Visual Prose/vispro or not – examples submitted in a broad and very quick investigation of vispro

Visual Prose/vispro or not – examples submitted in a broad and very quick investigation of vispro:

Carrarini, Talo (Italy)

Manifested Hidden Sun (by Benedetto Simonelli). 2020

Features:

1) Asemic handwritten text 2) Palimpsest 3) Extensive use of marginalia, often ignoring the gutter

Italo wrote me this email regarding his work titled Manifested Hidden Sun (by Benedetto Simonelli):

…15 From the 80’s onwards much of my research has been sedimentation of texts and images inside surfaces of formats equivalent to sources of origin. From this wide range of possibilities, the TRANSCRIPTIONS, to which this job belongs. In this case two pages of the same format as the published brochure on which I fully transcribed the author's text. A space that also becomes a personal opportunity to study (hence the marginal notes) which formally define itself as accumulation, as overlap of all the words studied...

Italo Carrarini, Manifested Hidden Sun (by Benedetto Simonelli). 2020 Acrylics and inks on canvas / cardboard

In instances such as this, language barriers can be very frustrating – especially as one cannot understand the nuances or word usage through google translate! But, this undoubtedly vispro image speaks to the following theoretical parameters I am attempting to formulate, and as to his concept – WOW!. Italo wrote me the following note on the Simonelli text: “It is a spiritual manifesto for a new humanism written many years ago by my friend Benedetto Simonelli. Being an ecologist of deep ecology and a bio-regionalist myself, I felt I was paying homage to his vision of his things” .

Obvious prose (according to the definition in use for the purposes of this paper, Pg 2) comfortably resting in a book-like context, executed in asemic writing, gives the reader the feeling that the writer invites the viewer into a complex story comprising excellent narrative and overlapping ideas. The author offers a combination of multifaceted sentences and unusual words - perhaps the words and phrases so multifarious that the prose demands marginalia! In 1844 Edgar Allan Poe wrote: “I have always been solicitous of an ample margin; this is not so much through any love of the thing in itself, however agreeable, as for the facility it affords me of pencilling in suggested thoughts, agreements, and differences of opinion, or brief critical comments in general.” https://www.eapoe.org/works/misc/mar1144.htm

Many kinds of readers (I am one) feel that a book does not get it’s best ‘intention’ unless their pencil is poised to add to, comment on, or underline their agreement (or disagreement) with the authors’ thoughts. As Italo mentions, this particular work is a transcription of Benedetto Simonelli’s Manifested Hidden Sun. Rewritten in Italo’s palimpsest asemic style, using the same format as the original published brochure, Italo has respectfully represented in a visual way, a borrowed piece of prose. He has built on, added meaning to and commented on the original text and changed its nature from ‘just text’ to a work which focuses on the unsaid, the layering, the time and complexity which the original author could not have had space to do within a conventional format. Convergence of idea, marginalia, colour and lilting text bound within a singular vispro image allow me insight into Italo’s understanding and interpretation of a prose piece I have never seen. And I sense, the original text from which this work was transcribed, was not light entertainment to be zipped through, for Italo has invited his audience to immerse themselves in a strange page, a concept belonging to a foreign place and time – one he has travelled through by accessing the prose of another.

Italo Carrarini. Free transcription from: GORBA, 2015 by Carlo Villa Geiger Editions, 1973 (acrylics, graphite, inks and stamps on paper, 70 × 70 cm)

Italo Carrarini. SOCIETÀ ANONIMA da Marcel Duchamp (duemiladiciannove) inchiostri su carta Fabriano

Artistico. 2019. Translation: Anonymous Company From Marcel Duchamp (two and two and nine) Inks on paper Fabriano Artistico.

In this work, Italo matches each line of text with an artist and explains that it matches the description Marcel Duchamp wrote of the artist mentioned as part of Société Anonyme, Inc. Sponsoring events such as lectures and printing publications, this important art organization had a profound effect on Modern Art and this artwork to me is a very successful rendition of du Champs’ tongue-in-cheek wit and subversive humour. As an artist who fashioned puns out of everyday expressions which he conveyed through visual means, Italo exploits the various possible meanings and ‘look’ of words as puns. He also seems to indicate through studiously aligned palimpsest text, du Champs’s study of perspective and optics which underpin his experiments with kinetic devices.

I have been impressed by Italo’s commitment to a particular visual interpretation of manifestos, writings and prayers. This consistency was pivotal in formulating particular thoughts surrounding an investigation of vispro. I take from his examples the embedded visual of vispro, a concept which makes visual formal literary surprises.

Enzo Patti

Features:

1) Asemic handwritten text, sometimes with images/shapes emerging from the text 2) Various printed matter as ground

In attempting to understand Enzo’s work I began by looking at the following interview:

https://segnonline.it/intervista-enzo-patti/?amp

In 1980 Enzo began (what I understand to be) a theme named the "tourist guide" (1#) which became the pretext to continuously draw-write (2#) Di Capperi, a fantastic city, a rediscovered city, whose unknown alphabet appeared in the first two pages of the book in the form of large stone sculptures and in the following pages engraved or in bas-relief on archaeological finds. It simplified itself, however, until it consisted of only four signs: the vertical, the oblique, the horizontal dash and the arc from time to time, ultimately becoming a fake text that accompanies the pseudo illustrations of the books painted in trompe l'oeil. Whether open on real wooden lecterns and old school desks, or walls of buildings on which doors and windows open, as in my innumerable painted wooden sections, or fragments of inscriptions on illusory stones set in the realizations of vast wall decorations, until finally (the writing became) plains, seas, roads and squares as in the recent series of “asemic landscapes”.

Enzo’s text is called “fake writing, indecipherable writing, calligraphic, pseudo-writing, cryptic” ... Mirella Bentivoglio called it "asemantic" in 1998, on the occasion of the exhibition she curated at the Cuba d’oro (Rome) and at the Seagull (La Spezia). In fact, in his work there are often, alongside glyphs and apparently alphabetic traces, drawings and human or animal figures - as in a sort of illegible encyclopedia (not a poem and perhaps not far from Luigi Serafini's Codex Seraphinianus).

Enzo said: “my research is definitely oriented towards the construction of images that mix symbols, immediately recognizable or not (3#) (but always with an unclear meaning) and asemic writing. At times, it is true, the writing seems to comment on the images or vice versa the images seem to be the illustrations of an asemic text - an operation not too far from Serafini's Codex - but

the game that I pursue and more interesting for me is the construction of images in which

drawing and writing are truly inseparable (4#). The "asemic landscapes" are perhaps among my best results. They are evidence of the coexistence of different languages: asemic writing (which suggests a possible reading and evokes a possible sound), the bird's-eye perspective (which distances writing and at the same time magnifies it), human silhouettes (coming from ancient Egyptian alphabet to indicate actions) and all-round bodies (volumes and “non-volumes”) with improbable dimensions and which seem to belong to distant, past or future times.

Later on, in the interview Enzo was asked this question: “your impression is that - completely disregarding asemic writing - the path of verbal-visual research (even fully semantic) has been interrupted or greatly reduced, in recent decades, in Italy? The reference is mainly to concrete poetry and visual poetry.

Yes, I "think" so. I think it has greatly reduced not only in Italy but also outside. I believe, therefore, in the total absence of certain proofs (#5).

Comments:

(1#) Thus we can conclude Enzo’s intention was not vispo. A ‘tourist guide’ is by nature studiously diagrammatical, contains factual information and serves to inform the newcomer of the ‘place’ they are now visiting. Comparison with Luigi Serafini's Codex Seraphinianus can only have to do with the strangeness of the artist’s reality rather than the format in which the information is presented. …18

Examples of Enzo Patti’s output. Various dates, various titles. Taken from Facebook.

(2#) “continuously draw-write”: When one thinks of the ‘practitioners’ of prose, there are as many sorts of prose as there are practitioners. Think Sir Walter Raleigh or Hobbes, James Joyce or Samuel Beckett. Prose “could be defined as the sum of stylistic features determined by a familiar set of conceptual operators: form, genre, author, period, or literary fashion” (John Guillory). However, all these elements are in and of themselves “conceptual” – raw materials in the production of prose and its compositional and language structure. This means, prose has its own set of complexities.

To me, Enzo Patti has formulated an integrated prose system grounded in his visual approach to indecipherable words. Enzo’s ‘draw-write’ is asemic in execution, but his approach opens up a new way of structuring the formal elements of visual prose interpretation. For example, when viewing Enzo’s pages against works such as The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet* by author Reif Larsen, notice the difference in stylistic approach. Throughout Larsen’s book, the author has created sketches and maps, developed by his character T.S., who through these images explores and settles himself in the world around him. He appears to ‘map’ everything – even items/objects/places one would consider impossible to map. Enzo on the other hand integrates his illustrations by creating them with and by the text. The images are formed by and find their gestural articulation through the density, complexity or by dramatic alternative loose spacing created by his meticulous hand writing.

*https://booksnooks.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/the-selected-works-of-t-s-spivet-by-reif-larsen/

Enzo Patti. Scrittura a volo d'uccello e Sigillo. 50cm X 70cm. 2021.

(3#) “construction of images that mix symbols, immediately recognizable or not”: in the short list of definitions, I stated that whether or not the text was executed in ‘asemic’ writing, that remained part of the ‘how’ – not the why. Enzo deliberately uses asemic writing in a way which allows us to ‘read’ his diagrammatic illustrations as prose. We are called to decipher his prose as an ancient language of harmonious rhetoric, our penetrating gaze never quite finding the meaning behind his stories, but he ‘explains’ in all ways possible.

(4#) but the game that I pursue and more interesting for me is the construction of images in which

drawing and writing are truly inseparable: truly inseparable drawing and writing? Absolutely! In an era where all structures are being torn down, a time of linguistic exasperation, that is, a keen awareness of, but also of excessive exploitation of the whole apparatus that regulates the constraints of prose and poetry, together with all its modifications, some artists interrogate the old paths in new ways, remaining respectful to the modifications of language without destroying or totally ‘deconstructing’ it’s boundaries. This is not illustrated text, this is text causing its own illustration.

(5#) Yes, I "think" so. I think it has greatly reduced not only in Italy but also outside. I believe,

therefore, in the total absence of certain proofs: I’m not exactly certain what Enzo was meaning by this, and certainly there has been MUCH written on asemic writing with many meaningful discussions by those theoretically engaged with this art form, but, I have lately found quite a few artists, (asemic writers) who are no longer satisfied with the umbrella vispo – their work has nothing to do with the poetic text-image, rather they are telling stories and writing narratives, with visual elements integrated into and woven with the prose text: images weaving themselves with and from the text.

Enzo Patti, Strada di montagna – 2021. (An example of concrete poetry/vispro or vispo?) An exploration of Enzo’s work would ‘allow’ me to classify this as vispro.

Further correspondence with Enzo reveals that his current overwritten works are also executed on printed leaflets inserted into medicine boxes. Enzo hybridizes the text (asemic writing) by inserting small characters making the prose more illegible whilst at the same time suggesting landscapes – the sea, sky, an ideal city. Measurements are varied and sometimes the sheets are glued together to create larger works – 30cmx120cm for example. He also makes use of “book pages if it is a beautiful paper, other times I buy beautiful water color paper of 300 grams, large sheets up to 100 cm or even more”.

“I like to try all the inks on all the papers I come across ...”.

He also states that he uses only blue and purple inks on these works. Enzo has been drawing a lot and not painting as much as he used to “because his health has not be good”. “The drawing is lighter for my current physical condition. But I plan to go back to painting very soon”. All the VERY best with that Enzo – with much thanks.

Features:

1) Asemic handwritten text 2) Palimpsest 3) Large Format Canvases 4) Upwards of 25 layers of paint.

I haven’t finished this painting yet, but I know this is visual prose. It’s a work titled Targeting Memory. The last writer I asked to tell me about a memory and assign it a colour was David Stone (USA). He wrote:

First thing that comes to mind: colours of pets; of course Choco, my Burmese cat. Black. Sharkey my Scottish terrier (spelled c h a r k i, spellcheck keeps changing it to charming). Black. Stupid our lab mix who poked his head through windows to bark at anything he heard outside, black with a few white spots. Maurizio the Grey Persian, Clio, cream SIAMESE brown boxers in childhood GIGI and Joy, stormy fox terrier white with black and tan blotches.

Cheryl Penn. Targeting Memories Layer 16 (David’s Pets). 2021.

David’s note (not poem) evoked so many memories for me too of black animals, memories which at times were just a sense – and words became a gesture – they were the gesture and the gesture was the word. Not poetic words, just a shifting memory story told continuously in an automatic writing manner, spanning margin to margin. …22

Two layers later, I was in summer and the words were now shapes – they were lifted from a calligraphic form to become shape-words, set in prose as intentional mark. I think here of the words of Irma Blank: Towards the end of the Sixties, after a long period of existential and creative effort, in an atmosphere of linguistic experiment, and to escape the transience and ambiguity of the word, I returned to the sign itself, to theUrzeichen, to the primordial, undifferentiated sign that precedes the word. It was a new start, shifting the gaze to the beginning, to theUrsprung, a pure act of writing, a primeval communicative energy that schooled and realised itself in the sign that in its evolution is writing —scription, to quote Roland Barthes. It denudes writing of sense to charge it with other values. (http://www.p420.it/en/artisti/blank-irmaIrma Blank, Milan, 2001)

Irma Blank. Radical Writings. early 1980s to the 1990s. ( https://edcat.net/person/irma-blank/ )

Blank is speaking about the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of the word here – but notice the appearance of form. Lines of ‘words’ fill the page without break or breath. Although all character accountability is negated – both in the form of writing and the appearance of the page, I would venture that this aesthetic is not poetry – this is visual prose. As artists we may offer alternative ways of writing, even alternative ways of making books, but somehow, we can perceive, in the utilization of prose format, the character of ritualistic and corporeal activity impossible in the book-world of phonetically written narrative. Blank, with her unwavering shapes and rhythmic fluidity still conveys the act of stillness reading brings. She appears to be commenting on reading, rather than about the meaning – with visual prose text.

Being filled with a world of words is a difficult place - and such a transient state of mind. Words to ‘the self’, though inexplicable and not even vaguely poetic, written with the intent and discipline of vispro may give the writer the opportunity to purposefully engage in fresh, compelling visual content as well as address the very human need for written engagement in private-public spaces.

Features: 1) Asemic writing collage text 2) Palimpsest 3) A4 fine art paper 4) Elements of collage, ruberstamp

Ptrizia (tictac) wrote on the work Anecdote: I thought of my version of an anecdote, because it is a short story - a brief narrative within a broader discourse often contained in one paragraph and that demonstrates a point making the reader think deeply. This image portrays the visual part is the 'broader discourse' underneath which expands beyond the anecdote. The vintage brush gives a nostalgic flair, with a surreal mobile rubber stamp detail to add the irony I like to portray in my personal stories.

Ptrizia (tictac). Anecdote. 2021

Comment: I knew in asking Patrizia for a work to demonstrate her understanding of vispro that I would receive a well thought out, quirky work which would reveal a truth more general than the brief tale from which it is drawn. Patrizia (to me) produces quintessential visual poetry, but this work, as she states, is intended not to address the poetic of terms of an anecdote, but to visualise a common feature of literary work which involves subtle exaggeration and dramatic shape. In the words of Jürgen Hein, they exhibit "a special realism" and "a claimed historical dimension." (Quoted by David Gurteen https://conversationalleadership.net/tag/anecdotes/

The word anecdote was apparently coined by Procopius, the principal Byzantine historian of the 6th century, in a work titled Secret Society. Procopius is commonly classified as the last major historian of the ancient Western world, with Secret Society being a collection of short incidents from the private life of the Byzantine court. One can see the visual element of a ‘peeper’ in this work, a chronicler who watches without being noticed, but who is surreptitiously recording all the untold secrets of those who think they are beyond the realms of reality attending to reality – those who make use of innuendoes and subtle talk, those who deny and scratch out their words and resay them – depending on the audience. The hint of a page number tells us that perhaps this is part of a series of anecdotes? As an anecdote is a mini-story, this piece is also visually structured as a ‘mini-story’ with the image in pocket, adding to the intended mystery, interaction and amusement of the short story.

I got the blues:

Patrizia sees “prose structure as fluent language with no stanzas but paragraphs that form rectangular shapes on paper. Every one of these paragraphs contains elements of the subject as supposedly prose does - being narrative after all. The visual elements are the blue of collage as subject and I chose asemics as the universal language that allows me to write the story and you to interpret it. My story is your story.

Poetry can be perceived to be about the poet's feelings, and sometimes you have to read it a few times to understand and still may then not necessarily connect with him/her, as it is all about personal journey. Prose is easier to read, and it is informative, narrational and not necessarily as creative as poetry. It is intended to be more informative on a subject (whether you like the authors writing style or not). Maybe I am simplistic in my approach, or perhaps minimalist but I create mostly by artistic intuition and shapes I see.

I am not a writer, so I lack of the understanding of literary tools and devices and as an artist I am more comfortable with visual elements which are more shape than the narrative. I wonder what the differences of interpretations between artists, writers, and artist who-are-also-writers (would be on prose), whether on canvas or not - and what it is they would concentrate on more.

Ptrizia (tictac). I got the blues. 2021.

Comment: I think Patrizia asks an important question here – what do artists/writers concentrate on/interpret whilst engaging in artistic practice? How do textual-visual artists situate the text and image on a page – and why do they choose to do it like that? What was the intent – to be poetic or to create a prose effect – or not? Are these two methodologies different at all? I would definitely think so. Shape is also important in distinguishing between poetic intention and the prose-ic intention I would venture.

Think of concrete poetry, the ‘father’ of visual poetry – shape was a powerful determiner in categorization. Shaping words was the vital element which helped theorize concrete poetry as a genre all of its own, as concrete poetry became categorized and recognized by shaped or patterned poems. Concrete poetry also had much to do with visual art – or the visual of the poem, rather than the verbal content of the poem. These arranged shapes are generally depictions of content, and yet there is no ‘theory’ on the shape of prose? In fact, to Adler (pg.107), the revival of shaped poetry during the Baroque period was as a result of poets doing away with “the more-or-less arbitrary appearance of the text, (turning) the incidental fact of writing into an essential facet of composition, and thereby…created a union of poetry with the visual arts". The ‘incidental fact of writing into an essential facet of (visual) communication’? That is exactly what the vispro categorization is attempting to do. Artists in this field are using an exciting but literary static tool (prose) as an element in visual art composition.

In Patrizia’s work, the rectangular prose form and a simple colour element guide the reader to the vispro intention of the writer-artists’ concept – I got the blues* . I think at this stage, in creating a categorization for vispro, the shape should be an intentional element in the work. As a formal element in art, shape is used to control how the viewer perceives a piece and should be relevant to conceptual intention. Using shape as an intentional practice in creating vispro, draws attention to ‘the page’ a basic unit in book design. Although such a spread applies to both poetry and prose, I have noticed in quite a few of the submitted vispro works that the gutter is overemphasised in terms of ignoring it (think Patti or Carrarini), or here it is completely avoided by Patrizia. This to me is (at the moment perhaps) an individual artistic reaction to the presentation of visual prose.

*‘Blues’. We know can refer to music or an agitated, depressed state of mind. Interestingly the term is thought to have derived from a 17

th

century English expression referring to ‘the blue devils’ – intense visual hallucinations accompanying severe alcohol withdrawal https://www.huffpost.com/entry/blues-music-history_b_2399330 - there was very little that was poetic about that!

Piotr Szreniawski Untitled

Features:

1) Printed page. 2) Pixilated, digitalized text. 3) Palimpsest

Thinking about something that could be vispro, I came up with the idea of pixelizing some text and putting it above some background. I did the pixelization in gimp, and the background image was created on deepdremgenerator. So I concentrated on "looking at prose" - prose often uses rectangles as a form (I guess it comes from putting rectangular pieces together in standard books). I made three attempts before deciding on using this one.

Piotr Szreniawski. Untitled. 2021.

Comment: Piotr was one of the first to offer a considered vispro image. This image certainly reads as prose narration - and yes, in studying THE BOOK and its general shape as a cultural object, rectangle is the most common - and is therefore considered to be one of the most STABLE shapes (unlike the triangle for example which is more dynamic, and therefore more unstable). Certainly a lot to be explored in this something we really take for granted. The background gives the impression of stained glass windows and perhaps offers a visual aid in accessing the inaccessible text. The image in its hybrid complexity offers the question: is there any relation between page shape or size and its content in terms of meaning? As for the palimpsest nature of the image, I think that is of great relevance to vispro - it's practice and philosophy. Question raised by Piotr's answer:

Question: does the idea of "pixelizing some text and putting it above some background" have relevance to visual prose? Is the methodology of creating ANY vispro relevant - or only certain aspects? I know Piotr intended vispro and that aids in interpreting his intention. I have quoted Piotr’s last comment in my conclusion as it reveals the value which may come about in the future.

Features:

1) Printed page, 300dpi. 2) Digitalized text, Lulu’s old “comic book” format. 3) Image from Book.

Possible example of vispro from my possibly vispro sequence called TRA. It was made up of two (arguably?) prose pieces, the street sign "Do Not Stop On Tracks" and a governmental railroad report from the late 19th century. I think the visual aesthetic in many of the pieces echoes their prosaic origins. (TRA used to be a book but it died in the Great Lulu Migration of 2020. I am planning to get it back into print someday in a slightly different format, and possibly expanded.) Unlike most of my art, this is all computer generated based on public domain material.

This is one page in a larger sequence called ‘Tra’ with the inspiration for the sequence occurred in late 2014. I was driving across railroad tracks at night and I noticed some letters on an electric "DO NOT STOP ON TRACKS" sign had burnt out. It interested me that such a critical, even urgent unit of communication had had its message degraded by physical wear and tear, and I wondered what possibilities there were in removing letters from that sign in every possible combination. Amazingly, for a sign of five short words, it turns out that there are over 130,000 different possibilities, some of which have meanings in English or other languages and others that just suggest possible meanings, inviting a reader to fill in the blanks. Since publishing a 130,000-page book was not feasible, I abridged it for a book of around 80 pages, choosing some of the variations that resonated with me and incorporating other visual techniques to create the sequence. At some point during my research, I came across this oddly beautiful passage in an old railroad report, repeating the refrain "trains do not stop". The book became a sort of fading of variations of "DO NOT STOP ON TRACKS" into the "trains do not stop" found poem. This image is one of the many that are an obvious combination of these two elements during the long transition from beginning to end.

Chris Wells. Tra. 2014.

Comments: When looking at Chris’ image, I see the flow of linear prose and margin justified text – not generally a poetic device. As always I am interested to read Chris’ intent and purpose behind creating such a work as this. Although the word TRACK is deconstructed, it’s presence is fundamental in finding explanation, almost a physical visual exploitation of the word – imitating that which happened to the sign. The horizontal lines speak to the dynamic phenomena of prose. I found Chris’s questioning very valuable in terms of coming to grips with a framework for vispro. For this reason, his points and questions are broken up with answers.

Comments:

CQ: One thing I was wondering, when people say "prose" (and not "prose poetry") I think what is involved is a communicative goal, getting from point A to point B. Is this aim or goal, usually to provide some kind of information to a recipient of the communication, important to vispro as well?

A: I think the point in attempting to define vispro at this stage is to get some clarity through discussion and examples, as to IF such a creature exists. For me I get a very strong sense that it does. More, I get this sense from text-visual artists AND their work. At ground level the difference lies in arrangement and intent of text I think. Both have to do with information but they have different functions: poetry seeks to evoke understanding, prose appears to provide information in order to understand. If this is so, should one not be attempting to ‘make visual’ prose or poetry differently? The WAY/OUTCOME of information one is presenting should come from two different intents, not so?

Also, art, in all its manifestations is about communicating - vous ne pensez pas? Having said that, the why, the how and the intent are all valuable in creating a work which is its outcome, rather than leaving the work to ‘blind’ chance categorization and interpretation.

A: It seems to me that prose contains information (there must be a better word, but it escapes me at the moment) even if it's fictional, and everyone knows the "information" isn't referring to the real world but an imagined one. The words in prose serve a purpose other than revealing their beauty and multifaceted meanings for someone to play with and explore.

A: Prose IS information – Prose comes from the Latin “prosa oratio,” meaning “straightforward.” But, isn’t art about making such a thing strange? And, art provides so many opportunities to take the structure, intent and purpose of literary prose and re-present it in an artistic, interpretive manner which is NOT poetry. Prose may present as tombs of information on philosophy, or history or, as you say, fiction – so could we say it’s about the nature of ‘prose’– using the formal elements of prose in a visual manner in order to create a visual rendition of prose? As for play and exploration within the literary application of the term ‘prose’, one seeks vivid language, not clunky text. One is interested in, and by a variety of prose: short and crisp, lengthily, or calmly written descriptions. Good prose gives distinctive voices to different characters, or it could be filled with complex plots and many twists. If it is academic, it could be dry and filled with convoluted, byzantine language, or engaging, presupposing the intelligence of its reader. Academic prose could be written in ‘ordinary language’ (such as this paper) and it can be exploratory, scientific or biased. ALL these descriptions can be translated into a variety of visual prose – vispro. So, whatever ones view/stance on whatever type of prose one is attempting to make visual – or indeed attempting to explain visually, it will take on many forms which are NOT poetic (vispo).

Q: In fact, it (prose) downplays those things most of the time. Prose just wants to get to some kind of "point". It may even be rhetorical by nature. What is the "point" of vispro, then, I wonder? Where would a map or diagram fit in - something conveying information visually but not (exclusively) with words or letters?

A: Have I answered this I wonder? The ‘point’ of prose is the point of any artistic rendition of ‘any-thing’. But, it must be a conscious choice, a choice to be inspired by the nature of PROSE – as, when one is …29