Application

PataLiterator was a HyperCard system authored by mIEKAL aND, that manufactures a neologistic vocabulary, hence literature, by generating either single words or texts up to forty pages using an amenable database of phonemes and syllables. PataLiterator attempts to apply "the art of hyperpataphysics" to Alfred Jarry's late-nineteenth-century proclamations. The work opens with a screen that shows Jarry's "Ubu" and presents four buttons "About", "Help", "Start" and "More". The interface allow the viewers to produce text and alter the databases that feed the output.

(Source: Prehistoric Digital Poetry: An Archaeology of Forms by C.T Funkhouser)

Abra is an exploration and celebration of the potentials of the book in the 21st century. A collaboration between Amaranth Borsuk, Kate Durbin, Ian Hatcher, and a potentially infinite number of readers, the project merges physical and digital media, integrating a hand-made artist's book with an iPad app to play with the notion of the “illuminated” manuscript and let readers "hold the light" of language. In the artist’s book, the poems grow and mutate as the reader turns the pages, blurring the boundary between text and illumination, marginalia and body. Animating across the surface, the poems coalesce and disperse in an ecstatic helix of words, taking turns "illuminating" one another's margins and interstices.They play with the mutation of language, both by forming new portmanteaus and conjoined phrases, and also through references to fecundity as it manifests in the natural world, the body, human history, popular culture, decorative arts, and architecture, placing the shifting evolution and continuous overlap of all these spheres in dialogue with the ever-changing technology of the book. The iPad version of Abra, which provides a physical backdrop for the artist's book into which it is inserted, extends and revels in this ephemerality, putting special emphasis on interactivity to highlight the role of the reader. The poems spring to life onscreen: not only do they conjoin and separate, with a swipe of his or her finger, readers may join the collaboration and mutate the text further, creating new juxtapositions and surprising turns of phrase. Their texts provide scores for potential performances of the work, making Abra function much like the magic word of its origin–abracadabra–as an unpredictable living text. We are interested in both exhibiting the hybrid artist's book / iPad app and performing from the work. We would also be happy to give a presentation, if that is of interest. While the project is a collaboration between 3 people, only Amaranth and Ian are applying to present it. We both plan to attend the conference and are especially interested in the opportunity to expand the performative possibilities of the text, which to date has been performed by Kate and Amaranth in conjoined costume. Abra is being produced under an Expanded Artists’ Books Grant from the Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago. The project will launch this spring. For exhibition, our piece requires an iPad running iOS7 and a podium. We can provide the artist's book. For performance, we can provide iPads and adapters. Amaranth Borsuk's books include Between Page and Screen and Handiwork. She teaches at the University of Washington, Bothell. Kate Durbin's books include The Ravenous Audience and E! Entertainment, among others. She teaches at Whitter College. Ian Hatcher is a text/sound artist and programmer living in New York.

(Source: Author's abstract)

This piece won the 2017 Turn on Literature Prize.

This is a point-and-click web application that is heavily inspired by poet Edgar Allen Poe by author Herm Holland. This work won Herm Holland the student prize for the New Media Writing Prize 2014.

An infinitely scaling story about the possibilities moments can contain. Written for "Strange Times / Strange Tellers," a night of experimental fiction.

Six years ago, James – a demolition expert – returned from the Gulf War. Explore James’ mind as his vision fails and his past collides with his present. PRY is a book without borders: a hybrid of cinema, gaming, and text. At any point, pinch James’ eyes open to witness his external world or pry apart the text of his thoughts to dive deeper into his subconscious. Through these and other unique reading interactions, unravel the fabric of memory and discover a story shaped by the lies we tell ourselves: lies revealed when you pull apart the narrative and read between the lines.

(Source: http://prynovella.com)

These toponyms (names) exist throughout the world, they show the landscape and describe the context of a field. Retaining only those evocative names, Terra Incognita offers a refined mapping, cleansed of its informative layers. At a moment populated by Google Earth and omniscient views, the map in this work has no scale or legend, only the lines and contours of the coastal lakes appear on white background. It is presented as a touch screen in a device designed as a workspace, allowing for an intimate consultation. The navigation is done by meaning association, offering a sensitive and poetic movement, from a symbolic name to another.

(Source: Translation of the author's description)

Hearts and Minds: The Interrogations Project was developed at the Electronic Visualization Lab (EVL) at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) for the CAVE2™, the next-generation large-scale virtual-reality 320-degree panoramic environment which provides users with the ability to see 3D stereoscopic content in a near seamless flat LCD technology at 37 Megapixels in 3D resolution matching human visual acuity. The CAVE immerses people into worlds too large, too small, too dangerous, too remote, or too complex to be viewed otherwise. This project makes use of the CAVE environment for a multisensory artwork that addresses a complex contemporary problem: as American soldiers are returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is becoming increasingly clear that some of them participated in interrogation practices and acts of abusive violence with detainees for which they were not properly trained or psychologically prepared. This has in turn left many soldiers dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder on their return home, and left many unresolved questions about the moral calculus of using torture as an interrogation strategy in military operations. The project was developed through a unique collaboration between artists, scientists, and researchers from four Universities. The production team includes filmmaker Dr. Roderick Coover, writer Dr. Scott Rettberg, artist and visualization researcher Daria Tsoupikova, computer scientist Arthur Nishimoto, sound designer Mark Partridge, production assistant Mark Baratta, and senior research programmer Lance Long. Dr. Jeffrey Murer of St. Andrews University, Scotland also contributed as a consultant on the project. The project is based on interviews of American soldiers conducted by political scientist, Dr. John Tsukayama. (Source: Authors' Paper Introduction at VISAP Art Show 2014)

This manga-inspired graphic novel app is about thirteen-year-old Tavs, who chooses his name (meaning “silent”) when he writes a declaration to his parents: “From now on I will be silent”. The story is about the loneliness and loss Tavs feels upon the death of his twin and his family’s move to Tokyo. TAVS is a fantasy narrative with gothic, humorous and boy-meets-girl elements and references to haiku and manga. The app mixes text, music, still images, sound effects and animation into an immersive aesthetic experience. For example, as we read of Tavs’ sorrow and frustration the words begin to fall down from the screen and the reader has to take an active part in the reading process by grabbing the sentences. The chapters show great variation, operating between expressive powerful animations and stills and black pages, between strong sound effects and silence and between spoken and written words, right up to the final fight between the twins; between life and death. (source: ELO 2015 catalog)

Rimbaudelaires is an applicational program created by ALAMO (Atelier de Littérature Assistée par la Mathématique et les Ordinateurs), which was presented for the first time in 1985 during the exposition “Les Immatérieux” at the Centre Georges Pompidou (a museum that showcases new techologies) in Paris. In addition, it was presented during the exposition “Arts et Maths” at the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industries de La Villette. This applicational program uses a random function with prosodic, syntactic and semantic constraints.

This program takes the form of the well-known sonnet, “Le dormeur du val” by Arthur Rimbaud. Maintaining the same style and the same syntax, the applicational program replaces Rimbaud's traditional words that make up the poem with the lexicon of Charles Baudelaire. Upon arriving at the website, one clicks on the phrase “Un de ses sonnets,” and immediately sees a new creation. This creation is a unique poem that mixes elements from two famous 19th century poets. For example :

Le Rêveur du bonheur
C’est un lac de poitrine où passe une gamine
Embrassant librement aux anges des sommeils
D’argent ; où le plaisir de la caresse fine
Fuit : c’est un poudreux bonheur qui se rit de soleil
Un héros calme, langue étrange, gorge brune
Et la lèvre pendant dans le lourd étang froid
Croît ; il est étendu dans l’ange, sous la lune,
Calme, dans son jour plat où la verdure boit.
Les cieux dans les chagrins, il croît. Un voile rouge
Creuserait un requin sublime, il sort d’un bouge :
Montagne, berce-le vaguement : il a froid.
Les grelots ne font pas murmurer sa grimace ;
Il croît dans le désir, la nuit sur sa carcasse,
Sublime. Il a sept cieux sages au plaisir froid.

When reading this poem, generated by Rimbaudelaires with the abstraction/application technique (the abstraction of a syntactic mold and the application of this mold to a new lexicon), the reader can interpret the poem as he or she wishes, exploring the changes in a familiar poem. Here, one recognizes immediately the identical syntax and the infusion of vocabulary corresponding to the natural world from the original poem. In addition, one notes the erotic vocabulary of Baudelaire.

In keeping the rhythm, style, and syntax of Rimbaud, one discovers new elements each time he or she clicks on the mouse, changing the poem. This pastiche causes the reader to experience a slight sense of losing control when renewing the original poem because the reader is surprised each time that the poem changes. This mix of the Baudelarian lexicon with the body of the poem “Le dormeur du val” regenerates the literature of the 19th century.

(Source: Amy E. Laws)