“Hypergraphy” was not the name the Lettrists, the French avant-garde movement, gave to their new practice, in which the use of individual letters, and not words, formed the basic elements of their poetry and music, and later, their paintings and sculpture. The practice “introduced into alphabetic writing not only the art of painting, but the graphics of all people or social categories past and present, as well as the graphics or anti-graphics of every individual imagination.” Practitioners of hypergraphy merged text with more visual methods of communication, including illustration, paintings, and symbols.

Hypergraphics includes a wide range of non-alphabetical graphics and symbols that can be used to form sound and shape arranged according to different rules. This results in previously unseen and unheard sequences of signs. And as indecipherable as these hypergraphics are, would it then be correct to say they transmit no meaning at all?

Originally published to accompany an exhibition of the same name organized by graphic designer Paul Gangloff, Rules of Hypergraphy includes “Beyond Writing,” a conversation with artist Roland Sabatier; the commissioned typeface Extradraw, designed by type designer Karl Nawrot; “Lettrist Sound Poetry and A Propagation of The New Lettrist Alphabet by Marc Matter; “A Recording of Unicode Infinite” by Jörg Piringer; and “The Punks and the Lettrists” by Hans and Gretel Metzger. 

With a preface by Mica Gherghescu

Designed by Paul Gangloff

Published by Extrapool, 2026
Second edition, printed in a limited edition of 400 copies

Softcover, 103 pages, Risograph printed, 5.31 x 7.68 inches

ISBN: 978-9-07-478102-2