Asemic Writing: A form of writing without any set semantic meaning
In the summer of 2024 I agreed to work the evening shift at my art handling job. realizing that the evening hours severely limited my ability to socialize with my former day-shift community, I began to spend more time with a friend and fellow artist who lived in a loft behind Velma Vintage. I began renting a small space in the loft as well as the warehouse was located only a few blocks from my work.
With more free time than I knew what to do with, and the ability to become functionally nocturnal, I dove into the process of creating an asemic language. I would spend hours alone in the loft writing and writing until the language began to develop itself into a cohesive visual language with its own structures and rules but without set characters or translatable meaning. The walls, furniture, and other surfaces of the loft show the evolution of the language. Every piece of newsprint was preserved and tacked up as it was made.
The “language” is informed by my studies of Celtic book illumination, modern Arabic, Kanada, English calligraphy, and fictional high fantasy and sci-fi languages.
Relevant Wikipedia Articles:
Andrea Matthews 