Self-Negotiated Unit // MSN 2 // Research 013 // Anthology of Concrete Poetry

John Furnival
“The Fall of the Tower of Babel” (1964)

John Furnival was born in London in 1933 and

studied at Wimbledon College of Art and the Royal
College of Art. He founded Openings Press in 1964
with Dom Sylvester Houédard, and together they
staged many performances of concrete poetry.
Furnival has exhibited internationally and his work
is held in many public collections, including that of
the Arts Council of Great Britain.

“The first few drawings that I did around the

Babel theme were architectural: composed
of a single house unit which was repeated
almost ad infinitum until the city itself lost
its form and became megalopolis. These
drawings were in the form of plans. I then
decided that after all it was the confusion
of noises which made Babel significant, not
the, mammoth architecture, although the
two are infinitely related, so I started doing
elevation drawings, made up of layer upon
layer of visual noises. The first one that I did
of this kind (The Fall of the Tower of Babel)
was composed of the slogan ‘Peace for the
World’ and its Russian equivalent ‘Meer za
Meerom,’ both of which start out at the
bottom of the tower pretty clearly, but as
they progress up the tower become more
and more intermingled, forming odd words
in other languages, or just meaningless
noises, until at the top even the different
characters combine and, rather than fall into
a heap on the ground, eventually evaporate
into nothingness.”

Henning M. Lederer | MA Digital Arts FT | +44 (0)7551 960 327 | www.led-r-r.net 1

Self-Negotiated Unit // MSN 2 // Research 013 // Anthology of Concrete Poetry

Ferdinand Kriwet
“ZUVERSPAETCETERANDFIGURINNENNENSWERT OLLOS”
(1962)
The text Rundschejbe VII unfolds in 59
concentric circles, from the center out.
These 59 circles are divided into six states-
circles 1 to 12, 13 to 19, 20 to 28, 29 to
40, 41 to 51, and 52 to 59. On the facing
page, a detail of this Rundscheibe is shown
full-size.

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Henning M. Lederer | MA Digital Arts FT | +44 (0)7551 960 327 | www.led-r-r.net 2

Self-Negotiated Unit // MSN 2 // Research 013 // Anthology of Concrete Poetry

Ilse and Pierre Gamier

“Extension 2” (1964)

“The noun soleil is rich – it is one of the best for concrete poetry:
the impact of its vowels, its consonants, its vibrations and
scintillations, at the same time soft and violent. And from this
noun spring up other nouns – île, elle, aile, oeil, io, sol, etc. –
whence this progression radiates in space.” (P.G.)

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Henning M. Lederer | MA Digital Arts FT | +44 (0)7551 960 327 | www.led-r-r.net 3

Self-Negotiated Unit // MSN 2 // Research 013 // Anthology of Concrete Poetry

Hansjörg Mayer
from fortführungen (1964)

Franz Mon
“Schriftcollage” (1963)

Henning M. Lederer | MA Digital Arts FT | +44 (0)7551 960 327 | www.led-r-r.net 4