English

Noun

hypergraphy ‎(uncountable)

1. A key method of Lettrism that merges poetry with visual arts.
   • 1983, University of Iowa Museum of Art, Lettrisme: into the present, page 32,

     The paradigm had been different for artists such as Picasso and Braque, Paul Klee and Mark Tobey who had used writing, letters, signs, and symbols before hypergraphy; their works were seen as figurative or non-figurative.

   • 1984, Association internationale d'etudes du Sud-Est europeen, Papers for the V. Congress of Southeast European Studies, page 142,

     Isou has also explored the domain of the novel into which he has introduced hypergraphy.¹² His first novel, Les journaux des Dieux, is essentially visual: words are replaced by images.

   • 2001, Steve McCaffery, Prior to Meaning: The Protosemantic and Poetics, page 171,

     Isou and Lemaitre further introduced scriptural systems (metagraphics, or postwriting, and hypergraphy, respectively) that fetishize the graphic as irreducible to vocalization.

Usage notes

Not to be confused with hypergraphia, a medical term.

Synonyms

• (Lettrist method): hypergraphics, metagraphics, metagraphy

See also

• hypergraphia