Materia Secunda

This paper is an extension of the arguments and examples offered in ‘Materia Prima, Text-as Image’ (Calvert: 2012, Intellect), where the materiality of language was foregrounded, rather than its transparent role in communication. The claims of neutrality to content in The Crystal Goblet, made by Beatrice Warde, alongside ideas from various traditional philosophical sources were contrasted with the work of concrete poets, artist, and designers, whose free-play with materiality in language upsets those relatively uncomplicated notions of transparency to content. The current paper proposes that in the next stage, we might think of the materiality of language as a kind of ‘event’, in which the raw materials of language (whether writing/typography/ speech), are fully mobilized and enacted. This performative stage, which harnesses the dynamic attributes of language, is grounded by reference to Deleuze’s theory of the event, as well as Adorno and Benjamin’s notion of ‘constellation’. Katherine Hayles, Villém Flusser and others, are used to support the contention that we might think materiality and performativity/gesture, in language as a form of content. Lyotard’s Discourse/Figure is invoked as away to describe a different space of interaction between the textual and the figural, where the distinction between them is erased. Examples from art/design/typography are offered to support these points.