Pataphysics is the science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments.

… is the science of that which is superinduced upon metaphysics, whether within or beyond the latter's limitations, extending as far beyond metaphysics as the latter extends beyond physics.

Pataphysics will examine the laws governing exceptions, and will explain the universe supplementary to this one: or, less ambitiously, will describe a universe which can be - and perhaps should be - envisaged in place of the traditional one, since the laws of that are supposed to have been discovered in the traditional universe are also correlations of exceptions, albeit more frequent ones, but in any case accidental data which. reduced to the status of unexceptional exceptions, possess no longer even the virtue of originality.

Pataphysics is the science…”

– Alfred Jarry, translated by Simon Watson Taylor, Exploits & Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician. Boston: Exact Change, 1996

resources

books

  • Bok, Christian. 'Pataphysics: The Poetics of an Imaginary Science. Northwestern University Press, Dec. 2001. ISBN: 0-8101-1877-7. http://nupress.northwestern.edu/title.cfm?ISBN=0-8101-1877-7
  • Jarry, Alfred. Adventures In Pataphysics: Collected Works I. Exact Change, September 2001. ISBN: 1900565250.
  • Jarry, Alfred. Selected Works of Alfred Jarry. Grove Press, 1965, Out of print.

other

proto surrealism > “Bizzarie di varie figure di Giouanbatista Braccelli ” » http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=rbc3&fileName=rbc0001_2002rosen1345page.db

somewhat related, Oulipo, Patapsychology (not to be confused with Parapsychology) and the Committee for Surrealist Investigation of Claims of the Normal http://www.rawilson.com/csicon.shtml

  • pataphysics.txt
  • Last modified: 2009-05-18 08:58
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