written in prose - Alain Satié

written in prose ALAIN SATIÉ

asemic editions P O Box 1011, Kent Town, SA 5071, Australia edited, designed & published by Tim Gaze © 1971, © 2010 Alain Satié All Rights Reserved

written in prose a novel ALAIN SATIÉ introduction by Roland Sabatier (translated from the introduction to the original edition) new introduction by Tim Gaze

BY THE SAME AUTHOR ÉDITIONS NIALA Autour d'un système fédératif, de la nécessité d'identifier l'art contemporain, 2004 Applications concrètes en faveur de l'art du meuble, 2007 ÉDITIONS JEAN-PAUL ROCHER Les avant-gardes retrouvées en peinture, 1999 La plastique lettriste: un art contemporain, vivant et durable (in La peinture lettriste, 2000) Du Caravage à Rembrandt, 2002 Le lettrisme, la création ininterrompue, 2003 ÉDITIONS ET PUBLICATIONS PSI Tatouages, 1969 Images à lire, 1969 Les mots parlent, 1969 Pour ainsi dire, 1971 Écrit en prose ou l'œuvre hypergraphique/ Pour un avenir meilleur, 1971 Poésies, 1978 Notes pour le bouleversement de l'art du meuble, 1979 Semeion, 1983 Les carrés magiques, 1999 Œuvres palindromes, 1993 Mise en doute de l'emperinte ou Le scénario du dernier film possible, 2001 Un coup de dés, bien ou mal armé, jamais n'abolira le hasard, 2001 AUTRES ÉDITEURS Superstrat, Éd. Lettrisme et hypergraphie, 1966 Il était une fois ..., Éd. Crean, 1969 Manifeste de la peinture infinitésimale contrôlée et relancée, Éd. Lettrisme, 1975 Nouveaux principes d'Économie Politique, Éd. Richard Meier, 1995 Réflexions sur le Carré blanc sur blanc de Malevitch sur l' œuvre imaginaire, vierge d'intervention, d'Isidore Isou, Éd. Mona Lisait, 2000 Pour un avenir meilleur, Éd. AcquAvivA, 2010

Alain Satié reveals a new facet of himself with this new hypergraphic novel. He works relentlessly, with determination and certitude, to explore the vast landscape offered by hypergraphics, which is surely the most profound route today. Within the framework of this narrative, Alain Satié seems to reprise his earlier achievements by broadening them and adding nuances. From page to page he fans out a display of possibilities which make this work into a summation, a sort of anthology of his contributions to the chiseling approach. In some places he presents innovative material, in others he employs an unused technique or rhythm, updating a new combination of themes that he has diverted. In this way he juggles invented or borrowed elements which he tortures in a thousand ways to the point of their extreme possibility of annihilation that he has proposed and systematized as a caught and released infinitesimal novel. In the course of reading, these hermetic combinations, always situated at their proper level, shine like so many flashes added to other flashes from different sources; they sprinkle our lives with unassailable better or privileged moments. Roland Sabatier, 1971 Publisher of the original edition Terminology hypergraphics: please see my explanation overleaf chiseling: the period in which artists are questioning and finding new ways to use previously accepted methods and attitudes towards art; amplifying is the opposite activity, working with givens caught and released: the unfamiliar atoms of text and image combined by the author act as a narrowing force ("caught"), which act upon the reader's mind in a new way ("released") infinitesimal: the idea of Infinitesimal Art was invented by Isidore Isou, the founder of Lettrisme; a work of infinitesimal art is impossible to make in the physical world, but still worthwhile to contemplate with the mind.

This is a hypergraphic novel. The French avant-garde group known as the Lettristes invented the term hypergraphie. Hypergraphies make use of numbers, letters, any other symbols, and images. The English translation hypergraphics is less well known than use of the same word to denote hyperlinked text and graphics on a computer, which is a completely different meaning. The original edition, titled Écrit en prose ou L'œuvre hypergraphique, was published in combination with another of his hypergraphic novels, Pour un avenir meilleur, by Éditions PSI in 1971. Écrit en prose won the AntiGoncourt Prize the same year. A new edition of Pour un avenir meilleur, in colour, was published in 2010 by Editions AcquAvivA of Paris. With the growing interest in abstract comics and asemic writing (please research these on the www, if you don't know them), now is a perfect time to reintroduce the world to this avant-garde classic. You get to make up the details of this novel for yourself. The author has given you the bones of the story. Your imagination and inventiveness will provide the flesh. Please enjoy! Tim Gaze 2010 For more information about Alain Satié and Lettrisme, some good starting places are the websites www.alainsatie.com/en/ (English), www.lelettrisme.com/pages/01_accueil.php (français) and the new Lettriste magazine Toth, whose website is revuetoth.canalblog.com/.