Web-journal SCRIPT (est. 2009) aims to publish articles / videos / pictures / (OK, pretty much anything, really) on “abject textual forms including: code arrays, asemic writing, graffiti, tattoos, and any other marginal(ized) scripted utterance“. Unsurprisingly, for its next issue the editors have put out a call for roughly-5000-word up-to-the-minute belletristic commentaries on the Voynich Manuscript and similar cryptotexts:-
While almost certainly undecipherable (various master WWII code-breakers and modern computers have tried), the Voynich manuscript — a.k.a, the Beinecke Library’s “MS 408” — has arguably more value in abstraction than it would in translation. A word-filled but language-less text; a collection of empty signs; a simulacra of simulacra — one can accept that texts like this may forever remain origin-less and undeciphered. But as such, they offer textual culture something unique: words and text abstracted from the weight of functional representation, semantics, and the other duties language routinely performs. As such, these cryptotexts can be seen as a form of literary abstraction that, like other forms of asemic art, puts a great deal of tension on the graphic/text binary and challenges readers to reevaluate their relationship, and conception of, each.
Articles on, and artistic treatments of, the Voynich manuscript itself are welcome as are those concerned with other failures of cryptanalysis and other texts/language systems that remain undeciphered and/or untranslated.
Doubtless you already know whether or not you are interested…
The editors’ apparent position – that the VMs is probably indecipherable, but that we stand to learn a lot about how we look at such linimal objects from our reaction to them – is something I’m broadly sympathetic to. However, to me the greatest value of the VMs comes from the complicated historical journey we face to reconstruct its fragmented conceptual origins. That is, trying to work out why its meaning continues to evade us should help us to understand the limits of modern thinking and knowledge when applied to difficult historical problems.
All the same, I rather suspect that lumping the Voynich Manuscript in with meaningless writings (whether consciously asemic or not) would be a category mistake: what lies beneath its shiny cryptographic surface is most likely hyperrationality, not anti-rationality or irrationality… three very different things.
Certainly one thing we can “learn” (or confirm) about our reactions to mysteries is that human beings love to categorise things dont we? Stick a label on it, shove it in a box, forget about it. “Almost certainly undecipherable” ? it’s a cop-out isn’t it? Almost certainly seems dismissive to me. What is the best accompaniment for eating words? 🙂
Between the simplistic white of possible and black of impossible there is a rising logarithmic scale of difficulty. Some things are very very difficult. People said that a proof of Fermats last theorum was impossible….and that was unsolved (in the face of concerted efforts) for over three hundred years etc.
Luckily the edge of the possible world is continuously pushed forward by people who are unaware that what they are working on is impossible. 🙂
Marke
More relevantly, “almost certainly undecipherable” according to which cipher expert, and based on what evidence?
It is entirely possible that the VMs’ original text will ultimately turn out to be uncrackable: however, we have a very long way to go before we have fully exhausted the battery of forensic and statistical analytical tests available to us (and we’ve only just had the radiocarbon dating results!), so this does seem fairly premature. 🙂
I’m glad our paths crossed, Nick. And I certainly hope I didn’t come across as small minded or myopic in the Voynich call for papers. Really, the guiding ethos of SCRIPT is that the definition of “writing” and literary culture’s view of “literature” need to be expanded.
What you write in your post, seems to me, a perfectly legitimate historical “reading” of a manuscript that might, at first glance, seem undecipherable. In other words, “undecipherable” is all too often used to mean “non-semantic” when, in fact, such texts can be read in any number of ways.
In short, your ideas are in perfect accord with our own. As are yours, Marke.
I just couldn’t bear it if you all felt SCRIPT to be alienating or small minded. Indeed, you’re the sorts of folks — and these are the sorts of ideas — we’re trying to court!
Warm regards.
How can something with so many drawings be ‘undecipherable’? The writing may be, for the moment, but there is already alot we HAVE understood. If the author had intended it to be 100% undecipherable, he would have used just the words…we’ll get there sooner or later.
I apologise if I was overly reactive….it’s a growing failing of mine. Must be turning into a grumpy old man…. 🙂
The thing is you can relate to the fact that many great minds and codebreaking heavyweights have tried and failed to decipher the VMs in more than one way. You can focus on the lack of a published success against their demonstrable expertise and say therefore that it is probably unbreakable or probably meaningless. OR you can focus on the fact that they all took it seriously in the first place and in many cases continued trying to break it for a long time. Even those that stopped often considered that it warranted further attempts. So with their skill and experience in codes and ciphers they thought throughout the process that it was still worth working on. That’s my view also, it is still very worth working on as a document with a real plaintext to be revealed.
Clearly the VMs is many things to many people….but I wouldn’t want to discourage anyone from thinking that they too can make some headway against understanding or explaining the nature of the text itself. There is a whole lot that can be learnt about it with well chosen experimentation and analysis…so I would lament seeing it become a monolith that people just stare at from afar, I would rather it be a rockface with hundreds of climbers all over it actively trying to get to the top.
Greetings to Dr. Melton! Here is some more possibly asemic writing that might interest you:
http://www.geocities.com/ctesibos/hampton/index.html
My correct contact info is here:
http://www.geocities.com/ctesibos/voynich/index.html
Hi, all:
These are just the sorts of ideas and discussions I’d love to include in the special section of SCRIPT 1.2.
Perhaps you’ll all consider typing something up and sending it over?
[email protected]
I’d welcome an article about James Hampton’s asemic writing too, Dennis.