Between flow and flou. Alain Damasio's art of moving the lines

Abstract

This article proposes to study the movement in the story and the language of Alain Damasio, an efficient concept to build plot in fiction and empowerment in reality. Movement is the core concept required for writing, and is expressed in other terms: the Outside, the wind, or stealth. In societies of trace and control, movement also allows one to escape from drones and cameras, it is a reconquest of urban spaces, synonymous with freedom and is paired with a political understanding: movement, chaos or dissensus take on positive connotations, change being a necessary condition for freedom and democracy, a volte rather than a revolt. Like the furtive creatures, the work metamorphoses, hybridizes, and awakens vital forces through imagination. In the manner of the ‘vif’, Damasio's language survives by mutating, enriched with neologisms and glyphs. The sentence follows the flow, mimicking the overflow, follows the intensity of the action. Typography, punctuation, diacritical signs define the characters and make the signs dance on the page. Typoesy, language, syntax, themes, and political commitment spin the metaphor and illustrate the tumultuous and vivifying poetics of this science fiction author.