It specifically examines the radical revision of poetic language through the natural production of speech. Radical writers and artists of the twentieth century fundamentally re-created poetic language, incorporating scientific theories and techniques as they turned to the natural process of oral language. This modernist "sound writing" focuses on the bodily production of speech, which it depicted in poetic, readable, and graphic form.

The modernist sound writing aims to capture the acoustic phenomenon of phonetic articulation through graphic means. Tobias Wilke explores sound writing from its inception in scientific disciplines of the nineteenth century such as physiology and experimental phonetics, tracing its role in the aesthetic practices of interbank radical art and up to its re-emergence in the post-war period. These works engage with the possibility of crossing from the audible to the visible, from speech to notation, from the body to the trace.

By employing various techniques and concepts, this quest for new possibilities has played a central role in the transformation of poetry into a space of radical linguistic experimentation. Examining the works of writers and artists, including Raoul Hausmann, Kurt Schwitters, Viktor Shklovsky, Hugo Ball, Charles Olson, and Marshall McLuhan, Wilke offers a new perspective on the history of radical art in the twentieth century.

Pages: 272, Year of Publication: 0421, Dimensions: 15.2x15.2cm