The Avant-Garde Mise-en-Page: Site of Disruption and Generation of New Reading Practices

Abstract

This article aims to show how, with the avant-gardes, the page as structural unit was transformed, becoming a prime surface for experimentation and for the expression of novel aesthetic ideas. Beginning with a brief review of the European avant-gardes, it goes on to concentrate on Latin American examples; in these, we see how the avant-garde mise-en-page used space, visual syntax, and typographical elements in innovative ways, generating new reading practices. This represented a landmark in editing history, and favored the emergence of subsequent movements and tools, such as concretism and hypertextuality.   

Keywords: page, avant-gardes, spatiality, visuality, visual poetics