time

Concept "The End of the White Subway" is a strange little text-game that bears some resemblance to a text adventure or interactive fiction... more or less the way a toadstool resembles a geranium. Is this a game? If being a game requires consequential decisions, controllable actions, differential outcomes, and quantification (score), then it's a game. If your definition includes fun, well... This project is really more like a time simulator -- though in some ways every game is that. It invites you to think about the passing of time (all those moments you'll never get back), the way things change even as they stay the same, what you think you are doing when you can't do much of anything, and how you know when it's time to leave the train. What You Can Do Ride the train from station to station: either click Continue or simply press any key while you are in Train mode. (You'll need to click once in the text window, or use the Continue link initially, in order to set focus.) Each station of your passage comprises a screenful of text. The text is always different, or perhaps always the same. Look at things: The Earth is full of them. Examinable objects show in red when under the cursor. Click to inspect. Some objects are described in text, some with images. Collect things: You may add objects to your Inventory after you inspect them. Clicking the Inventory link at left shows you what you have. You are only allowed to hold seven things. The system will automatically delete the oldest item if you exceed the limit. Delete or Expend things: Every item in your inventory is preceded by an X. Click here to remove the item. Some items go quietly. Others perform certain actions before they disappear. Read (or not) a story: Occasionally the view will change from Train mode to something more coherently narrative. Read (or not) and then follow the link to return. This story has a beginning and an end, and a beginning and no end. Ask for help: Use the Help link at left. Ask for as much help as you can stand. Exit: Use the Exit link whenever you feel you are ready. Leaving the train ends the game. Technical Notes The game is built entirely in Javascript and plain-vanilla HTML/CSS. This means it is stateless, so remember that leaving the page means wiping out your game. Recommended browser is the current build of Firefox (Mozilla). The game will run in Safari with minor visual glitches. Internet Explorer doesn't recognize keystrokes to advance the game, but seems to handle all other aspects. I haven't even started debugging this thing, so expect trouble. (Source: ELO 2015 Conference Catalog)

In 2008, Phillipe Bootz published a monograph version of Alire to commemorate the publication of his programmed poems that date to 1977-1978 (matrix poetry) and to 1988, the first version of Alire (0.1) that was presented in 1989 at the Centre Pompidou. In Alire 13, Bootz presents the unedited and difficult to find works.
One of the works that make part of this compilation is “Le Nouveau prépare l’ancien” which dates to 2001. At the beginning of this cinematographic poem, one hears the voice of a man that explains the instructions to navigating the program. It is not clear to whom the voice belongs, but it is present through the entire poem. A message on the screen informs the user that he may skip the intro by clicking on the screen. The voice then continues to give a description of the poem saying that one can click on the words of the poem to see what can happen. After this introduction, the poem begins with the images of hour glasses. At the same time, the same narrator talks about time and describes it as “the first friend of man”. The voice continues to explain the relationship between man and time. On the screen, the works “le nouveau… prépare… l’ancien”, the title of the poem, appear. With these words and images of hour glasses, one has the feeling of time and its effect on mankind due to time’s control of life. Shortly after, the screen is divided in two images. The image on the top half is still an hour glass; the image on the bottom is also an hour glass behind what appears to be a window as it rains. However, the rain in this situation is that of letters: o’s and n’s that fall as rain. In the corner of the bottom image one can find the word “ici” which may be interpreted as the letters falling on “here” or on “us”.
The narrator describes these letters that fall like the sand in the hour-glass. However, he recognizes the difference between the rain of the sand and the rain of the words because the words can take different forms. He continues with a comparison of the word “mot” and the word “temps”. He notices that one only needs to add an “s” to “mot” to make the word plural and describes it as funny. In the case of “temps”, it already has the “s” in the singular that would make it plural. This comparison is interesting because the narrator presents the idea that “temps” is singular, but at the same time plural in terms of spelling. There can be a single time, but it carries an effect over all lives, similar to the letters that fall on “us”. The metaphor of the rain of words is reinforced by the sound of a storm in the background. The voice describes the words as violent, but a violence that one wants to last a long time. At the end, the voice mentions death, since it is the result of time. Thus, one has the feeling that the goal of literature is to organize words in a way to escape death, the result of time. This last remark of the narrator towards time, one may interpret, as the message of the poem. The poet does not want to be forgotten; therefore he wants his literature to be read. Only the words and the forms they take can escape time and death, because the rest of us depend from the hour glass.

“En Réponse à la lampe” was published in the journal "alire n°6" for the first time in 1992. In 1996, it was ported. This animated poem gives an important amount of possibilities for reading thanks to the apparition and the disappearance of the various bribes. The poem moves on a black screen and the text is mostly printed in white. The text is made of some stable elements in time, which allows the reader to memorize a small amount of verses at a time. Some other verses on the other hand, appear and disappear as they please anywhere on the screen, making it difficult to construct a meaning, because of the transitory aspect of the poem. An esthetic of frustration appears, because when verses appear, they fade right away. However, the transitory aspect of the text allows a temporal reading, based on the reader’s memory. The printed text seems to be the following: « Des étoiles réduire l’infini à la taille du nôtre rendre sécable la lumière elle prolonge le geste /leur passé notre présent sur la terre comme au ciel un futur pas un présent » The word that is mobile and appears furtively is “le futur” (“the future”), which appears as though it was blinking, as though it was passing on the screen. Several words and expressions are also chromatically accented (words become red), or blurry. These words have a temporal connotation, “leur passé” (“their past”), “redonne un futur à la mort” (“give another meaning to death”), “pas un présent” (“not a present”) and “un futur” (“a future”). Once all the verses are on the screen, and that we try to reconstitute a meaning, the words fade away and several beams burst on the screen, like light beams, like a white, monochrome prism of light. Then, the text “pas un présent” appears on top of these beams. The end of the poem seems to be a dedication and the signature of the author. The poem was dedicated to Patrick Burgaud, who also is an author of digital literature and kinetic poetry. Finally, the date, the title and the name of the author appear and the poem ends. Meditating on the nature of the animated poem, the speed of the transitory poem, of the temporal theme suggested by the bribes and the light suggested by the title, one could easily deduct that the poem is a reflection and an illustration of time passing, the brevity of time but also on the fact that we cannot grasp our future the word “futur” fades away and passes several times). This theme goes hand in hand with animated poetry, because the furtive aspect of the verses echoes the furtive aspect of life.

Transient self–portrait is an artistic research project questioning notions of reading and the electronic medium while exploring the possibilities of coding to interact with the work. I take as the point of departure two pivotal sonnets in Spanish literature that are normally studied alongside each other, En tanto que de rosa y azucena by Garcilaso de La Vega, a 16th Century Spanish poet, using Italian Renaissance verse forms and Mientras por competir con tu cabello by Luís de Gongora, a 17th Century Spanish poet from the Baroque period. Gongora's sonnet is a homage to Garcilaso's and the styles and the cultural aspects that appear on the sonnets are very different reflecting the attitudes from the Renaissance and the Baroque. This project is a response to some of the concepts that emerge from these sonnets; ephemerality of life, consummation, transient entities, fragility, which are also relevant to our age and the electronic world we inhabit. The creative process is that of producing, reflecting, programming and testing the medium to explore these notions in an electronic media society of dialogues with self-images, engaging the participant in a reading experience of ‘in’ and ‘out’ of language, via webcams and interactive aesthetics. The sonnets pass from different stages of written, visual, aural, language and code to dissipate into nothing.