TESSERE

In 2016, I was invited to contribute to Initiales, issue no. 09, dedicated to Pierre Klossowski. The point of departure was the first page of Virgil translated into French by him.
I approached the page through counting. Every element — words, spaces, apostrophes, and punctuation — was measured and reorganized into a numerical partition. The text was then transcribed and rewritten using a modified typewriter.
For the final stage, I inserted pieces of fabric behind the sheet. The pressure of each keystroke impressed the textile texture into the paper, producing marks whose length corresponded to the measured extension of each word. Language was thus displaced from meaning to structure, from reading to surface, becoming a visual and abstract translation.
I realized four different versions of this work.
This project marked a decisive threshold in my practice: a hinge work that opened onto the development of my unique books, in which counting, texture, and fabric become primary elements, while the alphabet is progressively removed from the typewriter keyboard, allowing an abstract writing to emerge.