Personal Writing, Language, and Thought Systems in Visual Art And Text-Based Visual Art
Adam Daley Wilson — Draft Studio Research Paper – 5/27/2024
Abstract / Overview
The world of visual art has long-recognized personal writing systems. This essay proposes art world recognition of two additional systems in art, the personal language system and the personal thought system. A personal language system in visual art may be defined as a unique set of invented and evolving linguistic conventions and symbols created by an individual artist to express, transmit, and convey. In turn, a personal thought system may be defined as individual artist’s unique, intentional, and volving cognitive framework, including as to any biological or neurological variations the artist’s mind may have, that the artist invents and evolves, with personal standards, rules, and heuristics, in order to organize, interpret, and respond to both internal ideas and external observations, in turn in order to express, transmit, and convey.
A. WRITING SYSTEMS
A1. Personal Writing Systems In The Context of Art History And Art Theory
A1a. Artists / Art History
Personal writing systems are well-recognized in the context of visual art history, theory, and practice. The following brief survey is intentionally broad, and is just a first cut after some initial research.
For example, as to personal writing systems in visual art, Cy Twombly is known for his scribbles and calligraphic mark-making, and his work often blends writing and drawing, creating a unique, and almost always illegible, personal writing system. Jenny Holzer may be seen as using text in her conceptual art to convey powerful messages with idiomatic phrasing and fractured sentences, creating a personal writing system that is fully legible and semiotic. Xu Bing has created works, including books, which feature invented characters that mimic traditional Chinese writing, forming a personal writing system. Basquiat incorporated text and symbols that arguably form a unique visual and linguistic system with legible words in isolation, without sentences or paragraphs. Robert Rauschenberg often used text and images to create a unique semiotic environment. Glenn Ligon often appropriates language, a method that speaks to the foundations of a writing system process. Shirin Neshat incorporates Persian calligraphy into her photographs and videos, forming a personal writing system that blends the semiotic with the visual, perhaps not that dissimilar to Barbara Kruger.
More broadly still, William S. Burroughs, Henri Michaux, Ray Johnson, Adrian Piper, John Baldessari, Tracey Emin, Lawrence Weiner, Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt, Louis Bourgeois, the group Art and Language, Alighiero Boetti, Carolee Schneemann, and David Wojnarowicz, among others, may also be seen to have personal writing systems evidenced in at least some of their work.
Across the broader spectrum of art history, spanning, let’s say, roughly the last 6,000 years, the use of text in art has continuously evolved in relation to humanity’s formal writing systems. Very broadly, from hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt to illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages, and from calligraphic traditions of East Asia to modern text-based art experiments of the 20th century, text has been a medium through which visual artists explore the transmittal of both the simple and the complex. Personal writing systems fall within this type of visual art, and, depending on their level of experimentation and evolution, they may be seen as pushing the boundaries of how language, thought, and artistic expression intersect—that is, how artistic ideas are created, how they are transmitted, and how they are received, interpreted, and understood.
Which brings us from the artists to the theorists.
A1b. Art Theorists / Art History
In the context of modern western art theory, specifically in the context of Minimalism and Postmodernism, the focus arguably lies on the deconstruction of traditional forms and the embrace of new mediums, the concept of personal writing systems as utilized in text-based art becomes particularly relevant and interesting. At the end of the day, a personal writing system may be seen as the direct deconstruction of one of the few things left agreed upon in a given culture or society --- the rules of how to write things down.
Minimalism’s emphasis on simplicity and the reduction of form can be seen pretty easily in personal writing systems --- in the distilled, essential nature of the lines and curves that create the marks, symbols, and characters in certain artists’ personal writing systems as they evolve.
Postmodernism's skepticism towards (or dislike of) singular overarching narratives, in favor of its preferred focus on fragmented, individualized expression --- this, too, fits well with the essence of personal writing systems in various types of art.
Poststructuralism, too: Personal writing systems may be seen as a spot-on poststructuralist approach to meaning-making, where writing-rules are not fixed but fluid, and where the interpretation of writings, as depicted, becomes an active, participatory process—after all, most of us have to work a little harder to get the meaning of writings that don’t follow the rules.
These and related points are recognized, at least by implication, in the theories and critiques of many art theorists, curators, critics, and academics to date.
For example, Rosalind Krauss, known for her theoretical and critical work with respect to modern and contemporary art, has explored themes of language, semiotics, and its reception and interpretation in art, particularly in relation to poststructuralism concepts.
Or consider Jacques Derrida, the philosopher and critic whose deconstructionist theories have had a profound impact on the understanding of language, text, and meaning in literature and also art. There is also Michel Foucault, whose work on discourse and the relationship between language, power, and knowledge has influenced art theorists and critics. Or Roland Barthes, whose writings on semiotics, text, and interpretation have expanded theoretical and critical understandings of how personal language systems can operate in art.
There is also Umberto Eco, a semiotician whose theories on signs and meaning have significant implications for personal language systems in art. Mikhail Bakhtin, whose theories on dialogism and the multiplicity of voices in text have implications for understanding personal language systems, is also relevant here.
More broadly, there is also Susan Sontag, the cultural critic whose essays address the intersections of language, art, and thought with respect to modes of interpretation; Terry Eagleton, the literary critic whose work on ideology and language has implications for understanding personal writing systems in art; and Hal Foster, the art critic and historian who has written on postmodernism and the use of text in contemporary art. These are just to name a few after initial research.
A2. Writing Systems In General, And Personal Writing Systems In Art
Writing systems, as catalogued in Wikipedia and other sources, have been traditionally studied within the academic fields of linguistics and semiotics, and to some degree anthropology and history—not visual art. Very simply, writing systems may be defined as sophisticated agreed-upon configurations of symbols used to encode spoken language into visual forms, such as alphabets, syllabaries, or logographies. Writing systems are profound---throughout human history, across cultures and continents, writing systems have played, and continue to play, a fundamental role in humanity’s decision and ability to preserve, transmit, and receive information across time and space.
Personal writing systems, including those created by artists as seen in visual art, music with lyrics, literature, and verse, may be seen as, and defined as, unique and individual systems, not agreed-upon by anyone, that diverge in various degrees and ways from established and accepted writing system frameworks. In other words, a personal writing system, in the visual art context, may be seen or interpreted to exist where an artist creates, and experiments with, the artist’s evolving practice of using individualized symbols, alphabets, syllabaries, and words that in some way arise from and speak to the artist’s personal modes of cognition, and personal intentions for artistic expression, be the system seen in a painting, in lyrics, in a story or novel, or in a poem.
In the context of visual art, personal writing systems may be either understandable or not; often, but not always, they are legible or comprehensible only to their creators, serving as unique and even protected repositories of the artist’s actual thoughts, emotions, or observations of what the artist may notice, observe, hear, or see about our objective world---or the internal subjective world belonging to the artist.
In the even more specific context of text-based visual art, or text-based conceptual art, artists have been seen to develop and experiment with personal writing systems in order to create works that explore the systems and semiotic elements of writing with methods and executions that include both legible and illegible textual elements, or that alter the accepted lines and curves that we agree are meaningful characters, each change imbued with semiotic significance and visual significance, such as from the text-figurative to the text-abstract. These legible / illegible, semiotic / asemic, and formalism / abstract components are not merely decorative; they are not merely a plus factor to appeal to the eye; rather, depending on how conceived and applied, and if applied consistently, and with intent, they can be seen to constitute the purposeful formation of, and evolution of, not just a personal writing system, but also a personal language system.
Which brings us to two related personal systems not yet formally recognized, as far as I can tell, at least in the contexts of visual art and, more specifically, text-based conceptual art.
B. LANGUAGE SYSTEMS
B1. Language Systems In General, And Personal Language Systems in Art
Distinct from writing systems, which record and transmit just visually (that is, for just one of the five senses, the eyes), a language system may be seen as broader, because a language system also encompasses the spoken and the auditory --- the heard, the ears, and sound.
As such, a well-developed and generally accepted language system develops and applies not just the rules of a writing system, but also, more broadly, and more technically, the phonological, morphological, syntactical, and semantic rules that govern the formation and comprehension of words and sentences through not just one of the five senses but rather two of senses --- not just the eyes, but also the ears.
Now consider personal language systems. The research for this paper isn’t fully complete, but, so far, there doesn’t seem to be much out there about personal language systems in any context, let alone visual art.
Can there be a personal language system in visual art --- assuming that, by ‘visual art’, we mean only those mediums of art which are seen and not heard?
In another paper, I’ll soon explore my theory that, when it comes to text-based art, at least, the receiver does in fact ‘hear’ --- it is the mind’s inner voice that ‘says’ the words and phrases of a (legible) text-based work inside the head of the receiver. But that’s another theory for another day.
For now, let’s assume, for sake of argument, that there can be personal language systems in the context of visual art, at least text-based visual art, because of the recipient’s use of their inner voice, and inner ear, in receiving and comprehending. If you’re willing to assume this with me for a moment, let’s move forward and ask this: What would a personal language system look like in the context of visual text-based art?
B2. A Proposed Definition of Personal Language Systems In Visual Art
Proposed Definition: In art, a personal language system refers to an artist’s invented linguistic conventions, character-symbols, and rules of syntax that the artist creates and uses to more fully express the artist’s cognitive, emotional, and observational output than is possible with just a personal writing system.
An artist’s personal language system can manifest as fully semiotic, conveying substantive meanings understandable to the viewer. Or it can manifest as asemic, devoid of semantic language meaning. Or it can manifest in a work, or in a series of works, in variations or scales between the semiotic and asemic.
Unlike societal-level language systems, which are accepted, shared, taught, and passed down in cultures and countries for standardized communication, a personal language system can be, and often is, idiosyncratic to the given artist. Some personal language systems are decipherable only by the artist.
Or, the artist may find ways to share, or pass down, the keys to their personal writing system to others (museum visitors, collectors) through various ways, such as by providing separate documentation of the work.
B2a. Artist Personal Language Systems As Documenting Performance Art
If the separate documentation discussed above assists the viewer in understanding a given artist’s personal language system, is that because the acts of creating and using a personal language system are somehow performative? Is there a relationship between personal language systems and performance art or happenings? This is for a later research paper.
B2b. Artist Personal Language Systems As Preserving Organic Human Communication Given Artificial Intelligence
More fundamentally, if the separate documentation discussed above assists the viewer in understanding a given artist’s personal language system, is that a way for humans to continue, and preserve, at least symbolically, organic human communication, protected from artificial intelligence and machine learning?
Picture, for example, an artist’s personal language system manifested in a painting with what appears to be abstract--many overlayers of oil stick scribble. An AI machine might be able to emulate it visually as to its overall look and feel—what the scribbles look like, abstractly, after all the layers. But what if the artist, by their layers-of-scribbles execution of the painting, has found a way to hide substantive language content within?
What if, unpacked, the abstract lines and curves of the overlapping layers of scribbles were in fact understandable phrases, sentences, even paragraphs? Complete human statements. Complete human stories. Human documentations of our theories, our events. Our histories. Organic communication, human-to-human, sometimes mixed, sometimes not, with the artist’s own mind and soul.
Query whether such an oil painting—one that appears to be abstract lines and curves in oil stick, but which in fact contains fully semiotic meaning—is not just a personal writing system, and not just a personal language system. In theory, it may be a way, even if symbolically, to ensure that at least some human-to-human communications remain purely organic, purely human, free from artificial intelligence and the methods by which it learns.
Stated differently: What is an artist’s personal language system and method of execution is the creation of two things—the work itself, and the separate documentation, written by the artist, that human viewers separately receive. It’s not all that different than the universal cultural practice, seen most often in museums, where alongside a work of art there is a description with an explanation of meaning. In the context described here, the separate documentation has an additional function: it appears to be the functional equivalent of what Silicon Valley calls two-step, or two-factor, encryption. Query if AI will be able to reverse engineer the substantive content of a personal language system of an artist from the one work alone, the abstract gestural painting of scribbles, the lines and curves of an action painting of scrawls, when the AI machine can’t access the separate hand-written document that the artist has given to another human, by hand, passed down.
THOUGHT SYSTEMS
C. Thought Systems
C1. Thought Systems In General, and Personal Thought Systems in Art
Distinct from both writing systems and language systems, this essay proposes not just that some executions of personal language systems may be able to preserve organic human communication in the face of artificial intelligence (see above) that there are also, at least in art, and at least by some artists, discernable thought systems and personal thought systems. The essay proposes that it is the combination of (i) an artist’s personal thought system and (ii) an artist’s personal language system, manifested in a work through (ii) an artist’s personal writing system, which brings totality to the art practice of an artist who expresses themselves through cognitive thoughts and language as opposed to, say, pure abstraction.
Broadly speaking, the academic and scientific fields and disciplines of cognitive science, neurology, and cognitive theory all suggest that it is fully possible for artists to have an art practice and to create works that demonstrate and communicate the artist’s personal thought system. This seems possible particularly in text-based / language-based creative contexts such as text-based art, music with lyrics, literature, and poetry.
Cognitive science and some aspects of neurological science examine this in increasing detail: On the one hand, how individuals process information in preparation for sending it to others. On the other hand, how individuals process information upon receiving and interpreting. This also includes how individuals cognitively solve problems—and communicate the solutions—and the thinking that went into it. This also includes how individuals generate the means and methods by which to communicate---share---entrust---their creative ideas with others.
With the above as background, thought systems in the particular context of visual artists and their visual works are proposed as follows.
C2. A Proposed Definition of Personal Thought Systems In Visual Art
Proposed Definition: In art, a personal thought system refers to an individual artist’s unique cognitive framework that is intentional—through conscious effort and decision-making, the artist continues to make a set of rules, standards, and heuristics in order to purposefully organize the creativity that emerges from the artist’s mind. By choice, the artist applies self-made structures, processes, steps, and mental procedures to guide their internal assessment of their creative output. The artist then uses those self-created mental evaluation procedures to prepare their creative output so that it may be communicated to, and received by, the viewer of the artist’s visual art.
A visual artist’s personal thought system may be used by the artist not just for purely intellectual thoughts, but also for what the artist observes both internally and externally, and also for what the artist feels and senses, as part of translating that through visual art to the viewer to receive, interpret, and understand. A personal thought system is the artist’s evolving methodology by which to achieve an alchemy: Turning the artist’s cognitive ideas, intuitive hunches, emotional feelings, and body-felt senses into an expression that can be received by the viewer in some way, at some level, as intended by the artist, even if that translation is never quite fully accurately achieved.
A personal thought system is the artist’s attempt to apply self-chosen rules, in constant experiment, to prepare the essence of the artist—the artist’s creativity—into some form that can be received in some way by a viewer in some type of meaningful, reachable way.
FUTURE RESEARCH
D. Artist Thought Systems And Artists Who Have Variations Or ‘Disorders’
A pending future paper will explore whether the above discussion of artist writing, language, and thought systems is particularly applicable to artists with neurological variations, sensory variations, and/or mental illnesses or diagnosed disorders that in some way impact their neurological, observational, reasoning, or other internal processes in relation to their creative insights and creative output.
Stated differently, a pending future paper will explore these questions:
Do artists with different minds create especially interesting, robust, or nuanced personal thought systems, all necessary to work with the creative insights and creative outputs arising form the workings of their uniquely different minds?
If so, how does an artist with neurological, genetic, sensory, or cognitive-reasoning variations create and evolve their personal thought system? Is their thought system doubly unique?
Can the artist’s very act of intentionally creating a personal thought system in the variation / disorder context be a performative work of art?—One that is documented in the artist’s manifested external work, be it a painting, music, literature, verse.
Are creative works themselves, for some artists, the periodic documentation of an ongoing performative piece that this paper is referring to as the development of a personal thought system?
Are some artists developing personal thought systems---cognitive procedures, standards, heuristics, rules---that allow those artists to prepare the ‘normal’ viewing public to be able to best receive, translate, interpret, understand, and feel the creative output of an ‘abnormal’ mind?
And is the creative output from such an artist---one with neurological, sensory, genetic, or cognitive-reasoning variations or disorders---is that output especially safe from artificial intelligence and machine learning?---If artificial intelligence depends on logical reasoning and standard cause and effect, is it, at least so far, less able, or even unable, to reverse engineer the creative output of an artist with an ‘abnormal’ thought system that the artist has built to handle a ‘variant’ mind?
CONCLUSION
WRITING, LANGUAGE, AND THOUGHT SYSTEMS IN THIS PLACE AND TIME
Which brings us back, I guess, to what the art world has already recognized: artist personal writing systems.
The creation of a personal writing system in the full context of this paper may be seen as not just as a writing system with a visual effect. It may be, more fully, the visual manifestation of not one but two performative pieces within the artist’s brain: The practice of creating a language system, and the practice of creating a thought system. The personal writing system, in this conception of it, is a documentation of two performance works by an artist unique to that artist with respect to their creative insights, their creative output, and their conscious attempts to find a way to best share it with whomever might want to receive it. And in some cases, it may be a documentation of a documentation, of a mind deemed different, making some artist systems particularly human, and thereby able to protect, preserve, and pass down the essence of we the human, we the organic, in this new place and time.
— Adam Daley Wilson
Draft 5/27/2024