malevich black square ocr

by  volodymyr bilyk

20 pages

My homie Miekal And once said that poetry evolves in the ineffable. He's kinda right about that. Seekers finders. What else does a soul of mischief do? That's what it is about. Gotta go beyond and explore further regions of experience.   What the hell is this book? It is an assorted collection of optical character recognition of Kazimir Malevich's seminal painting "Black Square" arranged into a sequence of poems. Each poem is a result of several OCR sessions. It is mostly one line - one bout of OCR to get something truly exciting out of it. No diggity. I first did them in 2017, and then a bunch in 2018 and once more in 2019. The resulting texts are as scuffed and cracked as their source image. What's interesting is that these poems are quite fun to write down longhand. You notice there's a peculiar rhythm to the characters as if there was a system behind them, a kind of language. It makes sense after all. Or so it seems. It is an otherworldly, alien kind of text, a kind of text communicated by an unblinking eye of boundless abyss. This text is a squib burst of your mind that happens when the void stares back.  Why would I do that? Well, have you seen OG 1915' zero point of painting? Must be some kind of creature up here having fits. It went through some hard times - all covered in cracks, barely keeping itself whole. And if you keep looking at it - time after time - you get so involved, you don't know what to think. And when you get to that point - the unpredictable swerve of atoms occurs. Yugen bum rushes ye. The vastness of blackness... It must be these cracks that got me like damn. Here goes the sound of the wrecking ball. You get these impertinent, meddlesome, obtrusive, and officious thoughts about the scarring this sable raven had to sustain. I can't get behind it. And once I get started I go to town.  Wabi-sabi, motherfuckers!

bio
Volodymyr Bilyk is a poet from Ukraine. He's doing art stuff when not going back and forth to the bomb shelter. Second edition of his book "Roadrage" is available at Zimzalla. "Gerry Ha Ha" is available at Timglaset. "Detournement Crusade" is available at Redfoxpress.

4€