by Luke Leavitt (luleavitt@vassar.edu)

Hey Guys!

Alphabet Species is a conceptual art project borne from my father’s collaborations with other artists, including myself. Here is the homepage for Alphabet Species (one of many other projects you should feel to scope out at dagostinostudio.com)

http://www.dagostinostudio.com/daviddagostino/alphabet/alphabet.html

read the statement, then click on 4 Intermedia Diagrams, read that statement, then click on Oz-Oz-Opiads — this is the best example of the project (in fact it is the only fully complete diagram).

When reading Hank’s Chapter on Text and Textuality from his book Intertext I was struck by the overlap between Hank’s interrogations and my father’s, although the two come from different perspectives (linguistic-anthropology and conceptual Fluxus art, respectively). Specifically, both projects raise the question of text, broadly defined as some sort of communication. What is text? How do we know where it begins and ends? Like a lot of art, I think it is fair to say that Alphabet Species seeks to raise questions in a creative way, rather than provide some sort of answer to these sorts of questions. So what does it make you think, in relation to what Hanks has to say in his chapter?

Here are some ponderings of mine. Hanks says that “text can be taken (heuristically) to designate any configuration of signs that is coherently interpretable by some community of users” (165). So first off, is Oz-Oz-Opiads a text by this definition? What role does interpretation play in making Oz-Oz-Opiads a text or not?

Hanks also says that at first glance, textuality is the “quality of coherence or connectivity that characterizes text” (166). Do you recognize any sort of coherency in Oz-Oz-Opiads that might give it textuality? Or is it simply a “text without textuality” (168)? — perhaps a text-work in a genre that inherently lacks cohesion?

Part of the ambiguity in defining text is that interpretation may vary considerably, but is an important factor in “concretizing” a text (ala Ingarden) in a social context. How does Oz-Oz-Opiads bring to the surface (or not) the role of social setting and interpretation in its creation? Interesting to note is that Oz-Oz-Opiads internalizes “reception into the production process itself… dialogizing authorship” (180).

Finally, Hanks says that “even though any strip of text can be multiply interpreted (through alternative centerings) [which might be one interpreted goal of Oz-Oz-Opiads], the range of possibilities is never open-ended in the real social world. Rather, it is partly inscribed in textual form, and partly contested by actors (which may be more or less than individuals).” How might Oz-Oz-Opiads confirm or challenge this? Could the diagram potentially go on forever or not? And what is its central “text” anyways? Is it the original visual poem? What exactly am I interpreting when I create both the Visual Poem Sound Composition and the Composition Manuscript? I am simply interpreting an interpretant (ala Peirce), or am I somehow interpreting some sort of semi-distinct, semi-unitary “text” or “piece of art” that exists nebulously under the title, Oz-Oz-Opiads?