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Lettrist
Lettrism is a French avant-garde movement, established in Paris in the mid-1940s by Romanian immigrant Isidore Isou. In a body of work totaling hundreds of volumes, Isou and the Lettrists have applied their theories to all areas of art and culture, most notably in poetry, film, painting and political theory. The movement has its theoretical roots in Dada and Surrealism. Isou viewed his fellow countryman Tristan Tzara as the greatest creator and rightful leader of the Dada movement, and dismissed most of the others as plagiarists and falsifiers. Among the Surrealists, André Breton was a significant influence, but Isou was dissatisfied by what he saw as the stagnation and theoretical bankruptcy of the movement as it stood in the 1940s. In French, the movement is called ''Lettrisme'', from the French word for ''letter'', arising from the fact that many of their early works centred on letters and other visual or spoken symbols. The ''Lettristes'' themselves prefer the spelling 'Letter ...
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Isidore Isou
Isidore Isou (; 29 January 1925 – 28 July 2007), born Isidor Goldstein, was a Romanian-born French poet, dramaturge, novelist, film director, economist, and visual artist who lived in the 20th century. He was the founder of Lettrism, an art and literary movement which owed inspiration to Dada and Surrealism. An important figure in the mid-20th Century avant-garde, he is remembered in the cinema world chiefly for his revolutionary 1951 film '' Traité de Bave et d'Eternité,'' while his political writings are seen as foreshadowing the May 1968 movements. Early life Isidor Goldstein was born in 1925 to a prominent Jewish family in Botoşani. Despite his wealthy upbringing (his father was a successful entrepreneur and serial restaurateur), he left school at age 15, reading extensively at home and doing odd jobs. P. 14. In 1944 he began his literary career as an avant-garde art journalist during World War II, shortly after the 23 August coup that saw Romania joining the All ...
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Metagraphy
Hypergraphy, also called hypergraphics or metagraphics, is an experimental form of visual communication developed by the Lettrist movement. Hypergraphy abandons the phonetic values communicated by most conventional written languages in favor of an aesthetically broadened form. Given its experimental nature it can include any visual media. However, hypergraphy most commonly consists of letters, symbols, and pictographs. Conception Hypergraphy is rooted in the core Lettrist concept that every major arena of human interaction, whether it be literary or economic, follows the same basic pattern. A paradigm is introduced into a system and iterated upon until all possibilities are exhausted (this is deemed the amplic phase), at which point the only path forward is to deconstruct the system down to its most granular elements (the chiseling phase). Once the system has been fully deconstructed, the pieces are set into a new paradigm and the cycle begins again. According to Lettrist pain ...
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Hypergraphics
Hypergraphy, also called hypergraphics or metagraphics, is an experimental form of visual communication developed by the Lettrist movement. Hypergraphy abandons the phonetic values communicated by most conventional written languages in favor of an aesthetically broadened form. Given its experimental nature it can include any visual media. However, hypergraphy most commonly consists of letters, symbols, and pictographs. Conception Hypergraphy is rooted in the core Lettrist concept that every major arena of human interaction, whether it be literary or economic, follows the same basic pattern. A paradigm is introduced into a system and iterated upon until all possibilities are exhausted (this is deemed the amplic phase), at which point the only path forward is to deconstruct the system down to its most granular elements (the chiseling phase). Once the system has been fully deconstructed, the pieces are set into a new paradigm and the cycle begins again. According to Lettrist pain ...
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Maurice Lemaître
Maurice Lemaître (aka Moïse Maurice Bismuth) (23 April 1926, Paris - 2 July 2018) was a French Lettrist painter (known for his use of Hypergraphy), filmmaker, writer and poet. Lemaître was Isidore Isou's right-hand man for nearly half a century, but began to distancing himself from Lettrism in the 2000s. Lemaître's paintings, films, photographs and sculptures have been shown in more than twenty personal exhibits in Europe and The United States. The Pompidou Center has acquired some of his paintings, as well as the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, where in 1968, a large retrospective of his pictorial and film works took place. Poems by Lemaître were set to music by Michel Faleze and were sung by Marie-Thérèse Richol-Müller. Publications * ''Le film est déjà commencé ? Séance de cinéma'', préface by Isidore Isou, éditions André Bonne, collection Pour un cinéma ailleurs - Encyclopédie du Cinéma, Paris, 1952''Lettres de Guy Debord à Gil J Wolman'', édition privée ...
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Traité De Bave Et D'éternité
''Venom and Eternity'' (french: Traité de Bave et d'Éternité, lit=Treatise on Slobber and Eternity) is a 1951 French avant-garde film by Isidore Isou that grew out of the Lettrist movement in Paris. It created a scandal at the 1951 Cannes Film Festival. Description ''Venom and Eternity'' is arranged in a three-part structure. The first chapter, "Principle" (french: "Le principe", links=no), displays people walking around the streets of Paris as the audio track presents an argument at a film society. The second chapter, "Development" (french: "Le développement", links=no), shows a romantic meeting between two people. This section is combined with found footage. The final chapter, "Proof" (french: "La preuve", links=no), uses increasingly abstract images, including countdown leader and clear leader. Its audio track resumes the debate from "Principle" and features Lettrist poetry.Cabañas 2014, pp. 31. Production Isou began filming ''Venom and Eternity'' in 1950.Wall-Romana 2012, ...
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Notre-Dame Affair
The Notre-Dame Affair was an action performed by , , Ghislain Desnoyers de Marbaix, and Jean Rullier, members of the radical wing of the Lettrist movement, on Easter Sunday, 9 April 1950, at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, while the mass was aired live on national TV. Mourre, dressed in the habit of a Dominican friar and backed by his co-conspirators, chose a quiet moment in the Easter High Mass to climb to the rostrum and declaim before the whole congregation a blasphemous anti-sermon on the death of God, penned by Berna. The Mourre-Berna Proclamation The aftermath The action and the events leading up to and following it are described in detail in Michel Mourre's autobiography.Michel Mourre, ''In Spite of Blasphemy'', John Lehmann, 1953; translated from the French by A.W. Fielding The authors of the action, young bohemians tied to Lettrism, an avant-garde movement surrounding Isidore Isou, were all arrested by the police. A furious mob chased the protesters from the church.Greil ...
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Guy Debord
Guy-Ernest Debord (; ; 28 December 1931 – 30 November 1994) was a French Marxist theorist, philosopher, filmmaker, critic of work, member of the Letterist International, founder of a Letterist faction, and founding member of the Situationist International. He was also briefly a member of ''Socialisme ou Barbarie''. Biography Early life Guy Debord was born in Paris in 1931. Debord's father, Martial, was a pharmacist who died when Debord was young. Debord's mother, Paulette Rossi, sent Guy to live with his grandmother in her family villa in Italy. During World War II, the Rossis left the villa and began to travel from town to town. As a result, Debord attended high school in Cannes, where he began his interest in film and vandalism. The family lived in Pau, Pyrénées-Atlantiques for a period where he attended Lycée Louis-Barthou. As a young man, Debord actively opposed the French war in Algeria and joined in demonstrations in Paris against it. Debord studied law at the Uni ...
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Hurlements En Faveur De Sade
''Hurlements en faveur de Sade'' (English: ''Howlings for Sade'') is a 1952 French avant-garde film directed by Guy Debord. Devoid of any images, the film was an early work of Lettrist cinema. Description The image track of ''Hurlements en faveur de Sade'' contains no actual images, only solid white or solid black frames. It follows the sound track such that when there is speech the screen is white, and when there is silence the screen is black. The sound track uses text détourned from Isidore Isou's book ''Esthétique du cinéma'', John Ford's film ''Rio Grande'', work by James Joyce, and the French Civil Code. The time between speeches becomes increasingly long throughout the film, and it ends with a 24-minute sequence of silence and darkness. Production Debord wrote the original script for ''Hurlements en faveur de Sade'' during the winter of 1951–1952. His notes outlined a combination of original scenes and found footage. Debord planned to use newsreel footage, images of ...
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Asger Jorn
Asger Oluf Jorn (3 March 1914 – 1 May 1973) was a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist, and author. He was a founding member of the avant-garde movement COBRA and the Situationist International. He was born in Vejrum, in the northwest corner of Jutland, Denmark, and baptized Asger Oluf Jørgensen. The largest collection of Jorn's works—including his major work ''Stalingrad''—can be seen in the Museum Jorn, Silkeborg, Denmark. Jorn willed his property and the works of art located inside to the Municipality of Albissola Marina (Savona), so the Italian museum called "Casa Museo Jorn" was created for displaying his works. Early life He was the second oldest of six children, an elder brother to Jørgen Nash. Both of his parents were teachers. His father, Lars Peter Jørgensen, a fundamentalist Christian, died in a car crash when Asger was 12 years old. His mother, Maren, ''née'' Nielsen, was more liberal but nevertheless a deeply committed Christian. This early heavy ...
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Tristan Tzara
Tristan Tzara (; ; born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; – 25 December 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, composer and film director, he was known best for being one of the founders and central figures of the anti-establishment Dada movement. Under the influence of Adrian Maniu, the adolescent Tzara became interested in Symbolism and co-founded the magazine ''Simbolul'' with Ion Vinea (with whom he also wrote experimental poetry) and painter Marcel Janco. During World War I, after briefly collaborating on Vinea's '' Chemarea'', he joined Janco in Switzerland. There, Tzara's shows at the Cabaret Voltaire and Zunfthaus zur Waag, as well as his poetry and art manifestos, became a main feature of early Dadaism. His work represented Dada's nihilistic side, in contrast with the more moderate approach favored by Hugo Ball. After moving to Paris in ...
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Cannes
Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a communes of France, commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes departments of France, department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The city is known for its association with the rich and famous, its luxury hotels and restaurants, and for several conferences. History By the 2nd century BC, the Ligurian Oxybii established a settlement here known as ''Aegitna'' ( grc, Αἴγιτνα). Historians are unsure what the name means. The area was a fishing village used as a port of call between the Lérins Islands. In 154 Before Christ, BC, it became the scene of violent but quick conflict between the troops of Quintus Opimius and the Oxybii. In the 10th century, the town was known as Canua. The name may derive from "canna", a Reed (plant), reed. Canua was probably the site of a small Ligurian port, and later a Roman outpost on Le Suquet ...
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Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the surrealist, avant-garde, and Dadaist movements; and one of the most influential figures in early 20th-century art as a whole. The ''National Observer'' suggested that, “of the artistic generation whose daring gave birth to Twentieth Century Art, Cocteau came closest to being a Renaissance man.” He is best known for his novels ''Le Grand Écart'' (1923), ''Le Livre blanc'' (1928), and '' Les Enfants Terribles'' (1929); the stage plays ''La Voix Humaine'' (1930), '' La Machine Infernale'' (1934), ''Les Parents terribles'' (1938), '' La Machine à écrire'' (1941), and ''L'Aigle à deux têtes'' (1946); and the films ''The Blood of a Poet'' (1930), ''Les Parents Terribles'' (1948), ''Beauty and the Beast'' (1946), ''Orpheus'' (1950), and ' ...
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