“AMONGST A SINGLE POINT”

Thoughts on the medial attachments of Dezső Tandori

Abstract

Dezső Tandori’s lyric poetry includes quite distinct voices ranging from modernity to neo-avantgarde, his poetry spanning philosophical poems, minimal art, concept poetry, as well as pieces of experimental word poetry (and even more). Examples of the medial ties between visuality and verbality are his ideograms, drawings-prose, drawings-aphorisms, and his meta-mathematical commentaries accompanied by figures. The visualization of mental space and the continuous reflection on it always connects with the deliberation of subjectivity, communicability, and the coherency of the world. Thus, Tandori’s intermedial works are not only border-crossings or configurations between art forms, but at the same time, they are works that emphasize the media nature of the subject. This is articulated by Tandori’s terms: intermediális- átélt [intermedial lived-through], and médium-art-élt [media-art-life/lived]. This study aims to show what special existential and ontological meaning can be associated with the “Tandori-like intermedial”; how the subject becomes a depot: the bearer and mediator of the meglét [being/existence] and the tűnt volt [seemed was].