The small scale, rough design, and coarse materials of Russian Futurist books mocked the luxurious journals produced by the Russian Symbolists, which were large, opulent, and sometimes adorned with gold leaf. The Futurist design, as well as the mix of hand-drawn forms and sound poems, embodies the concept of zaum (beyond the mind)—nonsensicality and nonlinearity, sometimes heightened with foreboding, lyricism, or eroticism. The most famous zaum poem, “Dyr bul shchyl”. Reading zaum books is a participatory experience: some pages require you to rotate the book to read the text; others invite multiple readings of the letters depending on whether your eye follows them across or down. The same poem can also reappear in different books, taking on a different character with a new page layout, script, and images and inviting the reader to interpret it anew.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The small scale, rough design, and coarse materials of Russian Futurist books mocked the luxurious journals produced by the Russian Symbolists, which were large, opulent, and sometimes adorned with gold leaf. The Futurist design, as well as the mix of hand-drawn forms and sound poems, embodies the concept of zaum (beyond the mind)—nonsensicality and nonlinearity, sometimes heightened with foreboding, lyricism, or eroticism. The most famous zaum poem, “Dyr bul shchyl”. Reading zaum books is a participatory experience: some pages require you to rotate the book to read the text; others invite multiple readings of the letters depending on whether your eye follows them across or down. The same poem can also reappear in different books, taking on a different character with a new page layout, script, and images and inviting the reader to interpret it anew." in the context of "Nancy Perloff The World Upside Down / The Collaborative, Interactive Book Art of the Russian Futurists. Getty Museum News. May 10, 2017." to mean that wisdom is timeless.