Lettrism and Letterist International

         The term Lettrism became known from the early 1940's, which aim is to innovate the art in general as well as transform the society (La creatique) and other knowledge-powered areas such as science, religion, philosophy, etc. (Kladology). Isidore Isou is the only who led the movement since its beginning. Usually the words in Lettrist works do not carry any symbolic messages, however they purely represent art as a visual material. Lettrists keep the artistic and/or poetic instances separate. Kladology wants a person to approach the discipline (religion, science, ...) with a desire of a change, sort of a revolution, and be consciously aware of it. The movement was fully upsetting the poetry and was known to be exhausted as it was conveyed by words with concepts. Lettrist poetry is sometimes a music without any instruments which rejects the basic concept of music. Lettrist music poetry requires straightness to introduce original sounds.

www.youtube.com/embed/uZayMaC4RLo

Orson Welles Interview - featuring Isidore Isou (sound poetry)

         Just as Dada was born out of the WW1, Lettrism was born out of WW2. It has been remaining even today a reference for young artists. Similarly to Dada, Lettrism combined art and produced visual works using letters as the element of the composition. Lettrism is not a language and it solely presented as the object of art. 

Ivan Chtcheglov, Pedestrian City

         Because letters become only one element of this super-writing, this section would be called Hypergraphics. Therefore, a lot of Lettrist painting is really Hypergraphics, an art of signs that is truly prophetic in our society full of logos and pictograms.

Venom and Eternity, Isodore Isou

         This film directly portrays what Lettrism truly does as the movement wants the revolution. It wants to break the system of the current state of the cinema both physically and symbolically. This is the only film that was made by Isodore Isou which warns the audience that it is not an ordinary film they would watch, it is a film that would leave the audience blind, deaf and a completely changed person.