ARTIST STATEMENT

CODE PERCEPTION is a visualization of the way multiple layers of meaning coexist in a single object. These poems use a pattern of letters of varying weight and spaces to mimic the light and dark patterns in a photograph. The most familiar poetic forms, like the sonnet or the sestina, are based on syllables and rhythms, which are time-based and sound based. (The identity of sound is inseparable from its relationship to time.)  This new poetic form is based on the letter itself and the way the letters are arranged in space; these poems can be read across or down, like a crossword puzzle.  Thus, just as the image of the poem on a page becomes a secondary effect of a sound-composition, in this case the sound of the poem becomes a secondary effect of the visual composition.

Like ancient Greek and Hebrew texts, these poems do not use spaces between words.  This requires  active engagement and participation on the reader's part.  It also leads to at least one new poetic ambiguity besides the 7 types of ambiguity listed by Empson; two words can overlap in different ways, for example, EASED EARTH could just as easily be read as EASE DEARTH.

The portraits are images of members of the Perceiver of Sound League.  The Perceiver of Sound League is a religious organization chartered in Hudson County, New Jersey in 2013.  The PSL is expressly non-dogmatic; they make no positive truth claims, but maintain that art, for them, is a valid form of spiritual expression and should be protected under the Constitution as such. The Perceiver of Sound League organizes concerts and spectacles as part of a devotional practice.

CODE PERCEPTION also includes works from the artist's other projects; one large canvas of letters; an early Code Portrait of serial killer and cult leader Gary Michael Heidnik, created as a caution/exorcism by the artist, whose name, Gary Michael Heidt, is eerily similar; and a series of ink drawings of letters of the alphabet.