Ambient Word Art
A 21st century method for those imprisoned by meta-modernism
“Pamprepius in Constantinople” M. K. November 17, 2025.
Dear Aristocrats of the Soul,
Out of necessity, having recently taken an on-site office job, I fear I’ve begun to go slightly mad. Working in an office is something I’ve successfully avoided for most of my life, the closest equivalent being my stints in newsrooms, which are indeed very different. When one begins to feel the stirrings of madness induced by survival in the rigid and soulless world of meta-modernist capitalism, there are only a few soul remedies available. The soul remedy I’ve chosen is experimentation with art and word forms. This is quite easy to do in an office environment, even with an open cell cubicle. Lean over your desk. No one knows what you’re doing.
“Spider Death” M.K. November 10, 2025.
This experimental art form is perfectly poignant. As a wise friend told me last week:
“Consciousness is all the more fragmented/soaked in the madness of a thousand other voices now than it was when the high modernists invented “stream-of-consciousness” as a form a century ago. In this century, arguably, the “stream” referenced in “stream of consciousness” is a much higher-flow river system. It’s being fed from manifold more sources. It’s spreading over ground rarely irrigated before. It’s making more floods in weirder places than anyone intended.
Other areas cordoned off to form massive system-made deserts. Information is being unequally channeled, the “stream” of consciousness is more akin to accessing a pipeline than a naturally occurring river of mind.
Great deltas of meaning are controlled not by whims of heaven and accident of encounter, but by algorithmic direction. When we write “stream of consciousness” now, what other forces are in there governing the tides of our waters?...The streams have changed.”
“Hey Jim” M.K. November 17, 2025.
The new art form which I have been employing is not unprecedented. It is probably not even “new” in the true sense. Plenty of artists and writers have experimented with similar techniques. William S. Burroughs and Austin Osman Spare in particular to name some of my personal inspirations.
This form is called “ambient word art.”
Method:
1. Sit with pen and paper. Open your senses to your surroundings.
2. Pull snippets of conversation as they stand out to you and write them down.
Note: The variation of the method is up to you and can include other features, such as drawing, I-Ching, bibliomancy, etc. The variations are limitless.
One variation goes like so:
3. The first word or phrase goes in the center. Maybe the second goes under it. Then move to the right, left, and so on. Option to indicate ambient noise and sounds in parentheses or with other marks. Creativity encouraged.
“A Meeting Has Started Down the Hall” M.K. November 11, 2025.
Automatic Drawing/Ambient Word Art Combined Variation:
“Water Flows Up the Mountain to the Sky: Variation 1” M.K., November 20, 2025.
“Water Flows Up the Mountain to the Sky: Variation 2” M.K., November 20, 2025.