Asemic writing, which is at its simplest, “anything which looks like writing through its shape or organisation, but in which the person viewing can’t read any words.”
This workshop will be conducted by a special guest and international artist Christine Kettaneh. The focus of the workshop will be on the phase of asemisis that we encounter in digital kineticism, when the verbal identity might transform into another verbal identity or into an entirely new pictorial identity. During the transformation one identity is lost and strange hybrid nonsemantic forms arise before the next identity is reached. However, the meaning of the artifact is not complete at any one identity and is not the sum of the two identities. The meaning is more complex and can only unravel gradually across time from text to image, text to text or identity to identity.
The workshop will be followed with a lecture based on a recent paper “Asemic Writing, Homebound” which Christine submitted to the conference: Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century, 2022.
Learning outcomes:
- Have an understanding of what asemic writing is and its significance inspite of the lack of meaningfulness.
- Think conceptually about how fluidity in kineticism can help in the learning experience.
- Think conceptually about how fluidity in kineticism can resemble a life experience in providing a continuum rather than binary forms.
- Learn how to use aftereffects to create animations.
Classwork:
- You will be assigned a pair of binary opposing words through a draw.
- You will use a tracing paper and a pencil to morph from one word to another in different steps.
- The in-class exercise will end at 5pm, you will document your process by taking pictures of each phase, showcasing to the workshop host and submitting it on your blog for evaluation.
Homework:
- Repeat the same process digitally using Adobe AfterEffects, you will need to download and install the software if you don’t have it already, some copies of the software might be available in few computers in the studio.
- Download the binary opposites file from this link (pdf) and open it in Adobe Illustrator, you can copy paste the word in AfterEffects.
- Below are some useful references on how to do “Text and Shape” morphing on AfterEffects. You can also find tutorials of your own. One of the many goals of this exercise is also to develop the capacity to learn to teach yourselves by finding resources that can help you complete a specific goal.
- Create a horizontal video of your shape morphine from one word to another, you are free to choose the colors or the background however you cannot change the word or the font which was assigned to you.
- Some Reference Videos below
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNprTaQSBys
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67ZP3PZ0l2I
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc2w1Kt3XjE
Submission:
- Submit on your blog the exercise conducted in class showcasing the manual morphing process
- Submit a Time-Lapse video/gif of the manual morphing
- Submit a video of the digital morphing process of your work done on aftereffects
Make sure your work is both on your blog and on Moodle.
Material (In)formation 