“Coincidence is an event without causality or without known causes. For physicists events are coincidental . If the initial conditions are unknown, prediction cannot be done accurately. For classical physicists coincidence is actually human illusion!”
Does coincidence exist? Factually not. It is an abstract quality. If we do not know the cause we will regard the event that happened to us as a coincidental circumstance.
To rule out coincidence, the probability of a favourable outcome can be calculated with a formula of Laplace. By doing so we learn that the outcome is not from an unforeseen event or just fate. It is no coincidence that my state lottery ticket was a winning ticket. Such a ticket would be a coincidence. But coincidence does notexist according to Laplace. Anyway, that’s not going to happen.
It Turns Out to Be a Poem
Harry van Doveren wrote a text and together with forms of Ankie van Dijk created a quaint book. By chance, his text turns out to be a poem, including squares, curves, lines, debris. No coincidence. Coincidence does not exist, see here above. Each stanza of the poem begins with the word coincidence. That word is then described in plural terms, using synonyms as vices and atomised words as virtues.
Coincidence reflects the right to exist. It looks in the mirror and doesn’t see itself, because it doesn’t exist, it is not invisible and not without figuration. It is even not present. And yet it has many descriptions and explanations.
Coincidence is attributed to being by people who know neither head nor tail. All they know is that they know nothing. Thinking that the egg came before the chicken. It is a coincidence that the ovum once fell from the sky.
It was foreseenable but arbitrary that the artist and the poet met each other in Ankie van Dijk’s first artist book, a pop-up booklet with a harmonica effect. Before the image shows itself, there is the word. After the word the visual matter can be read vertically. By turning the facets, present in three columns, various works can alternately be viewed side by side and put into a relation. Changing order changes this relation, while the tone of the words remains the same.
A Language Everyone Speaks
The collection is bilingual, the images themselves have no boundaries. The poet writes in the language of the Low Countries, Dutch. This does not mean that the collection is restricted to the Dutch realm. Assuming that the poetry is only written in the way it is printed, it concerns sounds without giving meaning to the expression. This tone is like music, a language that everyone speaks. In this way, the reach of this form of art becomes almost limitless. Ankie van Dijk herselfformulates it as follows: “a visual poem demonstrating shapes liberated from perfection. A combinatoric play of forms made for playful readers”.
Both views on reality (not fate) offer a chance of success. The poem is not a caption of the form and the form is not an illustration of the poem. Both sexes are closely related to each other as homo ludens. The words are the logo of insight, the emblem of the playing human. By doing the contained vocabulary and imagery in the book might be the result of frolicking, fiddling and fidgeting. The shapes have become the expression of the concept. Converting simplicity in plurality. The words are deliberately accurate prospects, not casually haphazard and unforeseen. Van Doveren has expressed what struck him about Van Dijk’s printed works and collages. She plays with form as he plays with language. Together the outcome is both playful as visibly pleasant.
Powerful Symbols: A Trademark
Ankie van Dijk expresses herself in letter-like forms, a form-rich visual language. Simple figurations with multiple expressiveness. Imaginations that remind me of the graphic forms of Hendrik Werkman. The latter, a Dutch book-printer, used lead letters to do the work in his expressionist art. In this way he managed to compose
strong visuals. It is no coincidence that Ankie van Dijk is following his footsteps, or is it coincidence just in this case? I do not know whether she is familiar with Werkman’s work. The relationship might be a coincidence, but according to physics, this latter will not be the case.
The powerful symbols are Ankie van Dijk’s trademark, such as the axiomatic poetry is the flag under which the ship Van Doveren sets sail. This claim has not been proven but is accepted as a basis. Van Doveren is a beta, so there is no coincidence for him. That is why he can write about it with complete certainty. The retro-avant-gardist Van Dijk comments on the environment with minimal resources. She is guided in her work by Bauhaus and Dada. I indeed recognise modern constructivism in SHAPE.
Pii pi pi pi pi
That visual art and poetry go together is evident from this book (published independently). In every aspect it is deliberately irrational. Words and images undermine the generally accepted presentation standard. Coincidence? No. That would be the style of the Dadaist. You can approach Van Doveren’s lines as sound expressions without meaning and intention, only with a recognisable sound and accent. Van Dijk’s assemblages are visual expressions without meaning and
purpose, only with a recognisable form and shape.
The German Kurt Schwitters wrote this sound poem Ursonate in 1932: “… Lanke trr gll / pe pe pe pe pe / Ooka ooka ooka ooka / Lanke trr gll / Pii pi pi pi pi / Züüka züüka züüka züüka / Lanke trr gll / Rrmmp / Rrnnf ….” I recognise the same kind of typography and wit in this art-book of van Doveren and Dijk. That can not be a coincidence.
SHAPE by Ankie van Dijk, graphics / 2023
ankiemf@hotmail.com – https://avandijk.exto.nl
Harry van Doveren, word & design – harryvandoveren@gmail.com
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