I ♥ E-Poetry

This work in progress is a wonderful example of how digital media can be used in an integrated way to create art that transcends traditional media and genre distinctions. As Meyer describes the concept best in this artist statement.

I wrote a novel, and it was a poem, and I called it Into the Green Green Mud. But coming from an experimental theatre background, where script and performance are distinct entities, the text was only the beginning. How would I “perform” this novel? The standard performance of a novel is justified black text on white paper. But is that really the best way to explore time and love and change and the weather?

His theatre background has attuned him to what is understood as the performative turn, a paradigm shift that for the past several decades has focused attention on the performance as a key signifying act. The notion of script and performance is literalized by HTML works, because they consist of a source code that is interpreted by software and hardware to produce a readable work. As a multimedia artist, Meyer keenly aware of the analog and digital materials available to him,

The first performance of Into the Green Green Mud is under way, and I’d like you to be a part of it. We’re starting online, with original illustrations, animations, fonts, and music. OddBird will write the code, and Teacup Gorilla will write the music. From there we can make it a reading, a rock concert, a book, or all of these things at once.

Two aspects stand out from this description: its collaborative nature and handcrafted aesthetic. While Meyer wrote the text of the novel, drew the illustrations, designed three fonts, and has shaped the presentation of the work, he is producing it with two teams of people close to him (brothers and friends) on the code backdrop and musical composition. And it shows. Every component of this project is lovingly custom made, coming together to enhance the original text with a design acumen parallel to Wes Anderson’s distinctive mise-en-scène.

Fittingly enough, the concept of mise-en-scène was appropriated from theater by film theorists to emphasize the compositional nature of filmmaking, emphasizing the blank canvas around which a shot is composed. Like theater, which begins with an empty stage that needs to be developed into a meaningful space by carefully designing, placing, blocking, and scripting every element, so the filmmaker and Web designer need to build each shot and node in their medium to achieve their desired effect. As a programmer with a background in experimental theater, Meyer uses pure HTML and CSS to arrange each element of this project: text, static and kinetic images in multiple layers, and wireframes to shape and arrange each aspect dynamically in in browser windows that come in many shapes, sizes, and screen resolutions.

Part of the pleasure of this “novel (with pictures)” is that we can appreciate each layer of this performance as it becomes deployed. Meyer’s narrative verse is reminiscent of Shel Silverstein’s illustrated books, as are his drawings. His prose and verse are arranged graphically, but also using HTML conventions, such as ordered (numbered) and unordered (bulleted) lists, and formatting as definable characteristics of text. Its whimsical alliterations, metrical bursts, and distinctive voices are enhanced by custom fonts, as can be seen in the example below.

Most of Into the Green Green Mud is displayed as a clean text in handmade fonts arranged near the center of the screen, as can be seen in the image above. The earlier images in this entry show some of the other layers implemented, such as wireframes, images, and animations (though you’ll have to visit the site to see the kinetic aspects in action). This is a publicly available work in progress with fully documented code— a patient performance slowly unfolding over time— so that every time we visit, we are likely to discover a newly transformed page or chapter.

This virtuoso creation by a talented young poet, writer, artist, typographer, programmer, and musician is a taste of things to come as new generations of digital media and code literate creators come of age.

This augmented reality (AR) work tells the story of three generations of women through a series of short poetic videos organized spatially on a table top installation. In the version documented in the video, the work used a printed out marker system and a webcam connected to a computer to move from one marker to another. As the camera is able to identify the markers, the software replaces them with a short video with a voice recording of Fisher reading a poetic text. Beautifully produced, the videos visually engage the theme of memory by focusing on old photographs, photo albums and family heirlooms, and reinforcing this aurally through vignettes that breathe life into these objects.

AR technologies are fascinating because they open up the world as a canvas for artistic creation, bringing the digital world into analog spaces. Markers like QR codes are easily detectable by computers equipped with a camera and the right software, and can be placed anywhere to produce locative works, or arranged spatially as Fisher has done with tabletop objects, Carpenter with maps, and Borsuk with the book.

The main challenge for these kinds of works is that the computational infrastructure needed can be an obstacle for potential readers. The mechanics of looking at a screen with one’s eyes and a different surface through a camera or waiting for a video to load over a slow data connection can hinder what might otherwise be an immersive experience. Fortunately, multiple technologies are moving in directions that will facilitate this kind of experience, as is the case with portable devices with screens and cameras that can be used “as a magic looking glass to explore the story world” (to quote Fisher). As computers become so portable and miniaturized as to become wearable and ubiquitous, electronic literature will increasingly move out from its virtual spaces and write on the world.

In the meantime, there is a glitch aesthetic to be explored in these early technologies, such as the visual and aural overlays we can witness in “Circle” as the camera catches multiple markers at a time. By arranging the markers so close together using swiveling sticks to reveal markers and having others on constant display, she has written both single and choral voices that sing across holographic split-screens.

This multimedia hypertext work weaves together unpopulated images, ambient sounds, and the text of overheard conversations in several cities to produce an immersive experience of a journey. Best experienced in cinematic conditions (good speakers or headphones, large screen, dark room, no distractions, fullscreen browser window), this is a navigationally minimalist. Each image has an area you can click on to go to the next, and it’s not difficult to find, since it tends to be large and placed over a focal point in the photograph. The simplicity of the interface and knowing from the outset that it is a linear experience, allows readers to relax into the work and not be distracted by wondering about where to go or what decision to make. The sounds and scheduled presentation of the texts also encourage paucity and reflection on the whole sequence of images as a whole.

From the outset, Mouton describes the piece as “a linear, nocturnal amble” which is enough of a narrative framework to lead us to connect the images as a single conceptual entity. The spaces photographed are not famous landmarks, the recognition of which would remind us that they are from different locations. The music and text of the conversations serve as bridges from one image to another, encouraging us to build continuity in our minds and seek a story in the piece.

Whether there is one to be found, constructed, or neither, this piece deploys language poetically, laying it over time and space in a spellbinding visual and aural canvas. As you read these voices and hear them in your mind, think about who is uttering them. Does one of the voices belong to the person whose perspective we inhabit in this work?

This poetic Internet artwork makes a visceral connection between the documentation of frags in Counter-Strike multiplayer servers and the military actions documented in the Wikileaks Afghan War Diary database. As it connects the fake videogame death to military actions that usually resulted in the loss of one or many real human lives, it performs Google Earth searches to display the location of these actions. By presenting three events and locations at a time, it allows for the visuals to load and creates a time buffer to allow us to focus our attention on a particular location for longer than the few seconds between frags allow. And since we are unable to control anything in this piece, except the choice of server at the beginning, we become powerless spectators of violence made abstract through terse language and eerie landscapes devoid of human beings.

There is a poetic quality to the simply structured constrained language in the Counter-Strike logs and military reports. Some logs don’t display user identities, producing phrases reminiscent of E. E. Cummings, such as “undefined killed someone.” This simplicity reads vertically as a kind of refrain, a violent tercet which makes the Afghan War Diary reports stand out for their rich detail. Read them aloud to appreciate how the juxtaposition brings out the violence in a piece at a poetic level through repetition and variation, rhythms and rhyme.

And think about what isn’t being said about each event, all the missing details, context, imagery, and stories that aren’t being told in reports that become pure data, dehumanized like these empty landscapes in Google Earth.

This responsive visual poem is a study of writing technologies and the word, whether it’s “ink sunk into fibrous paper” or “light through liquid crystals.” Inspired by Stephane Mallarmé’s poetic and theoretical writing as studied by Kittler, Trettien’s JavaScript (& JQuery) work explores the range of shades between the white page and the black sky as backgrounds against which writing can occur with light or ink.

Designed not only for unresponsive screens or pages, this poem is written in code to display and behave in environments that allow for readers to provide input that the words react to. As the reader interacts with the language on the screen through the two interfaces she provides, the text hovers between readability and an illegible typographical overload. And the source code offers no shortcuts, since each letter is separated by extensive code that positions it on the screen. You have to get inside the page and navigate it with the tools offered by your platform.

As far as platform is concerned, there is a noteworthy difference in how one interacts with the “write” portion of this piece. In a mouse or trackpad powered computer one must move a pointer around, which means that if one doesn’t want to accidentally mouse over the spiraling letters, one has to dodge them. This makes for a completely different reading strategy with a touchscreen device where one can simply touch a letter to activate it. The reader’s symbolic presence in the text is less evident in touchscreen devices, though the tactile interaction enhances a sense of presence at the same time.

As you interact with and attempt to read this piece, consider how effectively it engages and exceeds, not only Mallarmé and Kittler, but also Eugen Gomringer’s notion of the “constellation.”

This work is a kind of hypertext edition of Langston Hughes’ poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” contextualizes the poem by placing it in conversation with historical and biographical events, culture, music, poetry, visual arts, and its publication history.

Its interface is simple (though unexplained): when you click on an image of a line from the poem on the  “Arriving” column the image changes to one from a different printing of the poem, displaying its date on the left, and loading a random set of lines and images on the “Departing” column. Each date brings up a scanned image of the print publication as a visceral lesson on the impact of the materiality and socialization of texts, as Jerome McGann demonstrated in The Textual Condition. The lines and images in the “Departing” column are excerpts from other materials— clicking on them brings up an image, text, or embedded video (note: currently works best in Chrome) beneath the column. The title links to an “About” page, which is a scholarly short article that goes into detail on the contexts, inspiration, and theory that informs the work.

This digital re-reading — operating as both a detourned archive and an artistic re-imagining — puts the many editions of Hughes’ poem in direct contact with a constellation of images, texts and voices that respond to its call.

If the Emancipation Proclamation is in the National Archives in Washington DC, where is Langston Hughes’ poem? It survives in versions, editions, printings, copies, recordings, web pages, and more, each one imparting form and context to the work. Each production and reproduction is a performance, waiting for a reader to make it come to life with their own reception performance. The poem is in those interactions between text and reader, writer, editor, and text.

Moore and Trettien have crystallized their scholarly reading of the poem in this creative edition of the work, leveraging technologies and resources available to them in 2009 and encoded into the work’s materiality. This is e-poetry as editorial scholarship in the age of the Digital Humanities.

This elegant hypertext poem consists of 28 links arranged on an excerpt from a book on bone biology. The links are barely distinguishable from the rest of the text, yet lead to poetic language that forms a distinctive contrast to the scientific text in the paragraph. The relation between the two texts isn’t simply tonal counterpoints: they are deeply interconnected, metaphorically and especially thematically. One key to understanding these relations is in the first link, which leads to the image below:

This diagram maps a relationship, showing alternatives paths a couple can take when faced with the kind of situation described in the scientific text. See where the paths lead and you’ll note recurring elements, most of which are not positive for the health of the relationship.

The controlling metaphor for this piece is that of the health of a relationship is similar to bone health is best understood when reading how each conceptual domain maps on the other. You’ll notice how gender helps you understand the language of this biological text, and  see how the processes and approaches described help you understand the relationship in the poem.

Once you’ve explored the hypertext and appreciated how the poem emerges from the interplay of these arts and sciences, take a look at the code for a more independent representation of the poetic text. You may also appreciate that you are not dealing with an old-school hypertext with many documents brought together with links, but with a minimal number of files using JavaScript links to lines within the same document— a code design that resonates with the themes of interiority and exteriority of bodies, bones, and relationships.

This award-winning responsive poem focuses on the Australian ghost town Wittenoom, abandoned due to toxic dust caused by asbestos mining. Each of its nine parts focuses on an aspect of the abandoned town and consists of an image from Wittenoom, generally portraying urban decay, an brief looping instrumental audio track, links to other parts of the poem, a title for the section, and a text accessible through different responsive interfaces. A brief parenthetical help text near the bottom left corner of each screen provides encouragement that hints at the interface, promting readers to explore the interactivity and intuit its internal logic. The thematic focus and consistent visual design pull the work together, while the varied interfaces lead to new explorations of the spaces, together producing an experience both jarring and immersive.

For example, the initial interface (pictured above) is invitingly simple: readers just need to select the falling “photographs” to bring them to a readable foreground. The photos (little screens, actually) are color coded to allow readers to remember which ones they read and therefore read all of them, minimizing repetition. Other interfaces are more complex and require practice getting some control over them, such as the one pictured below, which has a three-dimensional cube-like cluster slowly moving and rotating in the screen as it follows the pointer.

A pattern in the poem’s distinctive nodes is the reader’s progression from disorientation to clarity, from digital environments tracking a reader to readers understanding their rules taking control over the same. And yet, stabilizing the display of text for readability reveals the oldest encryption algorithm of all: poetry itself. The parallels between the overall poem’s strategies and Wittenooms’ corporate, labor, medical, and political history are worth exploring, especially considering the bigger picture of human beings and their environment.

This work prompts readers to write according to a set of poetic constraints, offering original, famous, and obscure forms and examples. The interface offers a series of virtual pages floating in fixed positions in space, and allowing readers to tilt them, zoom in and out, and flip them over to read the examples on their verso. A close examination of its yellowed pages reveals barely perceptible ink marks from handwriting on the other side, but that information is missing when one flips the page. Why evoke such physicality in the pages?

One reason for this and other complementary design choices is to give the readers a sense of the age of these poetic traditions. We can see Medievalism in its use of paper images, the ornate borders on each page, the choice of poetic examples using Early Modern English, the references to hermetic texts— such as the Smaragdine Tablet, which is called a sonnet by virtue of its 14 lines— and by using grid structures to organize language into letters for horizontal, vertical, and diagonal reading. With references to obscure and famous sonnet structures from Italian, English, and German traditions (Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus) and a few invented ones based on Medieval traditions, this work reminds us that we can look to the past as a source of rich poetic experimentation.

I suspect that successfully taking this “psychometric test” leads to “an unequivocal sense of certainty.” I’m just not certain of what.

This “psychometric trial” prompts readers to explore their sacred name through manipulation of the “lettered sieve” an infinite set of language constructed as follows:

For the following trial, imagine the alphabet, followed by, in alphabetical order, all permutations of pairs of letters of the alphabet, followed by all permutations of triples of letters of the alphabet, followed by quadruples, and so on for quintuples, sextuples, and so on. Let us call this infinite set of letters a ‘Lettered Sieve.’ Possessing a working concept of the Lettered Sieve is essential to completing the first seven parts of the trial.

The procedural construction of this kind of data set that dates back to antiquity and proliferated among monks in the Middle Ages, who used them for reflection on mystical topics. This work’s design evokes that frame of reference with rich details, such as background images of old paper, fully capitalized text with variable letter size and evenly justified margins, words arranged to form shapes, and more. The language choices also evoke mysticism and even self-harm, all while challenging the imagination with language procedures that might give even Oulipians nightmares to carry out.

As you read this work, think about how they focus your attention on the manipulation of language— mathematically, conceptually, visually, and physically— in a masterfully visceral display of ostranenie.