Seraphinians's topics - tribe.net

serafini quotations about the codex

jordan — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:20:24 GMT

these are tough to find, indeed, but i managed to track some down.

sorry to keep doing this, but i published them over at my blog (which is turning into a Serafini blog) here:
http://www.chancepress.wordpress.com/serafini_quotation

posted in Seraphinians - 5 replies

The Seraphinian Grammar?

Yenisey — Wed, 07 May 2008 19:47:48 GMT

As long as the Codex’s language remains uncracked, little can be said about its lexicology, let alone phonetics.
However, we can speculate a little on its grammar and/or morphology.

It is easy to notice that the most frequent word in the Codex is the one consisting of a single “letter” that looks like a cursive “w” with a dot inside its rightmost curve. This word is amazingly frequent and belongs to a few exceptionally short ones. This means, it is sure to be from a closed word class. It can be an auxiliary, a conjunction (most likely, “and”), an article, or a preposition (most likely, “of”).

My intuition tells me, it has many chances to turn out to be “of”.

P.S. As I was already on my way to submitting this post, I followed the link to Jordan’s blog entry. He has managed to trace some true Seraphiniana pearls! I leave my post unchanged, but my senses are now very, very confused.

posted in Seraphinians - 0 replies

Comprehensive Seraphinian Numerals: An Introduction into the Codex Seraphinianus Numeral System

Yenisey — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:39:44 GMT

Hello, everyone!

This is strange, but it seems to me that for most Codex “readers” its page numbers remain an enigma. This is strange because these numbers are perfectly clear and logical – all it takes to get them is minimal thinking!

I find it sad that only two people (seem to) have ever attempted to do such work. Allan C. Wechsler and
Ivan A. Derzhanski did it with some success in 1987 and 2004 respectively. To see their results, check
groups.google.com/group/rec...7771903c1d
and
www.math.bas.bg/~iad/serafin.html

Unfortunately, their very brief sketches are incomplete and contain some little mistakes plus one gross one (common for both).

My point here is to show that counting in Seraphinian is absolutely no rocket science!

I’ll do my best to make those numbers, which can be found at the bottom of the Codex's pages, perfectly clear. I hope I’ll be able to adequately convey the transparency of the Seraphinian numeral system (SNS).

Now let’s begin!

SNS is a non-positional system – like the well-known Roman one and unlike ours. This means, to understand a number, you don’t “read” it from left to right but rather interpret the combination of its symbols.

SNS has the base 21.

Like we have 10 symbols from 0 to 9 for counting, Seraphinians have 21 such unique symbols from 1 to 21.

For some reason, both Wechsler and Derzhanski fail to see (and this is their huge mistake!) that SNS doesn’t employ the concept of (and hence the notation for) “zero”. This is exactly the way it goes with the Roman number system. For example, though Roman numerals have the same base 10 as our daily numbers, the Roman symbols – say, 10, 50, 100 (X, L, C) – have no sign for 0!

As we don’t have distinct 21 symbols of our own fashion, I propose that we use some ad hoc notation in case we need it:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, (10), (11), (12), (13), (14), (15), (16), (17), (18), (19), (20), (21).

For example, (14) means here number 14 represented by one single Seraphinian symbol.

These 21 symbols will be referred to as digits.

They can be found when you open either part of the Codex in the beginning. The first page number you see is 2. It’s on the left. On the right is 3. Page by page, you get to know these characters from 2 to 21. Then you notice that from 22 on, the symbols are combined with a vertical bar. The first character you see behind this bar is 1. Now you know what 1 looks like.

Be careful handling them! Since they all are not “typed” but “handwritten”, 1 often looks pretty much the same way as (20), while 2 and (16) happen to be perfect twins!

To use SNS one has to know some rules and a few EXCEPTIONS! Exceptions I’ll deal with in the end of this text.

I’ll refer to the mentioned rules as Generative Rules (GRs).

At some point it becomes obvious that there are more GRs than we can guess about from the book. Theoretically, there are infinitely many of them. All we know for sure are the first 8 GRs that enable us to construct numbers up to 189 (which is more than the number of pages in either part!).

The SNS number may consist of
a) Digits (they can be used independently);
b) Conventional signs (they can be used only in combination with digits).

Again, there are 21 digits in SNS. They are enough to count up to 21. To count on, we combine them with conventional signs according to GRs.

Thus, a GR is a rule that tells us how to arrange digits and conventional signs in a linear order!

As far as one can tell using the book, there are 3 conventional signs. (To be honest, there are 4, but one of them appears very seldom, so we’ll ignore it for the most part and deal with it separately later.) Unlike the digits (which are mostly “curves”), the conventional signs are easy to represent through typing. They are: I (a vertical bar), V and /\.

Since the base of SNS is 21, any number can be represented as:

21*N + X

Here N = any non-negative integer (0, 1, 2, 3, …),
and X = any number from 1 to 21.
Thus, if we count from 1 to 21, then N=0.
Counting from 22 to 42 makes N=1; from 43 to 63 makes N=2, etc.

Example:
80 = 21*3 + 17
Here N = 3; X = 17.

NB: 63, for example, is a multiple of 21. In a virtual 21-based number system structured like ours of the present day we would expect it to look like 21*3 + 0 = 63. This is NOT the way SNS works! In SNS, it goes 21*2 + 21 = 63, since Seraphinians have no “zero”! (To use a rough comparison, it’s as though we had to say “twenty ten” instead of “thirty”.)

Now goes the key idea.

FOR EVERY N THERE IS A UNIQUE GR.

Actually, the above statement has to be expanded:

FOR SOME N THERE ARE TWO UNIQUE GRs.

In fact, for most N in the book (from N=2 to N=6) there are 2 GRs.

Now, there’s the curious but important peculiarity of SNS. Please, keep in mind that it’s of purely conventional nature. It has nothing to do with counting as such. It only affects the notation.

Say, we have a number (with its N and its X, as you remember). If its N is less than 2 or larger than 6, then never mind.

But if its N is in the range from 2 to 6, the “16+ Rule” comes into play!!!

The “16+ Rule” says: For every number with N = 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 there are two GRs: one for all X smaller than 16, the other for all X equal to or larger than 16.

(As I already told you, we only know the numbers with N no larger than 8, so maybe the “16+ Rule” is reemployed later on – at some point outside the Codex.)

We’ll denote a GR for N as GR (N).
This means, for example, that GR (8) is a Generative Rule that shows us how to write a number represented as 21*8 + X.

GR (N-) will stand for numbers with X < 16.
GR (N+), as it’s easy to guess, will stand for numbers with X = 16 or X > 16.

For example, GR (5-) shows us the way to write out the numbers:
21*5 + 1
21*5 + 2
…
21*5 + 15.

In their turn, all the numbers
21*5 + 16
21*5 + 17
…
21*5 + 21
are constructed according to GR (5+).

Now, behold

THE TABLE OF GRs!

GR (1) I X

GR (2-) I I X

GR (2+) V I X

GR (3-) V I I X

GR (3+) /\ V I X

GR (4-) /\ V I I X

GR (4+) I /\ V I X

GR (5-) /\ V I I X X

GR (5+) I /\ V I X X

GR (6-) X I I X X

GR (6+) I X I X X

GR (7) I X X X I

GR (8) I I X X X I

Now you are probably wondering what the hell all that is supposed to mean.

So, here are some clues.

Yes, the X in the right column designates the X from 21*N + X. The symbols I, V and /\ are the conventional signs introduced in the beginning. To construct numbers, we put digits instead of X.

Here’s the coding guideline.
For example, convert number 133 into SNS.
Start by finding that 133 = 21*6 + 7.
Obviously, you’ll need to apply for either GR (6+) or GR (6-), since in 21*6 + 7 we have N = 6.
Since X = 7, which is less than 16, you’ll need GR (6-).
So, you find GR (6-) in the Table of GRs and put down:
7 I I 7 7
Voila!
Congratulations!
That’s 133 in Seraphinian!

Now let’s try it backwards.
Here’s the decoding guideline.
Choose a Seraphinian number. For example, let it be the Rosetta Stone page number, which is:
/\ V I r
(its last symbol looks pretty much like the lowercase “r”).
Now, scan the right column of the Table of GRs for this number’s look-alike. You are sure to see that your number is constructed according to GR (3+).
So, it must be of the form:
21*3 + r
You have to examine the digits to find out that “r” is (16).
Congratulations!
Now you know that the Rosetta Stone is printed on page 21*3 + 16 = 79 (of Part 2)!

However, we might have had trouble doing that, since (16) often looks exactly like 2. In our particular example it’s no problem because, minding the “16+ Rule”, we see that /\ V I r is made by a GR (N+), so it can’t have 2. Suppose we had an “r” number not affected by the “16+ Rule”. Then we would have to check out for either of the neighbor numbers. If they have 1 and 3, then “r” is 2. If they have (15) and (17), then “r” is (16).

By the way, I hope it’s absolutely clear why we ignore such thing as GR (0). This would simply mean 1, 2, 3, …, (20), (21) without any conventional signs at all.

Now it’s time for the EXCEPTIONS.
But… Before we proceed, I have to tell you a secret! Even two!

The first is: Although we don’t know how to make numbers with N larger than 8, we DO HAVE the ground to hypothesize about it!!!

How? Well, the conventional signs we deal with are juxtaposed according to certain combinational rules. We can’t say we know all those rules, but we still can guess a lot about some of them. Such rules, assuming they do exist, can be postulated in the form of restrictions.

For example, it’s obvious from the Table of GRs that no V has I next to it on the left. So, this must be a restriction: no V can (ever) have I next to it on the left and no I can (ever) have V next to it on the right. Yet, the word “ever” is not fully justified here. We are not sure if this rule – or restriction – doesn’t eventually break at some N > 8.

Some more observations/restrictions of this type:
X can have only X or I next on its left.
I can only be preceded by I or V.
V can only have V or /\ right in front of itself.

The digits, as compared to the conventional signs, possess more combinatorial freedom. That is, the conventional signs are more affected by restrictions. For example, one digit X can be repeated 3 times a row. No conventional sign can do that. Most conventional signs (except for I) can never even stand next to their copy.

Should you for any reason find the idea of restriction a bit artificial, please remember that this is exactly how the Roman numerals work. For example, any Roman numeral, say, X, is restricted to be used more than 3 times a row, so instead of XXXX we get XL.

Well, time for my other secret.

As you might have observed yourself, the digits 6 (/\) and 8 (/\ .) are the homographs of the conventional sign /\ (homograph means “written in the same way but having a different meaning”). The bottom dot next to 8 doesn’t play a big role.

So, the secret: Though /\ and /\ . are digits, they are treated as if they both were the conventional sign /\

It means that restrictions generally applied to the conventional sign /\ also apply to the digits /\ and /\ .
This leads us to…

EXCEPTION # 1

The graphical representation of (observable) numbers with X = 6 (/\) or 8 (/\ .) does not entirely rely on the Table of GRs, but obeys four restrictions.

I’ll introduce here some notation to show how really simple all this is. If something is forbidden, it will be put in parentheses and marked with an asterisk *(like this). To show what the forbidden form has to be substituted for, I’ll do this way: *(wrong) > (right).

This means, there happens a substitution or rather a transformation triggered by a certain restriction. In a narrow sense, restriction is the same as transformation, since one implies the other. But, generally speaking, that’s not always the case: some restrictions are realized in more than one transformation!

The 1st restriction (R1) states: /\ and /\ . can never be reduplicated: *(/\ /\).

This means, you CAN’T write /\ /\, even if you are required to do so by the Table of GRs. What are you supposed to do then? If the Table of GRs says you have to write /\ /\ or /\ . /\ ., then you must write /\ V and
/\ . V respectively. Or,

R1:

*(/\ /\) > (/\ V)

*(/\ . /\ .) > (/\ . V)

Logically follows…
the 2nd restriction (R2) that states: /\ and /\ . can never be triplicated: *(/\ /\ /\).

If the Table of GRs says you have to write /\ /\ /\ or /\ . /\ . /\ ., then you must write /\ V /\ and V /\ V respectively. Or,

R2:

*(/\ /\ /\) > (/\ V /\)

*(/\ . /\ . /\ .) > (V /\ V)

The 3rd restriction (R3) states: /\ can never have the conventional sign I on its right: *(/\ I).

If /\ is prescribed by the Table of GRs to be followed by the conventional sign I, this conventional sign I is substituted by the conventional sign V.

R3:

*(/\ I) > (/\ V)

Example:
Note the difference between 152 and 153
152 = 21*7 + 5 = I 5 5 5 I
153 = 21*7 + 6 = I 6 9 6 V
(Sorry, here we “cheated” and used 9 to simply put 6 upside down.)
We can reproduce this number in a true Serapninian way:
I /\ V /\ V
By R3, we place V in the end instead of I required by GR (7).

It’s worth mentioning that, semantically, the combination /\ V /\ V from the above example consists of three digits and one conventional sign (which is the final V), but, formally, they are absolutely indistinguishable!

Attention!
R3, as formulated above, holds only for final symbols (that is, when *(/\ I) has to be the last on the right)! Initial symbols (the first on the left) are transformed another way.
This is the case when one restriction is realized in 2 transformations! For the case of initial symbols let’s call it R3i. So,

R3i:

*(/\ I) > (V I)
*(/\ . I) > (V I)

The 4th restriction (R4) forbids V to have I next to it on the left: *(I V)

If I has to go before V, this I is substituted by the BRAND NEW SIGN ' /\, which is coined by means of /\ plus a left upper dot.

R4:

*(I V) > (' /\ V)

This fourth conventional sign ' /\ can, in its turn, be preceded by I.

Example (with the pseudo-Seraphinian & for 7):
175 = 21*8 + 7 = I I & & & I
176 = 21*8 + 8 = I ' /\ V /\ V I
How did we get this last number?
By R2, we can’t write /\. /\ . /\. required by GR (8), so we go V /\ V
Now, by R4, we can’t write I I V /\ V I
We have to change the second I for ' /\ which makes I ' /\ V /\ V I

Starts to look pretty much like rocket science?

Look what I suggest. All the numbers with digits 6 and 8 that can be found in the book are few enough to simply copy them! Let’s do this and see that their symbols are arranged according to GRs combined with the four restrictions:

First, let’s do it for 6 (/\):

21*1 + 6 = 27 = I /\

21*2 + 6 = 48 = I I /\

21*3 + 6 = 69 = V I I /\

21*4 + 6 = 90 = /\ V I I /\

So far it’s been as easy as a pie, uh?
Right, the algorithm is the same as for the rest of numbers!
At this point, however, the differences show up.
Next to each number below is provided its construction procedure showing the GRs plus restrictions that trigger transformation

21*5 + 6 = 111 = /\ V I I /\ V = (/\ V I I X X + R1)

21*6 + 6 = 132 = . V I I /\ V = (X I I X X + R1 + R3i + ?)

21*7 + 6 =153 = I /\ V /\ V = (I X X X I + R2 + R3)

21*8 + 6 = 174 = I I /\ V /\ V = (I I X X X I + R2 + R3)

As we can see, some extra restriction or rule we don’t know is involved in producing the N = 6 number (132). Where in the world does its front dot come from??? The reason why we can’t formulate this rule is, maybe, that we have only one number in the whole book that obeys it. One is too few for conclusions! However, please note that this leftmost bottom dot can be easily dispensed with. We can regard it as pure decoration! Check it out: without the dot, number 132 = V I I /\ V is clear to be constructed according to GR (6-), R1 and R3i.

Now let’s take 8 (/\ .):

21*1 + 8 = 29 = I /\ .

21*2 + 8 = 50 = I I /\ .

21*3 + 8 = 71 = V I I /\ .

21*4 + 8 = 92 = /\ V I I /\ .

Again! Easy so far – harder ever on!

21*5 + 8 = 113 = /\ V I I /\ . V = (/\ V I I X X + R1)

21*6 + 8 = 134 = V I I /\ . V = (X I I X X + R1 + R3i)

21*7 + 8 = 155 = ' /\ V /\ V I = (I X X X I + R2 + R4)

21*8 + 8 = 176 = I ' /\ V /\ V I = (I I X X X I + R2 + R4)

Well, listed above are all such numbers encountered in the Codex’s page numbering!

EXCEPTION # 2

Good news, everyone!
No more exceptions of THAT kind!!!

This one just says there appears for a moment a number succession irregularity.
It happens in both parts, with one little difference though.
The segment “…169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174…” is for some reason transformed into “…169, 169a, 170, 171, 172, 174…”
The idea is that we add a new extra number 169a and drop out 173.
169a goes as I I 3 1 4 I.
As you see, this number is constructed according to GR (8) like its neighbors, but the collection of digits is weird.

The mentioned difference is that only in Part 1, number 170 that follows 169a is written upside down.

EXCEPTION # 3

In both parts, 178 is also dropped out.

EXCEPTION # 4

…that looks more like a printing failure!
In my Rizzoli 2006 edition, in part 2, the pages run “…, 175, 176, 177, 176, 177, 179,…”.
In other words, it’s as though the spread with 176 on the left and 177 on the right was (mis)printed twice. This concerns only the page numbers – the text and pictures go all right.

SOME CONJECTURES

Now let me hypothesize a little. This is just a fantasy, so it’s up to you how seriously you take it. Anyway, what could some further numbers possibly look like? I propose

GR (9) V I X X X I (this one is quite logical!)
GR (10) /\ V I X X
GR (11) /\ V I X X X

Well, that’s all I had to say.
At least some little fraction of the Codex’s content is no longer a mystery!
The rest is yet to be discovered!

Best regards,
Yenisey Avdeyev

posted in Seraphinians - 1 reply

HOW DID YO FIND THE CODEX?

Holden S. — Tue, 21 Dec 2004 20:44:35 GMT

on the welcome thread i recalled the cicumstances of my first encounter with a hardcopy of the book.
for those of you who have ever seen a copy (definitely Jiri, maybe some others here)...please share your stories.

posted in Seraphinians - 15 replies

new article on Serafini and the Codex

jordan — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 06:08:27 GMT

Hi all-
I've been working on an article about Serafini's work for a while, and I thought you all might be interested in reading it. It's posted to my blog at: chancepress.wordpress.com/serafini/

-Jordan

posted in Seraphinians - 2 replies

Piccola Pucinellopedia

Mon, 20 Dec 2004 02:04:30 GMT

Luigi Serafini's earlier book is even more impossible to find but I just saw one on ebay!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=29223&item=6940247913&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

posted in Seraphinians - 3 replies

english translation of calvino's introduction to the codex

justine — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 19:05:25 GMT

hi everyone,
i wrote to justin taylor, the author of the article in 'the believer' about the codex, asking him for the full translation of calvino's intro, since i'm doing a short paper on the codex, and he replied within hours with the following:

Codex Seraphinus
Introduction

In the beginning, there was language. In the universe Luigi Serafini inhabits and depicts, I believe that written language preceded the images: beneath the form of a meticulous, agile, and limpid cursive (and strength lies in admitting it is limpid), that we always feel on the point of deciphering them just when each word and each letter escapes us. If the Other Universe communicates anguish to us, it’s less because it differs from ours than because it resembles it: the writing, in the same way, could have developed very similarly to ours in a linguistic forum that is unknown to us, without being altogether unknowable. Reflecting on it, it occurs to me that Serafini’s language does not distinguish itself only by its alphabet, but also by its syntax: the objects of this universe evoke the language of the artist, such as we see them illustrated in the pages of his encyclopedia, and are almost always identifiable, but their mutual relations appear psychologically disturbed to us by their unexpected relationships and connections. (I say “almost always”: there are some unknowable forms that serve an important function that I will try to explain later on.) Here is the conclusive point: endowed with the power to evoke a world in which the syntax of things is subverted, the Serafinian writing must hide, beneath the mystery of its indecipherable surface, a more profound mystery touching on the internal logic of language and thought. The lines that connect the images of this world tangle and cross; the confusion of the visual attributes gives birth to monsters, Serafini’s teratological universe. But the teratology itself implicates a logic which appears to us to, turn by turn, flower and disappear, at the same time giving us the sense that the words are carefully traced back to the point of the quill. Like Ovid, and his Metamorphoses, Serafini believes in the contiguity and permeability of all the domains of being. Anatomy and mechanics exchange their morphologies: instead of a hand, one finds a hammer and pliers at the end of an arm; a pair of legs rest, not on feet, but on wheels. The human and the vegetative complete one another: in the page consecrated to the growth of the human body, a forest sprouts atop a head, climbing vines curl around legs, prairies cover the palms of hands, carnations flower from ears. The vegetative espouses merchandise (one finds plants whose stems are unwrapped bonbons, whose ears of corn are replaced by pencils, leaves by scissors, fruits by matches), the zoological marries with the mineralogical (dogs and horses are petrified at mid-body), all aspects of architecture are allied with the geological, the heraldic with the technological, the wild with the urbane, the written with the living. Similarly, certain animals take the form of other species who share their habitat, just as living beings find themselves contaminated by the form of objects in their environment.
In this passage from one form to another, one may observe the successive phases of the coupling of a man and a woman, metamorphing little by little into a reptile. It’s one of Serafini’s most felicitous visual inventions. In my list of favorites, I would site next the fish that, rising to the surface of the water, call to mind the big eyes of a movie theater; and the plants in the form of a seat, which must be cut and pared down in order to get a chair of the best feel; to which I would add all of the figures where the motif of the rainbow appears.
The skeleton, the egg, and the rainbow are, in my eyes, the images that spark Serafini’s greatest visual ecstasy. One could say that the skeleton is the only core of reality that, in this world of interchangeable forms, remains just as it is: thus, see the skeletons awaiting the moment to put back on their envelopes of skin and flesh (suspended from hooks, they float like vacant clothing), then, once clothed, perplexed, they contemplate themselves in the mirror. Another page conjures a city of skeletons, where television antennae replace the bones, and where a skeleton-waiter serves a bone on a plate. With or without its shell, the egg is the original element that appears beneath all of these forms. A hose falls on a meadow of shucked eggs, that immediately pussyfoot out of the grass like organisms endowed with a perfect autonomy of movement, next climb a tree and let themselves fall to the ground anew, taking this time the characteristic form of eggs on a plate.
As to the rainbow, its importance is vital in Serafini’s cosmology. Solid like a bridge, it can sustain an entire city; once again, this city changes its color and consistency at the same time its support does. Emitted from the rainbow, at the several circular piercings in its iridescent tube, are certain bidimensional, multicolored corpuscles in irregular and never-seen forms, that could very well be the vital principle of this universe, as representative of the generative corpuscles of the unstoppable general metamorphosis.
On other pages, one sees rainbows hung like clouds from a sort of helicopter: they are given a classic form, semicircular, but also drawn like knots, zigzags, spirals, droplets. A number of the polychromatic corpuscles are suspended, by threads, from the cloudy fuselage of the machine. Is this derived from its mechanical counterparts of iridescent dust? Or really from hooks fishing for colors?
As I suggested above, these are the sole indefinable forms of the Serafinian cosmorama. These beings’ morphological neighbors appear, in the form of luminous corpuscles (photons?), in a swarm escaping from a lantern; one also finds them carefully identified, as characteristic of microorganisms at the beginning of the botanical and zoological sections of a contemporary encyclopedia. Maybe they have the same composition as graphic signs: they constitute again another alphabet, more mysterious and more archaic. (In fact, one sees similarly represented forms sculpted on a sort of Rosetta stone, with the “translation” available). It may well be that all Serafini shows us is of writing: only the code varies. In this writing-universe, the almost identical roots are catalogued under different names, because each linguistic element is a differential sign. The plants entangle their supple stems, all this like the entanglements of the lights that the quill traces; returning understood from where they sprout, the plants surface again, a little farther, and they don’t even give birth to subterranean flowers. The vegetative forms prolong the taxonomy of imaginary plants, such as was inaugurated by Nonsense Botany by Edward Lear and followed by the sidereal Botanica Parallela of Leo Lionni. In Serafini’s tree nursery, one finds cloud leaves that water the flowers, spider web leaves that catch insects. There are shrubberies that uproot themselves on their own and head off, in the direction of the ocean, where they raise their anchors, making their roots turn like the propellers of a motor boat.
Serafini’s zoology is always worrisome, monstrous, nightmarish. Its evolution is ruled by the laws of metaphor (the sausage-serpent, the snake-lace in a tennis shoe), of metonymy (the bird made from a single feather that terminates in a bird’s head), of the condensation of images (the pigeon that is also an egg). As far as the zoological monsters, they are anthropomorphized: maybe they represent aborted attempts on the road of human evolution. The great anthropologist Leroi-Gourhan explains that man became man starting with his development of feet. On Serafini’s pages, one can see a series of human legs that force themselves to attach, not to a torso, but to an object as incongruous as a pelican or an umbrella, or even to the simple luminosity of a lit, sparkling star. We see a crowd of beings of this last species in one of the most mysterious folios of the work: upright on a small, drifting boat, they come down a river and pass beneath the arches of a bridge.
Physics, chemistry, mineralogy inspire the most relaxing pages of Serafini’s, because they are the most abstract. But the nightmare returns with met\chanics and technology, where the teratomophism of machines doesn’t appear any less disturbing than that of the humans. (The comparison arises, this time, with Bruno Munari and the entire line of inventors of crazy machines.) When one moves into the humanities (including ethnography, history, gastronomy, games, sports, clothing, linguistics, and urbanism), one cannot fail to see the difficulties of separating the human from objects, the latter of which we see henceforth soldered with the former, ushering in an anatomic continuity. One sees likewise a perfect machine, capable of satisfying all of man’s needs, to the extent of transforming man into a coffin after his death. The ethnography is no less frightful than the other disciplines: between the diverse types of savages, taken account of with their costumes, their tools, and the characteristic habitats, we see represented a Man of filth, and a Man of extermination; but most dramatic is the man of the street, the street-man, with asphalt clothing adorned with the white regulatory dividing line.
There is, in Serafini’s world, an anguish of the imagination that reaches its pentacle, perhaps, in gastronomy. A particular joy isn’t altogether banished from this world, which is evident in the technological inventions: supplied for the teeth, a plate of chewed food, which allows the eater to absorb it with a straw; a central distribution of fish with flowing water, through the conduits and faucets, to deliver fresh fish to the house. The veritable “gai savoir” [happy knowledge], for Serafini, appears to me to be linguistic. (Above all the linguistics of the written; for the anguish yet refines in spoken language, which we see leak from the lips like a blackish pulp, or instead, extracted with fishing rods from a wide open mouth.) Written language is living, it is (it suffices to prick it with a pin to draw blood), but it toys with a real autonomy and body; it could have three dimensions, become polychromatic, grab hold of small balloons that could lift it off the page, or yet jump off with a parachute. To detain certain words on the page, one must sew them on, passing the thread through the loops of the ringed letters. And if you examine the writing with a magnifying glass, the thin scrawling of ink allows one to see the strong currant of the meaning that courses through it: such as a highway, such as a crowd parading in tight rows, such as a river filled with wriggling fish.
At the end of the tally (see the last page of the Codex) the destiny of all writing is to decay into dust; only the skeleton of the hand that writes survives. Lines and words detach from the page, breaking away, and here the tiny motes of dust spew forth the colored corpuscles from the rainbow, which then begin to frolic. For the vital principle of all the metamorphoses and all of the alphabets, a new cycle begins.

- Italo Calvino
Translated, S. E. Grant

posted in Seraphinians - 1 reply

The Famous Tree Circus

lutesaroundtown — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 05:51:25 GMT

I wonder if Serafini ever viewed “The Famous Tree Circus” of Axel Erlandson?

http://www.arborsmith.com/treecircus.html

posted in Seraphinians - 2 replies

Inconsistent writing styles

Paul — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 07:36:53 GMT

I've been looking at the writing style in the codex, just scanned the pages quickly not concentrating hard on it and have noticed jumping out at least three quite different styles appear in the flow and look of the writing, it is almost as if it was written by a different hand.
An example is the two pages that have the French text included in the art, the writing is very different from say the pages including the road warrior and other tribe people. Have a look see what you think.

posted in Seraphinians - 6 replies

Just to go completely off the plot for a moment

Paul — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 08:00:46 GMT

Listening to Stargazer by Rainbow I found the Song could easily be fitted into the codex, see the Lyrics below and see if you agree.

High noon
Oh I'd sell my soul for water
Nine years' worth
Of breakin' my back
There's no sun in the shadow of the wizard
See how he glides
Why he's lighter than air
Oh I see his face

Where is your star
Is it far, Is it far, is it far
When do we leave
I believe, yes, I believe

* In the heat and the rain
With whips and chains
Just to see him fly
So many die

We built a tower of stone
With our flesh and bone
Just to see him fly
Don't know why
Now where do we go

Hot wind moving fast across the desert
We feel that our time has arrived
The world spins while we put his wing together
A tower of stone to take him straight to the sky
Oh I see his face

Where is your star
It is far, is it far, is it far
When do we leave, yeah
I believe, I believe

*

All eyes see the figure of the wizard
As he climbs to the top of the world
No sound as he falls instead of rising
Time standing still
Then there's blood on the sand
Oh I see his face

Where was your star
Was it far, was it far
When did we leave
We believe, we believe, we believe

In the heat and rain
With whips and chains
To see him fly
So many die
We built a tower of stone
With out flesh and bone
To see him fly
But why, it don't rain
With all our chains,
Did so many die
Just to see him fly
Look at my flesh and bone
Now look, look, look, look
Look at this tower of stone
I see a rainbow rising
Look there on the horizon
And I'm coming home
Coming home, I'm coming home

Time is standing still
He gave me back my will
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Going home
I'm going home
My eyes are bleeding
And my heart is weeping
We still hope, we still hope, oh
Take me back
He gave me back my will
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Going home
I'm going home
My eyes are bleeding
And my heart is weeping
We still hope, we still hope, oh

Take me back, take me back
Back to my home, oh, oh...

posted in Seraphinians - 0 replies

relatively complete online images of the codex

inoah — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 20:45:51 GMT

I've been meaning to post a link here for a while now, and Tad referenced a few specific images in a recent post so I thought I'd create a top-level reference.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cottoncandyhammer/sets/72157594263968563/

I don't know how long they'll stay up since the book is still subject to terran copyright. Since the book is relatively hard to find I don't feel terribly guilty about encouraging people to download the images. In any case, I still recommend getting a bound copy if you can afford it and if you can even find one. It's a wonderful work of art and not just for the individual drawings themselves.

posted in Seraphinians - 0 replies

do we do introductions here?

jordan — Tue, 15 May 2007 03:37:39 GMT

hi, i haven't seen anyone formally introducing themselves, but i thought i would (hey, it's good etiquette right?)... i'm jordan, and i first found the codex a couple months ago at a hostel in a fishing village in southern ecuador. no one who worked there knew how it had ended up there. i bought my own copy a couple days ago, so i should have it soon. if anyone in the southern california area (santa barbara, more specifically) wants to meet at any point for a look-see, i'm down.

in case the whole "general intro" thing is frowned upon here, i'll add some content to this post. here is a link to an article in "The Believer" magazine on the Codex. it's a pretty interesting article, with some good codex images in it: http://www.believermag.com/issues/200705/?read=article_taylor

-jordan

posted in Seraphinians - 9 replies

Codex Seraphinianus - Article in "The Believer"

luminous_ferret — Thu, 24 May 2007 00:45:53 GMT

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200705/?read=article_taylor

posted in Seraphinians - 2 replies

"Undeciphered Scripts"

Tadbot — Wed, 23 May 2007 08:32:44 GMT

I recently purchased a copy of a nonfiction book that I'd recommend for any aspiring Seraphinian linguists or would-be decipherers - Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World's Undeciphered Scripts, by Andrew Robinson.

The first part of the book describes how 3 different writing systems were deciphered - Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Linear B, and Mayan glyphs. It succinctly describes the methods that were used to successfully figure out these writing systems, and although I had already read separate books on all three of these writing systems being deciphered, it has still been informative and given me more insight into how Seraphinian eventually might (or might not) be deciphered. These 3 chapters mention how allographs (letters/symbols with different appearances but similar phonetic values, such as "a" and "A") have posed problems - like Seraphinian, it was sometimes difficult to tell when 2 letters in these writing systems were entirely different letters, or the same letter written with trivial differences that don't change the meaning.

A method used for classifying undeciphered languages that the book mentions is character count: At least in natural languages, alphabets & consonantal scripts have the fewest number of characters/symbols (20-40). If there are 40 to 90 different characters in a writing system, it's probably a syllabic script, like Japanese kana. And if the script has characters numbering in the hundreds or thousands, it's a logosyllabic script such as Chinese. Of course, this doesn't take into account any intentional obfuscation by Serafini, such as redundant allographs, perhaps such as 40 different characters to represent the alphabetic letter "r".

Another frequently useful item that the book mentions for deciphering writing systems has been to look at numbers, dates, and names. The Seraphinian page numbering system has already been cracked, but looking at numbers, dates, and what appear to be proper names (and words around them) in the main text of the Codex may help to find words/affixes that indicate plurals, a person's gender, or words that mean "date of birth" and "date of death".

I haven't even reached the last 8 chapters of the book, which describe as-yet-undeciphered writing systems, but I can tell that it will be an interesting read and may give me more ideas at how to try to approach deciphering Seraphinian. Hopefully I will be fully inspired at the end of the book to get back to my procrastinated examination of the Codex's writing.

posted in Seraphinians - 2 replies

Some Serafini art links

Paul — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 01:01:29 GMT

A lot of fried eggs again and some other good stuff

http://www.italianfactory.biz/showPage.php?template=pubblicazioni&id=132

http://www.plastikart.net/artevisiva/ellissi/ellissi.php

http://www.plastikart.net/artevisiva/eggcentric/uovo.php

http://www.plastikart.net/clienti/serafini.php

posted in Seraphinians - 6 replies

Italian article about Serafini exhibition... and surprise !

Pat — Mon, 14 May 2007 07:53:54 GMT

Here is an article about Serafini, the Codex and his current exhibition :
http://libri.rcslibri.it/docs/6960.pdf

The surprise is at the end : our favourite tribe (this one !) is quoted ! Fame will come, definitely ;o)

posted in Seraphinians - 3 replies

Seraphinian Dreams

Holden S. — Sat, 12 May 2007 20:21:04 GMT

has anyone here ever had any dreams about or clearly influenced by the Codex, Luigi, or his other work? i had one last night.
in the dream i look through a new book intended as a follow-up to Codex Seraphinianus, with all new art work. it doesn't have any pages just of text; rather, the familiar Seraphinian script occurs within the drawings as signage & suchlike. further along, i see some drawings of landscapes with signage in EARTH scripts & languages along with Seraphinian. this give me the idea that the book depicts a later time when the 2 worlds & their respective peoples encountered eachother & merged.

posted in Seraphinians - 1 reply

Translate or decrypt you decide

Paul — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 19:57:22 GMT

I have the 2006 edition of the great book
Here are some of my observations and miserable attempts at translation, its quite long so apologies to the reader.
I strongly believe if a translation or decryption is possible it will very probably have French as the base language due to what I believe or pointers in the book.

With this in mind we have what appears to be an index section at the back of the book, the title of the page is a 5 character word which if we take it to represent the word INDEX then it could be in English or in French as other main European languages have the incorrect amount of letters see below some examples.

Dutch: register (het)
French: index (m)
German: Register (nt)
Italian: indice
Spanish: índice (de materias)

I do believe the artist used a language he was comfortable with as he only took 2 years to produce the work, there does not appear to be any precursors to this that I could find, but I could be wrong.
Now the word itself is confusing due to the fact characters 1,2 and 5 are the same, set out like this $$£%$ which would make a straight forward translation very difficult, so i believe it must be a form of encryption that’s used. Now it seems quite plain we are dealing with the word "index" so with that in mind the Seraphinian representation has many unusual coincidences, such as if you write down the alphabet then put the symbols at the point where each letter of the word index appears ($=I, $=N, £=D, %=E, $=X) the characters that are the same appear to be divisible by the number 5 which could be a key to the code this is also the same number of letters in the word INDEX, so from I to N we have 5 letters and from N to X we have 10 letters so the characters used may not actually represent letters but are just pointers to the code used.
This next bit is probably stretching it but i will add it any way from the letter N counting backwards to the letter D you have 10 letters and from D counting backwards to E you have 25 letters also divisible by 5, very strange or a load of tripe, not sure at this stage.
I may have decoded another word using the same process, but once again I could be way out, but here goes
On the Rosetta stone page (the original Rosetta stone translated by a Frenchman i believe) that’s the one with the guy with the big needle pointer.
The paragraphs are split by an 8 character word set out like this $$%&&£$* once again we have 3 characters the same, but we also have 2 other characters the same which is worrying, but they have dots included on them which may have a meaning also. Now once again this may be a long shot, but here goes.
Once again I use French as a base.
I started from A through Z taking all the divisible by 8 letters (the number of letters in the word) e.g.: A to I to Q etc then trawled through the French dictionary for 8 letter words containing the letter sets I had written. Now I managed to break this down to 3 possibilities but there is a lot of room for error as I had to go through the whole dictionary and that still does not cover the language fully, anyhow I ended up with the following EMPEREUR, EMETTEUR and SARRASIN which translate to EMPEROR, TRANSMITTING and BUCKWHEAT, as this was a Rosetta stone and it was telling us something I opted for the word EMETTEUR (TRANSMITTING) which actually looks sort of correct in the form of the word, having the 2 letters the same in the middle like the Seraphinian, ££%$$^£*.
I believe to go any further this needs someone fluent in French to have a try at this, as some of the Title words are quite long and it may be easier to decrypt the long words first to test the theory, as it stands though i am not much good as i am stuck with a French dictionary and tired eyes so sorry its not as well put together as I would like.
Here is a good link for Codex pictures nearly the whole book is there http://www.flickr.com/photos/cottoncandyhammer/sets/72157594263968563
Also here is another possible French link.
Pages showing what appear to be tarot card sets, have a person looking through one of the cards that has a hole in the centre, this led me to this link after a bit of searching, which is a forum on Tarot and they are discussing how Tarot could have come from the French” hole maker". This may turn out to be incorrect, but it’s a strange coincidence all the same.
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=68779
And what is it with this guy and fried eggs.
Thank you for your patience
Paul T

posted in Seraphinians - 9 replies

Codex : In Search of Lost Time

Pat — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 18:53:10 GMT

Hi fellow Seraphinians ; greetings from France !

I discovered THE Codex a few weeks ago, and you can imagine that I can't stop thinking of it since :) It's a really mind blowing work of art and a wonderful "dreaming machine".
I visited many websites, read many enthusiastic reviews and great analysis and I'm really happy to have found this community. I want to thank Tad for his great wiki website where I discovered the most in-depth analysis so far.

The "Lost Time" mentioned in the subject line is not only the last 25 years I spent ignoring this jewel, but also the title of a french book by Marcel Proust, closely linked to the Codex :
The famous "fille orgiaque" from the chapter 6 "french writer" plate" is named "Albertine" and comes from the Proust book : "A la Recherche du Temps perdu (XIII) - Albertine disparue"

Here is an image with the part of the book the citation comes from :
http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/5118/proustqh2.jpg

So, it's not "Balbeo" but "BalbeC" and you can see that the fallen words on the plate ( "franchir" "croyance" "désir" ... ) are also in the following sentences.

The whole book can be found here :
http://pge.rastko.net/dirs/pge/pge06/100194/e100194.txt

I made extensive searches for the french words on the following plate ("dead writer") :
- "statuaire", "souvenir", "voici encore:"
- "***el yeux baissés" ; the missing word could be : "naturel" or "surnaturel" or "autel", but I'm pretty sure it's an "R".
but I found nothing. Of course some of these words appear on other Proust books, but I think the source is elsewhere. to be continued...

I'm sure this fact is not unknown, but I never saw this on the tens of websites I visited so, "Lambertine" is perhaps a cue ! ;o)

I don't have the "real" codex. I checked many french public libraries catalogs, and very few of them have it ; when they have it, it usually can't be borrowed ... :-( I think this french edition is the same as the 93 spanish edition, but it will be very difficult to check.
The new italian Rizzoli edition is very interesting ; does it have new plates or missing plates ?

Sorry for my faltering english ! ;o)

posted in Seraphinians - 6 replies

Codex Seraphinianus Movie

Cybornian3rdIgAtO — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 16:51:00 GMT

I recently watched Fantastic Planet and some peoples suggested I should watch Codex Seraphinianus... surely they meant the book, there is no movie is there?

posted in Seraphinians - 9 replies

The New Codex Seraphinianus

Tadbot — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 15:52:08 GMT

My copy of the new 2006 edition of the Codex just arrived by FedEx today. My initial reaction upon seeing it was "Holy Shit!" The main new content is 9 pages of "normal" Seraphinian mumbo jumbo added to the front, and a separate booklet entitled "Decodex" added to the back of the book. This booklet looks like a book of essays & reviews of the Codex, mostly in Italian.

My non-initial reaction is disappointment at some of the printing in the new 9-page introduction stuff; it looks like some of the images were sort of cropped when they printed.

I'll try to add some more detailed description of the book at the Codex wiki ( http://www.blinkenlichten.info/codex/ ) over the next few days. Meanwhile, feel free to browse the wiki for other non-new info about the Codex. The username & password for the wiki are both "test".

posted in Seraphinians - 8 replies

Seraphinite

Pat — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 10:48:25 GMT

I don't know anything about mystical matters, healing stones ... but for those who love symbols and who are not against a few drops of esotericism, this webpage have some nice and intriguing thoughts about the SERAPHINITE stone :
http://www.controverscial.com/Sepaphinite.htm

a few excerpts:
- "Seraphinite, is derived from the Latin word "seraphin" referring to the first order of angels"
- "It is also said that this stone is the leading health-enhancing stone of this age" ; no doubt that the Codex is good for our health :)
- "Seraphinite's beauty is almost beyond compare"
- " It is then that the stone can take you away on a very celestial journey!"
- "Both grounding and ethereal at the same time, working with Seraphinite allows you to obtain and retain its divinely inspired messages more easily [...]"

and I love this last one :
- "Seraphinite's dark inner matrix suggests its knowledge and understanding of the hidden Mysteries, as the crystal's shimmering bursts of silvery light suggest that what is hidden can be known."
Perhaps this stone could help us to find the key of the codex ? ;o)

posted in Seraphinians - 1 reply

Recent Serafini art exhibits

Tadbot — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 18:57:19 GMT

I just found an Italian website on art exhibits at http://www.exibart.com/
Specifically, it lists exhibitions that include some work by Serafini:
http://www.exibart.com/profilo/curatore_view.asp/idtipo/2/id/1244

posted in Seraphinians - 2 replies

Get The Book Cheap(er)

andy — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 14:20:01 GMT

Hi,

New copies of the book are available at www.ibs.it, an Italian online bookseller. You have to do a search under "libri" rather than books, and go through the process in Italian, but it's pretty easy to figure out if you've shopped online before (or if you read Italian ...)

The book is 75 Euro, which I think is about $90 US. Shipping will vary depending on where you live.

posted in Seraphinians - 0 replies

henry darger

ladysalt — Mon, 28 Mar 2005 20:23:28 GMT

i have never seen the codex, but know after about 5 minutes of reading on this tribe and online, that i will be completely fascinated and inspired, and i plan to seek it out tout de suite.

as i read some folks being fascinated by the idea of the "outsider" artist who has created an entirely new world unto themselves alone, i recommend checking out the art and life of henry darger, reclusive dishwasher whose death in '72 (i think) revealed a 13,000 page manuscript, journals, and numerous paintings and collages of the incredibly rich otherworldly adventure and cratures stemming from the mind of a man who never attended school, never talked with anyone, and therefore left nothing but the workings of his imagination on the world...

visually stimulating, although more commercial, i offer the children's books of andrej dugin, especially the little tailor.

if anyone has similar suggestions of arists or works that acheive the same type of transcendant, irresistable mystery and yet familiarity, i always am in need of inspiration and would appreciate recommendations.

posted in Seraphinians - 3 replies

wondering about the implied background story within the Codex

Holden S. — Sat, 15 Jan 2005 01:06:15 GMT

it would seem that 1 of the things hinted (but of course never stated outright) about the people of this book's imaginary world & their history is that they have visited Earth & have passed among us undetected...not hard for Seraphinians since they look a lot like Earthers.
i say this because 1 of the illustrations shows a guy writing something in FRENCH! here's a link to a page about all that, & if you scroll down, you can spot the picture in question:

www.almaleh.com/serafini-e.htm

i have more to say about the Codex's meta-story, but for now i'd like to hear from anyone (Allan? Jiri? you there?) familiar with the book as to any conclusions reached about the hidden story implied.

posted in Seraphinians - 3 replies

WELCOME & introductory thoughts

Holden S. — Sat, 18 Dec 2004 20:46:25 GMT

to find out what we're about here, check this out:

www.io.com/~iareth/codindx.html

anyone who CAN add images to the gallery, please do so.

the copy of the Codex currently available to me is housed at the Arts Library of the University of California at Santa Barbara. my FIRST exposure to it, however, was in a bookstore when it was new & still in print in the U.S. i think i was in high school at the time.
i remembered it fondly on reading more about it in Douglas Hoffstadter's excellent book Metamagical Themas ( mostly a collection of pieces originally written for Scientific American magazine) did some hunting & located said copy.
it doesn't surprise me that it's currently out-of-print in the United States; full-color hardcover artbooks often don't sell well & are NOT inexpensive...but what DOES surprise me a bit is that the book doesn't seem to have gained enough of a reputation to have become a recognized science fiction/fantasy fandom Cult Classic with a subculture "scene" around it on par with those around Star Trek and Tolkein...it IS, after all, rather Borgesian (!) rich in sly humor & social satire, & generally has much to recommend itself to Big Kids. i'm sure we all have more to say but for now i'll just conclude with: Hi! :)

posted in Seraphinians - 4 replies

Who has it?

Carnildo — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 12:13:42 GMT

I'm curious about how common the book is on this tribe -I mean as far as owning one is concerned. I know if can be quite expensive if you can find a copy.

My own story is kind of funny. Ii initially saw the book at my college bookstore in the mid 80s, but being cash poor at the time, didn't buy it although it seared itself into my memory. Years went by and I still remembered it but never saw it anywhere new or used and more or less gave it up. this was pre-internet for me (and most of the rest of the non academic world)so actually researching and finding a copy was inconceivable. In 1996 or so, my wife and I made a trip to Davis CA and I found it in a used bookstoere there for about $60.00 as I recall and have had it ever since.

posted in Seraphinians - 4 replies

Luigi Seraphini Books available

Steve — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 13:19:15 GMT

Hello Seraphinians:

I have several 1st editions (actually only one edition printed) of Piccola Pulcinellopedia available for purchase, all in VG condition at $375 each. Also, one signed 2-volume true first edition of the Codex, Fine in slipcases. Price negotiable. If interested in purchasing, please let me know.

Thanks,
Steve, Burberry Books

posted in Seraphinians - 4 replies

Where is Luigi Serafini?

missingmolly — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 05:07:11 GMT

My name is Francesco Cassford-Curcio. I recently acquired a copy of the Abbeville Press Edition of the Codex after a long time of looking and not looking at the same time. I hovered around the Codex upstairs at Moe’s in Berkeley for years without picking it up and really looking at it. Now I realize that the Codex Seraphinianus, whatever else it may turn out to be when and if the text is translated into anything meaningful, is one of the greatest works of graphic art of the last 100 years and without peer in terms of an artistic representation of a created or alternate world. It would also seem apparent that Serafini is not at all anxious to put himself forward at all, certainly not in any respect having to do with elucidating the many questions that we all have regarding the Codex. After scouring the internet I have come up with only one short interview with him, in Italian, which addresses none of the pertinent questions. Unlike the Voynich Manuscript. the creator of Codex Seraphinainus is still alive and kicking and running around Italy and elsewhere but seems to be at some pains to be anonymous as the “auteur”. That’s fine, as our love of the work gives us no right to anything from Mr.Serafini ,but under the circumstances it is rather frustrating. On the other hand I have had any number of experiences of having my regard and enjoyment of the work of a particular artist diminished or destroyed by the commentary of the artist. Somehow I don’t think that would be the case here. I look forward to kicking it around with all of you, my best……..
Francesco

posted in Seraphinians - 4 replies

anguage creation & the language of the Codex

Holden S. — Mon, 27 Dec 2004 23:27:22 GMT

in the gallery of this tribe, you'll find samples of the alien writing used throughout the Codex, & if you follow the leads provided in the page linked in the Welcome thread, you can find many more. here's an article about 1 person's study of the writing & numbering system, & conclusions he's reached:

www.math.bas.bg/~iad/serafin.html

some questions for discussion: for those who have access to the book...have you created a language or meanings to go with this alphabet based on the many visual hints?
who among us are members of subcultures that at least occasionally use invented languages, for instance, J.R.R. Tolkein fans using languages he created for his novels?
finally (for now)...has anyone here ever invented a language AT ALL?

posted in Seraphinians - 8 replies

my first view of the book

prometheusPAN — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 20:28:59 GMT

Holden invited me to the local library to check out the book, and tho i am generally opposed to silly and pointless art adventures, Holden is an old buddy of mine, so i made room in my busy schedule of trying to save human civilization from human stupidity, and, we hopped to the bus to the library. On the way there we discussed languages and linguistics, and an interesting character on the bus hopped in to discuss the more amusing points of german, Hebrew, and linguistics in general.

Did you know for instance that hebrew only had less than a thousand words? They use high levels of word recombination, and thus almost any two words put next to each other make some sort of sense in hebrew. Similarly, German only has a few hundred thousand words (or, did anciently, the language has grown modernly.)

Plus, pronouns. Who needs em? They are a form of ambiguity unto themselves. A good language would skip the lot of them. And the "to be" verbs, Holden contends, (and makes some good examples) only let people make overgeneralized statements and not own their own perspectives and perceptions.

If you were going to invent a language to be a better language, what other details might you engineer? Esperanto came up, but from what i understand of that artificial language, its got its own problems.

So we arrived at campus, made our way to the library, and viewed the book. It was a lot better than i expected, and a lot thicker also. A lot of interesting questions pop up in my mind. Is this language a real language as such, or is it a nonsensical window dressing?
Can we talk serafini into giving us a linguist translation before he dies? And, If we could should we? Perhaps some of the power of the book is its sort of vagueness; As if the book
is secretly about trying to elicit from us our own conclusions; as if the book desires to prompt us to jump to our own conclusions, somehow it seems to me that at least some of the art is hyper self referential; its a sly commentary on language and symbology itself, upon the presumtions we make about meaning, and how we derive meaning from what would seem to some alien civilization to be perfectly rediculous.

My Aspie Vulcan mind at first rejects the book as a meaningless and pointless distraction,
but ends up embracing it as a dive into the subconcious. Qaballistic theory, which i am a fan of, makes the point that all percieved or imagined realities are real; the only question is what level of reality they are real at.

Serafini has opened a window into the subconscious that we all know how to open vaguely;
he is an accomplished artist doodling, but his doodles transcend mere dooodelery and thus that window is opened wider by him than most of us can pry it.

Holden and i seem to consistantly have wildly different interpretation of the book, which i think is how serafini probably intended it. I come to the book with a lot of background in psychology and esoteric symbolism. Holden speaks of "nonsensical" images, which i find to be merely symbolic. To me these images speak of a deeper subliminal language, the language we all know of from dreams. It isn't nonsense, but the sense it makes is the sense of dreams, not the sense of ordinary reality.

Serafini has plucked, one at a time, images and symbols from the deep subconscious. What they mean can only probably ever be known fully by him; this is not an encyclopedia, in my mind, as holden suggests, but a dream dictionary, a basic exploration of fundamental symbols.

In psychology theory, we all have an imagerial and symbolic language created by the mammalian brain and the occipital lobes. A dream speak hieroglyphic language peculiar in some respects to each of us as indvididuals; each person has their own individual language and each is unique. And yet, we share some of that universally; each of us borrows some from the collective psyche, from that grand swirling vortex on the other sidhe
of reality qaballists would call Tiferet.

Serafini invites us in for a brief tour of his psyche, and dips deeply in the collective psyche to return back to us a sort of psychonauts parable, and a riddle.

Like many great mystery traditions, perhaps ultimately the best state of afairs is that the riddle remains forever unsolved, the central mystery intuited, but never fully realized, an example of a journey that perhaps each of us might be inspired to make some day on our own.

It has been said that the true journey of discovery is not in seeing new territory, but learning to see the same old territory through new and different Eyes. I apreciate Serafini's lens, and am prompted and reminded of my own. In my mind, the book is a reminder to all of us
to peer more closely into ourselves; to give ourselves gerater permission to doodle out messages from the collective psyche that can only ever make sense to whomever has scryed the message.

Thanks serafini, Thanks Holden, for a somewhat silly, and yet wholly sacred pilgrimage.

posted in Seraphinians - 8 replies

Seraphinian Script Decoded?

missingmolly — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 03:11:40 GMT

Here is a website that claims to have decoded Serafini's script. I have not had the time or the energy to look at this to see if it holds up in any way, but I thought it was must reading for the group in any case. Salute! Francesco

http://www.cr.cx/seraphinianus/codex/

posted in Seraphinians - 5 replies

Imaginaire Landen (1983)

luminous_ferret — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 23:05:03 GMT

I happen to have a copy of the "catalogue" that went along with the 1983 show at the Rotterdam Art Center about imaginary places. The catalogue (number 330 of 1000) is a box of curios, posters, postcards and articles about many different places: Atlantis, Neverland, The Republic of Dreams, Orion, New State, The Eldorian Empire and about 25 in all.

The Codex Serafinianus describes one such place and is included along with an article by Maarten Asscher. My Dutch is pretty awful and I have been laboring through the article but the little I have read is interesting giving some perspective on the book.

I am curious - is it possible that someone in this tribe actually attended this show 23 years ago?

posted in Seraphinians - 5 replies

Preliminaries before a post.

lutesaroundtown — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 22:18:45 GMT

I was wondering if our interpretations of the individual pages might make for an interesting post, but question if enough of us own or have access to copies to make this a viable discussion? It is, after all, a fairly expensive book. Also, maybe finding out which versions we have might prove useful, since I understand they do differ slightly in form.

If I had a digital camera, I think posting pages for others would be cool, but then it might infringe on his copyrights etc. and would never willfully mess Serafini over by doing so.

Mine is the Abbeyville edition.

posted in Seraphinians - 2 replies

http://www.luigiserafini.com

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 15:33:30 GMT

Suddenly active? I hadn't looked for a long time.

I wrote an email but no response. Anyone ever contact him?

posted in Seraphinians - 2 replies

regular and signed editions

Andrew — Mon, 30 May 2005 22:25:49 GMT

http://search.ebay.com/seraphinianus_W0QQfromZR10QQfsooZ1QQfsopZ1QQftrtZ1QQftrvZ1QQpqryZseraphiniansQQsacatZQ2d1QQsofocusZbs

Two versions up for grabs-a regular one, starting at $300 and a signed edition, starting at $18,000+. Lots of good pictures posted on the regular edition.

posted in Seraphinians - 3 replies

Greetings from a new (to tribe.net) Seraphinian

Tadbot — Wed, 18 May 2005 18:55:37 GMT

Wow, I am surprised I hadn't found this Seraphinian community earlier -- over 100 members!

My name is Tad, and you may know me from such online Seraphinian webpages as Orkut.com's Codex Seraphinianus community, and the Codex wiki (http://www.blinkenlichten.info/codex/ ).

You can't join orkut.com without an invitation, so that Codex community is at a meager couple dozen (and 90% of them are Brazilian). So I was happy to find this one, with so many people. I also was surprised to see in the photo section here: photos of Luigi Serafini that I hadn't seen before; and a picture from the Codex with Klingon below it -- since I was the one who scanned the image for a Klingon review of the Codex ;-)

As far as my history with the Codex, after reading about it in Douglas Hofstadter's book "Metamagical Themas", I researched it a bit on the web and decided to buy my own copy of it a couple years ago. After starting the Orkut.com community about the book, I also have contributed most of the content for the Codex wiki, with the help of one of the Brazilian orkut members. If you haven't seen it already, I'd recommend taking a look at the wiki at http://www.blinkenlichten.info/codex/ (the username and password is "test", to prevent spambots from adding advertisements to the pages)

I'll post more later here, I'm sure..
- Tad

posted in Seraphinians - 3 replies

LET'S MAKE UP A STORY...

Holden S. — Mon, 21 Feb 2005 00:21:09 GMT

...to go with one of the pages. go here:

www.almaleh.com/codex-e.htm#

now click the picture on the upper right corner to enlarge.
title of story is The Rocket Circumambulation. each participant gets 6 words. ready?

We three set out on foot

posted in Seraphinians - 58 replies

A Seraphinian ellipsis

lutesaroundtown — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 15:42:04 GMT

The Great Seraphinian ellipsis…an invitation.
Just now awaking from a dream I thought I should put down some thoughts that have come to me. In this dream, a specter approached the foot of my bed, as vivid as if it were truly there. Words came to my lips, and aloud, I mouthed “Who are you?”
Note the, who and not what, that my resting mind came up with, trying to personify an unknown. Then, maybe because I had been dwelling upon the subject, another thought occurred to me, a revelation if you will.
The four blank pages left at the end of the Seraphinianus seems not so much an ellipsis, or to be continued but rather an invitation to use the imagination and fill in the pages. Notes, in the back of an expensive book? I think not so much something I would want to do, but rather my mind wanting to do it.
It is this, filling in with the mind, that Serafini seems to have invited us, his viewers, to do on all pages not just these few.
Zeus then sending down an invitation to join in the creation from upon Olympus.
Then again, this may just be the asparagus eaten shortly before bedtime playing on my noodles, in any event, join in please…

posted in Seraphinians - 0 replies

tha man

Jon — Wed, 06 Apr 2005 08:58:21 GMT

In searching around on the web a while back, I learned that Luigi Serafini taught a masters course in 2002-2003 at FUTURARIUM: THE NEW AESTHETICS FACTORY. The URL below has images of a couple of rare "stand alone" paintings that he did:

http://www.futurarium.com/20022003/ls_e.htm

Alas, the e-mail address no longer works.

However, the following site

http://www.luigiserafini.com

has a few more of his paintings, plus a short animated piece, AND an e-mail address that I have not actually tried yet.

And Serafini even did a little design work, with these somewhat pricey lamps available. Well, I guess they cost about as much as a reprint of the Codex does:

http://www.owo.it/scheda_articolo.php?id_articolo=9935&description=KARA

Or a table to set your book on:

http://www.tonellidesign.it/ita/prodotti.php?id=65

The original Italian edition of the CODEX was published as a case-bound two volume set. Then came the American edition, which was missing some of the pages. Then came the Euro-reprints, which had some of the illustrations that were missing from the U.S. edition, but which had some OTHER pages missing. (I haven't done a page-by-page comparison of the original two-volume set with the other editions, to see if there are some pages in the first set that didn't appear in either of the reprints; there might be.)

Those who wish to go to Hong Kong this summer can catch the third in a multimedia dance performance series based on the Codex. (I remember that one of the previous performances wasn't too well appreciated by the critic whose review of it I read a while back.)

http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/CE/CulturalService/Programme/en/dance/mar05/lyon.html

For those who just want to view the man himself, here are some photos:

http://www.elisabettacatalano.it/servizi/s/serafini/

The best price for new copies of the reprint editions (French and Spanish) that I have found recently is about 200 euros ($260 or so). The American edition seems like it is a higher-quality production (just slightly), but it doesn't have the slipcase and used copies run at least a hundred bucks more then this on average, and I have seen them sell for over $900 on e-bay

A buddy of mine actually bought the first edition (two volume) set a couple years back for $900 on e-bay. I just noticed that Burberry books is offering a set of these two volumes for $19,000. (No, I didn't type an extra zero!) Click below:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=378&item=4527867404&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

Okay, that's all I've got for the moment. Excepting maybe that, if you like the Codex, you might like the work of Jim Woodring as well.

-- Jon Hanna

posted in Seraphinians - 1 reply

copy on ebay in great shape

Tue, 25 Jan 2005 21:51:31 GMT

It's not mine.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6944511072

But I'd like it!
;)

posted in Seraphinians - 0 replies

Serafini's other work

Holden S. — Thu, 30 Dec 2004 02:24:06 GMT

i'll start this thread by giving links to 2 pages. if you scroll down this one, you'll find 2 of Luigi's paintings not related to the Codex:

www.futurarium.com/20022003/ls_e.htm

for this next one, locate where it says "art and language" in the upper right part of the page, click on that...next scroll down a bit & find "features" to your left. near that you'll see the words "Serafini's Codex". click on that. this page talks mostly about the Codex but if you scroll down to the bottom you'll find to non-Codex-related works, a ceramic sculpture & a photograph:

www.archimedes-lab.org

posted in Seraphinians - 1 reply