The super abstract sign

Sémiostructure 2006.
In  Damien Dion, : recherches lettristes

In the end, what is a sign, really? Works coming from lettrism up to hypergraphism are perhaps not the simple manipulation of the sign presumed to exist already in this or that form, but the question of its reality and dimension. What are its limits, its borders, its circumference? In Cecil Touchon, probably it almost disappears, an abstract idea, instead of a concrete one. We thought that an abstracted typography like that was treating the sign as a concrete object. Maybe it's asking the question: how and where does it begin and end? Is it a dot, a brief dash, a speck, a whorl, or an immeasurable, imaginary field? Maybe the sign is an abstract idea that we are trying to make concrete, instead of a concrete object that we are simply trying to manipulate. Maybe the sign is neither transparent nor opaque, but super-transparent, super-opaque!

Isn't this what Infinitesimal art is all about?

L'art infinitesimal se veut un dépassement de l'hypergraphie : en effet, les signes ne sont plus ici concrets mais imaginaires. De ce fait, la partie tangible, concrète de l'oeuvre devient un support-tremplin à l'imagination, à la pensée du spectateur. Par exemple, Oeuvre infinitésimale ou esthapéïriste de Isidore Isou est une toile vierge où le public est invité à imaginer tous les éléments possibles, concevables ou inconcevables qui pourraient être peints sur cette toile. La forme devient ici virtuelle. L'art infinitesimal anticipe et dépasse l'Art conceptuel ou les "immatériaux" d'Yves Klein.

-http://lagaleriedutsiou.canalblog.com/tag/hypergraphie    

"Infinitesimal art sees itself as going beyond hypergraphism: indeed, here signs are no longer concrete but imaginary. Because of this, the tangible, concrete part of the work becomes a trampoline base for the imagination and mind of the viewer. For example, Isidore Isou's "infinite-aesthetics" work called Oeuvre infinitésimale is a blank canvas where the public is invited to imagine all the possible elements, whether conceivable or not, that could be painted on it. Here, everything becomes virtual. Infinitesimal art anticipates and goes beyond Conceptual Art or the "Immaterials" of Yves Klein." (My translation.)

The non-positive value of the sign leads to its difficult status when seen beyond simple binarist logics: in the work of Isidore Isou. More interesting, too, is the later idea of excoordism: the art of the infinitely large and small. The size of the sign is an impossible dimension, like an imaginary number.

As a response to Isou, Damien Dion writes concerning this post-it note:

Damien Dion, Toile imaginaire, 2007. 
Post-it collé sur mur. 7,60x12,70 cm.

Réponse possible à "Oeuvre infinitesimale" de Isidore Isou, qui consistait en une toile vierge signée sur laquelle le public était invité à imaginer toutes les formes inexistantes ou possibles. Ici, en plus des formes, j'invite le public à imaginer aussi la toile, concrètement inexistante.

-http://lagaleriedutsiou.canalblog.com/archives/2007/04/15/4634713.html

"Possible reply to the "Oeuvre infinitesimale" of Isidore isou, which was made of a blank, signed canvas on which the public was invited to imagine every inexistent or possible forms. Here, aside from forms, I invite everyone to imagine also the canvas, in itself concretely inexistent." (My translation)

The progression here reminded me of the  scenes in Balzac's "The Unknown Masterpiece" (1831) where the painter Frenhofer claimed that "there are no lines in Nature," and that on his canvas "the whiteness shines through the densest and most persistent shadow." When he finally showed his work to Porbus and Poussin, he said: "There is such depth in that canvas, the atmosphere is so true that you can not distinguish it from the air that surrounds us. Where is art? Art has vanished, it is invisible!" 

"Do you see anything?" Poussin asked of Porbus.

"No... do you?"

"I see nothing."

The two painters left the old man to his ecstasy, and tried to ascertain whether the light that fell full upon the canvas had in some way neutralized all the effect for them. They moved to the right and left of the picture; they came in front, bending down and standing upright by turns.

"Yes, yes, it is really canvas," said Frenhofer, who mistook the nature of this minute investigation.

After bemoaning the fact that the two other painters did not see anything at all after devoting his ten years on the work, Frenhofer burned the canvas and died that same night. Of course, with Dion's imaginary canvas, there is nothing to burn, unless you also use an imaginary fire. Yet, if we look again, everything is still there; the words can never be erased, and the unknown canvas sits forever burning, concretely inexistent in the language.

Unable to fully rid ourselves of the need for signifieds and signifiers, we could at least try living with their extremely abstract existence or concrete inexistence.