The Pen is a 1999 poem. It's a visual poem but also when you click the individual 'verses' of the poem they take you to other parts of the poem.
Inspired by one of Tom Phillips' illustration for his Dante's Inferno (Talfourd Press, 1983), "Una selva oscura" is a digital visual poetry framework providing readers with different poems and the possibility to write their own.
Artist Statement:
My work has been driven by three main themes: interpretation through adaptation, little acts of unacknowledged violence, and the expression of a sexual self. What is at stake in those themes is three aspects of the act of representation. By adapting somebody else's work, I present it anew, in a different context that has to do with the original work but also with my reaction to it, my interpretation of it. By representing little acts of violence in an absurd, cynical or sarcastic way, I provide a depiction of them that acknowledges what would otherwise be left unspoken. By expressing a sexual self that is feminine and feminist, outspoken and in charge of her sexuality, I provide the representation of a reality that is too often left in the dark because of taboos, repression and censorship. Written language is my medium of choice because it allows me to express my ideas in a detailed and subtle way, with a narrative when one is needed. Written language combined with hypermedia is my favorite playground. The combination of text with images, films, sounds, and music, plus the possibility to add animation to all that, provides a rich environment for creating complex representations that transcend the more traditional ways of experiencing a work of art. Representation has been an object of thought for many years now. I've explored it academically, intellectually, and artistically. Our access to the world, to others, to ourselves is mediated through representation. It is such a powerful tool. There are so many ways to use it, and to abuse it. My work is a way for me to address those issues and experiment with the many aspects of representation as well as the different roles it plays in our lives. "Una selva oscura" is adapted from an illustration made by Tom Phillips for his Dante's Inferno (Talfourd Press, 1983). Phillips represents Dante's dark forest by superposing layers of stencil letters in different colors using the phrase "una selva oscura" over and over. The first poem in "Una selva oscura" recaptures Phillips' piece. It shows, in a way, the "making of" of the illustration by giving the audience not only the resulting image, but the construction of the illustration layer by layer, letter by letter. It also contextualizes the piece by giving an audio excerpt of Dante's poem. The other poems use the same technique with different texts. In each case, a phrase serves as the basis for the visual part of the poem, and the audio track contextualizes this phrase by making available a larger segment of the text from which the phrase is taken. The reader is also offered the possibility of composing her own piece, choosing the phrase and the colors for the different layers.
(Source: 2008 ELO Media Arts show)
The following people deserve thanks for sharing their passion and their voice with me: Anne-Hélène Genné, Paule Mackrous, Aya Karpińska, Alice van der Klei, Nathalie Roy, Eliška Axmannová. Thanks also to Patric Jolicœur Mondou for his help in resolving coding issues.
“A Pen” is an exploration of text as a tool for writing, rather than as the result of writing. It is about the interpenetration of code and language in programmable media to imbue letters and words with behaviors, allowing the poem to emerge from their play. It is about creating tools for the readers to become involved in the process of shaping the poems that arise from these processes. Last but not least, it is a further development in Jim Andrews’ lifelong exploration of the visual characteristics of written language, and the capabilities of computers to both render it and reinvent statuesque letters as dancing signifiers that respond to input from the reader.
(Source: Leonardo Flores)
"A Pen" is a Letterist exploration of text as a tool for writing, rather than as the result of writing. It is about the interpenetration of code and language in programmable media to imbue letters and words with behaviors and allowing poems to emerge from these. It is about creating tools for readers to become involved in the process of shaping the poems that arise from these processes. It is the latest expression of Jim Andrews' exploration of the visual characteristics of written language, and the capabilities of computers to both render and reinvent statuesque letters as dancing signifiers.
Chris Funkhouser's notes on The Last Vispo Anthology, prepared for a Rain Taxi review of the book.
The Last Vispo Anthology is composed of vispo (a portmanteau of the words “visual” and “poetry") from the years 1998 to 2008, during a burst of creative activity fueled by file sharing and email, which made it possible for the vispo community to establish a more heightened and sophisticated dialogue with one another. The collection extends the dialectic between art and literature that began with ancient “shaped text,” medieval pattern poetry, and dada typography, pushing past the concrete poetics of the 1950s and the subsequent mail art movement of the 1980s to its current incarnation. Rather than settle into predictable, unchallenged patterns, this vibrant poetry seizes new tools to expand the body of work that inhabits the borderlands of visual art and poetic language.
The Last Vispo Anthology features 148 contributors from 23 countries on five continents. It includes 12 essays that illuminate the abundant history and the state of vispo today. The anthology offers a broad amalgam of long-time practitioners and poets new to visual poetry over the last decade, underscoring the longevity and the continued vitality of the art form.
(Source: Publisher's catalog description)
A homolexic translation of Evgeny Evtushenko's "Bohemian Girl."
"now we are in October era of morality
Any other other . . . pffft!"