text as shape, text as meaning
TRANSCRIPT
Text as Shape, Text as Meaning:Papyrology and Dotremont’s « Logogrammes »
Ségolène M. Tarte
E-Research Centre, University of Oxford
Making Traces SymposiumUniv of Southern Denmark, Odense19th November 2014
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Making Traces Symposium19th November 2014, Odense, DKS. Tarte – Text as Shape, Text as Meaning: Papyrology and Dotremont’s «Logogrammes»
Dotremont’s « Logogrammes »
In Dotremont’s (1923-1979) own words, they are “off-the-cuff” manuscripts, characterized by an extreme spontaneity, without any concern for ordinary proportions and regularity and thus for legibility. The idea is to establish a play as reciprocal as possible between poetic (prosaic, verbal) imagination, and graphic (material)imagination
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Making Traces Symposium19th November 2014, Odense, DKS. Tarte – Text as Shape, Text as Meaning: Papyrology and Dotremont’s «Logogrammes»
What do papyrologists* do? *[resp. epigraphers, assyriologists, palaeographers]
• Papyrology is about producing a transcription and an interpretation of a textual artefact
[Youtie:1963,1966] [Terras:2006]
• Requires expertise in:– Ancient language(s)
• Latin, Greek, Coptic– Palaeography
• Letter shapes and their evolution through time
– Linguistics• Occurrences of words, letters,
typical formulae• Lexical fields, grammar
– Ancient History and Archaeology• Context of the artefact
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Making Traces Symposium19th November 2014, Odense, DKS. Tarte – Text as Shape, Text as Meaning: Papyrology and Dotremont’s «Logogrammes»
Tracing the text to make sense of it
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Making Traces Symposium19th November 2014, Odense, DKS. Tarte – Text as Shape, Text as Meaning: Papyrology and Dotremont’s «Logogrammes»
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Interpretation - reinterpretation
Commonality (strict overlap) between the 1917 and 2009 tracings of the front of the tablet. It consists in 45.3% of the 1917 tracing, and in 60.6% of the 2009 tracing.
Tracings of the text on the front of the tablet; in blue, the 1917 tracing; in black, the 2009 tracing.
[Vollgraff 1917; Bowman et al. 2009]
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Making Traces Symposium19th November 2014, Odense, DKS. Tarte – Text as Shape, Text as Meaning: Papyrology and Dotremont’s «Logogrammes»
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Levenshtein distance between the two transcripts: 103 (strings of length respectively 200 and 163, including spaces).
Proportion of characters in common (excluding spaces) consists in 43.6% of the characters in the 1917 reading and in 55.5% of the characters in the 2009 reading.
Interpretation - reinterpretation
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Making Traces Symposium19th November 2014, Odense, DKS. Tarte – Text as Shape, Text as Meaning: Papyrology and Dotremont’s «Logogrammes»
When shape and meaning seem to disagree
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?
*D QUEM
*CTUM
QU*DR*TUS
What is this character
“Clues” (images) and “filled in boxes” Hypothesis
Vowel After QUE • Vowel
• Read so in 1917
A • Vowel• Makes a known name
Supporting evidence
L Read so in 1917
A Occurs in legal documents
A Occurs in legal documents
L Read so in 1917
(although somewhat atypical, the palaeography is that of a 1st century script)
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Making Traces Symposium19th November 2014, Odense, DKS. Tarte – Text as Shape, Text as Meaning: Papyrology and Dotremont’s «Logogrammes»
“Reading” a «Logogramme» vs “reading” a textual artefact
«Logogramme»
• distortions of letter shapes due to artistic practice (what are the constraints, if any?)
• there is a given “solution” to the puzzle [although this can be discussed – improvisation, so recollection of the improvised segments might not be perfect!]
• poetry
Ancient textual artefact
• distortions of letter shapes imposed by evolution through time, repeated practice, changes of materials (support, inscribing tool, etc)
• there is no given “solution” to the puzzle
• Documentary of literary texts in nature
Differences
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Making Traces Symposium19th November 2014, Odense, DKS. Tarte – Text as Shape, Text as Meaning: Papyrology and Dotremont’s «Logogrammes»
“Reading” a «Logogramme» vs “reading” a textual artefact
Similarities• recognition of traces as writing
– Orderliness (sequence/linearity)– Visible flow
• letter shapes exhibit variations away from their ideation• dissociation of shape from sound and from meaning
– prompts an effort to consciously operate a re-association, find the correspondences
– draws attention to the materiality of the shapes [morphology]– draws attention to the internal dynamics of the traces [ductus]
• trigger puzzle solving approach– search for the most recognisable shapes that form a known word– intuitive strategy = tracing [intimated by the materiality - interesting link with
how the digital also draws attention to materiality via embodiment]
Michaux
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Making Traces Symposium19th November 2014, Odense, DKS. Tarte – Text as Shape, Text as Meaning: Papyrology and Dotremont’s «Logogrammes»
Tracing/Drawing texts (kinaesthetic approach)
• Drawing as a way of knowing
• Trace making as a sense-making strategy
• Kinaesthetic facilitation used as treatment for patients with pure alexia (aka word-blindness)– Valid for alphabetic,
syllabic, and logographic scripts
• Perceiving dynamics
Motor process
Familiarity as a prerequisite?[Dejerine, 1892] [Seki et al., 1995]
[Taylor et al., 2012]
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Making Traces Symposium19th November 2014, Odense, DKS. Tarte – Text as Shape, Text as Meaning: Papyrology and Dotremont’s «Logogrammes»
What happens for unknown scripts?
• Experiment with pseudo-letters– Viewing and recognition
activates pre-motor cortex area when the learning of the letters was made by tracing their shapes (or by typing them)
• Assyriologists use the drawing approach too
Louvre, Sb 15081; Source: http://cdli.ucla.edu/ [James & Atwood, 2009]
2- Perceptual processes in Cognition
[Longcamp et al, 2008]
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Making Traces Symposium19th November 2014, Odense, DKS. Tarte – Text as Shape, Text as Meaning: Papyrology and Dotremont’s «Logogrammes»
Texts as word puzzles (cruciverbalistic approach)
• As in crosswords, experts use:– Clues from already
deciphered words/letters– The main visual clue,
provided by the textual artefact
• Cognition and crosswords:– Word retrieval from semantic
memory is the most facilitated when a syllabic unit is available
– Word superiority effect– Connectionist model of
cognition
Aural process and semantic memory
Familiarity as a prerequisite[McClelland & Rumelhart, 1981]
[Goldblum & Frost, 1988]
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Making Traces Symposium19th November 2014, Odense, DKS. Tarte – Text as Shape, Text as Meaning: Papyrology and Dotremont’s «Logogrammes»
The Artemidorus papyrus
• Intriguing document– Greek text, sketches and drawings, map– Date: 1st cent BC [or 19th cent forgery according to some?]– Nature: treatise of geography?, collection of texts and
miscellaneous excerpts, “édition de luxe” (possibly illustrated)?, sketch book?
– Made of 4 segments
[Gallazzi & Kramer, 1998]
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Making Traces Symposium19th November 2014, Odense, DKS. Tarte – Text as Shape, Text as Meaning: Papyrology and Dotremont’s «Logogrammes»
The Artemidorus papyrus
Virtual access to the papyrus only– IR images – Mirror-images through traces of ink transfers
• Virtually evaluate how the papyrus was rolled• Virtually compute its length• Virtually reposition the fragments
– Re-materialization of some aspects of the papyrus
[Tarte, 2012][D’Alessio, 2012]
[Latour & Lowe, 2011]
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Making Traces Symposium19th November 2014, Odense, DKS. Tarte – Text as Shape, Text as Meaning: Papyrology and Dotremont’s «Logogrammes»
Mirror effect
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Making Traces Symposium19th November 2014, Odense, DKS. Tarte – Text as Shape, Text as Meaning: Papyrology and Dotremont’s «Logogrammes»
P. Artemid.: revised ordering of the fragments
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Making Traces Symposium19th November 2014, Odense, DKS. Tarte – Text as Shape, Text as Meaning: Papyrology and Dotremont’s «Logogrammes»
Materiality and digital avatars of artefacts
ΚροκóτταςAn Indian wild beast, hybrid between wolf and dog – possibly a hyena
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Making Traces Symposium19th November 2014, Odense, DKS. Tarte – Text as Shape, Text as Meaning: Papyrology and Dotremont’s «Logogrammes»
Making sense of traces through making traces
• Embodied strategies are often intuitively mobilised:– Tracing– Sounding
• Making traces allows:– To (re)connect shape, sound, and meaning– To access their “in-between” nature– To engage with the materiality of the trace-bearing artefact
(whether re-mediated or not)
• By explicitly encouraging those embodied strategies, scholars are better able to make explicit and teach some of the epistemological foundations of their praxis
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Making Traces Symposium19th November 2014, Odense, DKS. Tarte – Text as Shape, Text as Meaning: Papyrology and Dotremont’s «Logogrammes»
Acknowledgements
Christian Dotremont “En écriture dans le texte”Logbook 1974
Prof. A. Bowman, Dr R. Tomlin, Dr C. Crowther (Classics, Oxford)Prof. Sir M. Brady (Engineering, Oxford), Prof M. Terras (Information Studies, UCL), Dr J. Dahl (Oriental Studies, Oxford), Prof G. D’Alessio (Classics, KCL)Dr J. Elsner (Classics & History of Art, Oxford)Prof. D. De Roure (e-Research Centre, Oxford)
AHRC funding [early-career fellowship]
Thank You