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The online directory of Hannes Kater’s performers in Version 1.01 serves as an introduction to Kater’s drawings, demonstrating how one learns to interpret Kater’s symbols - he calls them performers - and drawings.
The impetus to make this online directory came from observers of Hannes Kater’s drawings. It was especially the recipients who encouraged publication of the made-to-order drawings, produced by Kater from the texts these clients had submitted. A print version was out of the question, as their development is in flux and far from being complete.
We feel it unfeasible to connect Kater’s symbols i.e. his performers, to a grammar of drawing. The systematic performance of the performers will suffer, if explained how they were made or baring their structural associations. The grammar will suffer, if the sequence in which the performers appear, determines how they are categorized.
In the first grammar lessons on constructing a picture, one could not arrive at picture composition by using complicated performer constellations, but with a separate methodical introduction of simple performers and constellations, one can advance gradually to more complex ones.
First it should be enough, that the Kater performers can neither be conjugated nor declined. For example, for the performer, "Remember", i.e. remember - remembered - remembered, there is only one performer and one basic form. The same goes for book, books, on the books, of the books ; Kater also uses just one performer. For the most part, it is context that makes the tempo and mode of each performer clear, as well as case and number of nouns. Kater doesn’t have a lot of time for grammatical superfluousness. Without a doubt, the Dutch linguist and anthropologist, Clemens Hourgant, meant exactly such simplicity, when he called the Kater drawings a concise and therefore logical language.
One can employ the Kater performers in very different ways: through the selected size of the performers (size of meaning), through the color used (meaning of color) and through connection - not just linear - to other performers and the rest of the drawing.
It must, however, be pointed out here that Kater’s drawing system is a mute language and a visual language and - very important! - has nothing to do with writing.
Performance method
When an ideographic element emerges, Kater’s performers, which are at first so unfamiliar to the viewer, can be more easily understood, easily absorbed and retained for longer by the brain. In the case of the performers Kater uses today, this is often darkened, wiped or partly eradicated, but with guidance still reconstructible. There should ne no surprise, therefore, when the curious, who have been introduced this way, say: this method offers great relief to the memory.
From the very beginning, Kater did not conceive the performers as pure picture symbols, rather as a supplement, or second level, to pictures and drawings. The complicated network of picture and picture writing, the grammar of Kater drawings, will be discussed in the next publication.
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