pre-text to yesterday's post (re:PALANC)

it should have been noted, in yesterday's post, that all quotes and references therein were taken from Dubuffet's Prospectus et tous écrits suivants Vol. I .  and it should also be noted that Thévoz also discusses PALANC in his writing Art Brut.

so i'd like to premise yesterday's post with two brief explanations. firstly, i'd like to elucidate why i'm personally drawn to les écritures des gens fous.  secondly, i ought to explain further the connection made between Foucault & PALANC, and their ideas about words and things.

to begin with the second agenda first, because, why not? here's a bit of writing i've done on the subject of words & things and Deleuze & Foucault, which should help a bit :

In Gilles Deleuze’ essay Strata or Historical Formations, he argues that speaking is not seeing (and seeing is not speaking). This is a reference to Michel Foucault’s concept that although statements and visibilities are primary and irreducible utterances, there is not necessarily any system of causality between the two, nor is there any transferable symbolism.  Deleuze explains that the object of a statement is specific to that particular statement alone.  It can neither be transferred to another statement nor can it be transferred to the visible object to which it ostensibly refers. The lack of direct causality between articulable elements and visibilities evinces their truly independent existences. They effect each other indirectly, modulating the threshold of tension that binds their relationship.    

He then argues that the visible qualities of an object are exclusively related to its sensual experience; the articulable elements exclusively relate to the supportive text or dialogue. And that which is addressed in the form of text/statement creates its own correlative object within the text (the object of the statement is particular to that statement).  The visible qualities of an object evoke a visceral response (particular to an experience of an object). Because they are so very self-specific, or collapsed, they are each subject to their own revelatory limitations.

and in relation to my own work:

Rene Magritte suggests, “thought is what sees and can be described visibly.” In this, thought, an action, assumes a form.  Deleuze employs Magritte’s Ceci n’est pas un pipe as an example of an artwork that exacerbates the limits of articulable and visible things.  Ceci est incroyable in its com-possible relation of words and things.  In Consumption I, I attempt to “exacerbate that thin little line separating text from figure.”   

The piece consists of eight 4 x 6 foot dry-erase boards, almost entirely blacked-out with hand-drawn text in dry-erase ink.  The textual content ranges from Mixtape + Maussian gift-exchange, to the Limits of Rebellion in the Arts, to Spitwad Theory, and each text is approximately eight pages when typed.  The content, though deadly serious, analytical, and accented with dorky wit, is intimidatingly densely penned and difficult to read (a six foot long sentence is hard to follow).  Up close, it’s possible to read in the speed-reading method: scanning an amorphous area of text for content, rather than following entire sentences.  

From afar, the text forms grey waves on the white surface—Agnes Martin or Bridget Riley drawings come to mind.  And true to formalist sculpture, the object itself is intimidating.  Hung higher, and encompassing greater surface area than the human body, the text-on-board is elevated beyond its word-on-page/computer screen status.  Beyond decorating the surface of the object with text, as I’d intended, the text adds value-in-content to the object, and the object magnifies the potential power of the written word.  And as if this dialogue between viewer and text-covered object weren’t already confrontational, the ink of course is impermanent.  The reader is tempted (taunted) by this realization. 

 Dubuffet's chapter on PALANC concludes with a transcription of Palanque's text on Autogéométrie, which if i understand it correctly, is basically a set of instructions on how to draw with one's entire body, mind, and spirit simultaneously.  apparently, Palanque used a large black table to draw with both arms simultaneously on one sheet of paper.  he stresses understanding the difference between "la geste règle" and "le gest compas." and the attitudes of gestures : "curved," or "straight."  and the process of drawing (writing really) becomes a sort of metaphysical gymnastical exercise.  
he says (my translation):

All these reunited disciplines are a psychophysical treatment.
All the gestures, following their attitudes, their drives, their regularity, their precision, influence the physical and mental well-being. 

also, there are 17 published "poèmes géométriques," by Palanque.  when i've found and read them, i promise you'll be the first to know!