Looking at Staring: Nico Vasilakis' Collected Staring.

Letters Arrange Themselves - It's Never a Word First. 2016 

Collected Staring. 2026. Digitally processed text.

"Words are the source of misunderstandings." 

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

 

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's compelling suggestion that language can limit communication by distorting or impeding understanding between writer and reader offers a useful starting point for considering the visual poetry of Nico Vassilakis. If we imagine language as a source of misunderstandings, then Vassilakis' 2026 book, Collected Staring, might be read as a reflection on the very nature of literature's generative power. In this context, his decoupling of letters from words becomes a powerful liberative gesture, freeing both the reader/viewer and language itself from the constraints of conventional meaning.

 

A Conversation with Language?

While Vassilakis' diverse ruminations on poetics and language are certainly worthy of attention here (particularly the aphoristic observations in Notes 1 through 4), given the visual focus of this blog, I've limited myself to what I'll call his conversation with language. By this I mean a relationship in which language is understood not as a passive instrument but as something more self-aware and active. Obviously, Vassilakis is examining language, but it might be more useful, if not more interesting, to consider his efforts as an ongoing creative exchange: a conversation that moves in both directions, with language itself becoming an active participant.

 

Vassilakis' visual poems separate letters from words and their conventional meanings. These letters are then reorganized into a variety of compositional arrangements. As he observes, "the act of staring at a word alters the very letters within it", suggesting that the component forms of language are always vibrating with the potential for meaning. His manipulation of letters might be understood as an interrogation of, or conversation with, language that invites us to consider how we interact with the component forms and structures of speech and thought.

 

Vassilakis describes Collected Staring as neither "a manifesto nor a set of definitions, but a constellation of possibilities". This seems a particularly fitting observation, as he does not utilize language as a neutral tool so much as an active collaborator, one that limits, expands and flexes in response to what we might be thinking and feeling.

 

What Does This "Conversation" Look Like?

In addition to its written observations and statements, Collected Staring consists of 40 visual poems created through digital processing, along with two analogue works. While these works share a certain unity of form or "feel", they range dramatically in appearance. Some possess a collage-like or sculptural quality, others resemble geological or topographical forms, while still others suggest a microscopic view of letterforms. Letters leap out at the viewer in some works, while in others they recede into an illusory distant space. Throughout, there is a deft use of serpentine forms that create dramatic visual movement, alongside an elegant handling of positive and negative space that lends a palpable sense of materiality to language.

 

A recurring element throughout Collected Staring is the presence of masses of letterforms, at times stacked in piles and at others appearing as free-floating, cloud-like formations. One work that, to my eye, stands apart visually from the others is Letters Arrange Themselves – It's Never a Word First (2016). As the first letterform piece in the book, it is a dramatic opening salvo, heralding the aphorisms, ruminations and subsequent visual works that follow.

 

The work features a diaphanous word-space filled with lowercase sans-serif letters, loosely tumbling (or floating?), interspersed with smaller, delicately arranged groupings of script-based letterforms. The free-floating sans-serif letters visually dominate the space through their scale and dynamic arrangement, while the much smaller script groupings float in, through and behind them. These small flights of letters create an intriguing interference, reminiscent of the optical floaters one might see after rubbing one's tightly closed eyes. Their sinuous forms suggest letterforms (and language?) behaving like a linguistic contagion, moving in and around the larger formations.

 

Letters Arrange Themselves – It's Never a Word First sets the stage for a visual experience that is more powerful than meets the eye (or mind). Vassilakis reminds us that the act of staring, rather than reading, is not a passive experience but one that is powerfully creative. In the context of his visual poems, it is an experience seemingly boundless in its visual potential.

 

Heidegger's famous suggestion that language speaks to us lurks at the edges of these visual poems. And while I'm not a big enough fool to argue with Heidegger, after spending considerable time with Collected Staring over these past few weeks, it seems to me that Vassilakis' works are better understood as a creative exchange with the component forms of language, or, as I've suggested earlier, as a conversation in which neither participant is entirely passive. The poet is not simply making visual poetry out of language; he is making visual poetry with language. Collected Staring reflects a deep care and affection for the mysteries and power of language and accomplishes this by setting the stage for a compelling experience for the viewer/reader.

 

"G: An image lingers."

— Nico Vassilakis, Collected Staring

To purchase or read more about Collected Staring visit Sandy Press here

 

Last, But Not Least.

As usual, I've created an animated "reading" of Letters Arrange Themselves – It's Never a Word First (2016), accompanied by a short musical component.