the asemic writing Facebook group. In his spare time, he is working on designing a cyberspace planet dubbed THAT. His Ello studio can be found here: @asemicwriter.