Italian Futurism

The present article proposes a reflection on the much-discussed theme of the ―neobaroque‖ in experimental literature. Drawing attention to the presence of baroque influence in the literary art of Italian Futurists and Experimental Portuguese Poets, I argue that, if cybernetic poetry is to be seen as a continuation of Experimentalism, its growing emphasis on gesture and touch should be analysed in accordance with theories pointing to the presence of a gestural dimension in the baroque and, as a consequence, in historical avant-garde movements. Particular emphasis will be given to the theoretical writings of Italian Futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Experimental Portuguese Poet Ana Hatherly, two Vanguard exponents whose artistic works were directly concerned with the tactile/haptic dimension of arts.

This paper aims at analyzing the historical evolution of poetry experiments in Italian and Portuguese languages. Poetry has always been interested in experimenting with new ways of writing; however the computer and internet media make the experiments with the language a basic question. The first part of this paper will refer to a historical approach tracing the most important breakpoints in the poetry development in Italian and Portuguese languages during the last century. We will focus above all on Italian Futurism and visual poetry and we will connect Italian visual poetry tradition to Brazilian concrete poetry to identify the main characteristics and to define the links between these movements and the contemporaneous epoetry environment. In the second part some Italian Portuguese e-poetries will be presented and analyzed. A close-reading of some famous works will be proposed trying to identify the strategic elements which constitute the poetics of digital text - the infographic images, the poeticity of the elements, theirs [il]legibility, the pluri-signification of the relation image. The third part will allow us to observe if there are some distinctiveness in Italian and Portuguese works due to historical reasons and traditions.

(Source: Author's abstract for ELO_AI).

This study extends work on notions of space and performance developed by media and poetry theorists. I particularly analyze how contemporary technologies re-define the writing space of digital poetry making by investigating the configuration and the function of this space in the writing of the digital poem. Thus, I employ David Jay Bolter's concept of "topographic" digital writing and propose the term "trans-medial" space to describe the computer space in which the digital poem exists, emerges, and is experienced. With origins in Italian Futurism, the literary avant-garde of the first half of twentieth century, digital poetry extends the creative repertoire of this experimental poetry tradition using computers in the composition, generation, or presentation of texts. Because these poems convey a perception of space as changeable and multiple (made of computer screen and code spaces), this "trans-medial" space is both self-transformative (forms itself as it self-transforms) and transforming (transforms what it contains). Media scholars such as Espen Aarseth and Stephanie Strickland often explain how computer programming makes such digital works become sites of encounter between agencies such as author, text, or readers. Conversely, I show that this "trans-medial" space is also a mediating agent in the performance of the text along with its readers in the sense that it engages in and with the performance of text. I examine three forms of digital poetry: Gianni Toti's video-poetry, Caterina Davinio's net-poetry, and Loss Pequeño Glazier's JavaScript-based poetry. These Italian and United States poet-scholars are leading figures in digital poetry. As scholars, they articulate the theoretical frameworks of this genre in landmark anthologies. As poets, their digital works are similar in that they are indebted to Italian Futurism; and yet they represent distinct visions of and about poetry in new media spaces. I use their works to think through video-graphic spaces, networked spaces, and scripting spaces as expressions of trans-medial space. In this respect, my comparative analysis opens up new venues for the reading of digital poetry by re-fashioning the concept and the function of the writing space of our digitized world.