Confronting the Reality of Non-Things

How does an artist confront this new set of circumstances--the reality of non-things and a glut of consumable information/data? 

More to the  point: should it be confronted at all? Because, let's face it, does anyone really care that the artist may be trying to confront this new set of circumstances?  Most people are glued to their devices, or fully immersed in the data glut.  They honestly don't care what the artist is doing.  They don't even know the artist exists!  

Our fragmented society keeps the artist underground--far underground, separated and ghostly. This sorry apparition must confront this new set of circumstances alone, and with the knowledge that no one cares he/she is confronting this new set of circumstances alone. 

Post-narrative redux

Abstract writing (or "post-narrative" writing) does not invite interpretation in any conventional sense. There is no hidden message, no allegorical structure, no encrypted ideology waiting to be decoded or explained. Instead of asking, “What does this work mean?” one is forced to confront a more perplexing question: “What is this?” 

Post-narrative writing invites inscrutability and wallows in obscurantism.  In a world of "non-things," inscrutability mirrors (and/or) revels in our dystopian reality, depending on your perspective.

Peter Ganick's Abstract Writing

One of  the first practitioners of pure abstract writing, or radical abstraction, was experimental poet Peter Ganick. In an interview with Steven Meinking, Ganick admits:

The poetry I write is abstract, not non-referential. The Language poets, from who early on I took my model, write non-referential language. This is language that has a relationship to some reference to reality. Namely that of negation. The writing I do is, on the other hand, abstract. Meaning, without relationship to reality. This is its insularity and its vulnerability at the same time. I like to see that the language is a structure that is pure and of-itself. Sort of like the abstractness of mathematics. 

By all accounts, Ganick is attempting to expand the innovations of the Language poets by completely eschewing a relationship to “reality” in his writing. Ganick’s poetry, if we can call it that, is a project informed by the intellect, with the intention of generating an intellectualized product. This makes sense since we live in a machine age, guided by the dictates of computer algorithms and social media. Perhaps we should acknowledge we no longer live in a reality-based world. How does an artist confront this new set of circumstances? And should it be confronted at all?

 

Advent of the Post-Narrative: Radical Abstraction and the Refusal of Meaning

Radical abstraction is a form of writing that rejects narrative meaning. It is writing with absolutely no relationship to the outside world or “reality” whatsoever. It is writing without internal logic or meaning. It is writing denuded of substance or content. It is writing stripped of “concept” or grand design. This does not merely describe a literary style; it articulates a final break with the very foundations of representation, interpretation, and communication.

Radical abstraction does not seek to distort reality, critique it, or reimagine it—it seeks to sever all ties to it.

Unlike experimental or avant-garde writing that challenges meaning, radical abstraction attempts to eliminate it altogether.

Even the most experimental literature pays homage to intelligibility.

Fragmentation still implies a whole.

Absurdity still gestures toward coherence through its negation.

Symbolism still presupposes a symbolic order.

Radical abstraction refuses even these normative structures. It is not anti-narrative so much as post-narrative. Language itself becomes pure material—sound, mark, rhythm, visual shape, and textual residue. Words no longer signify; they merely exist as is.