Published on the Web (online gallery)

This video poem is a celebration of Summer lived well as a child who spent most of her time outdoors, sampling and savoring what nature had to offer. The poem has a headlong energy that comes from short lines full of imagery, occasional enjambment, and a of stream-of-consciousness catalog of summer activities. The animated images reinforce the verbal imagery, creating graphical associations and occasional morphs to reinforce the sense that activities are blending seamlessly from one to the next. In the still image above, for example, we are transitioning from an image of a pencil (used to write novels up on a tree) to “chewing wheat straws” in a field— and you can see the wheat fading in while the pencil morphs/fades out. The visual and narrative parallel from beginning to end create a sense of circularity for the experiences described. And why not? Days like that are worth reliving.

(Source: Leonardo Flores)

This poem is constructed around an erotic scenario between two recurring characters in Sondheim’s writing: Nikuko “a Russian ballet dancer” and Dr. Leopold Konninger. From the loading frame in this Flash piece, we are provided a point of view as if we’re the computer and are about to enter Sondheim’s imagination, and the audio doesn’t set this up as a comforting prospect. The poem seems to be designed to disturb as images of fragmented, objectified human beings gaze at one from positions of powerlessness and empowerment. Nikuko herself is portrayed as a kind of geisha dominatrix, particularly when juxtaposed with Dr. Konninger’s post-coital supine body. Subsequent images of a pile of heads and body parts and phrases like “carnage and extasy” create an unsettling mix of death and “la petit mort.”

(Source: Leonardo Flores)

Hapax Phaenomena is a collection of historically unique images discovered by Google image search from collaborators Clement Valla and John Cayley. The fragile and tenuous Phaenomena are organized into subcategories within the five folders; 1_discordant_wonderfulness; 2_nondurable_megabyte; 3_inventive_monetarism; 4_patriotic_leaseback; and 5_diatomic_roach. Each Phaenomena is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity, a screenshot of its moment of global and historical singularity taken by one of the artists.

(Source: Rhizome project description at The Download)

Inspired by and built on Piet Mondrian’s artwork, Eric LeMay writes a poem that reacts with the surface it is written upon. Different sections in the painting and color are used to structure lines of verse, in a way that represents two voices in conversation. One of the voices wants a heron in the work, while the other one is more concerned with the aesthetics of De Stijl, which don’t leave much room for natural elements, such as herons. The poem uses a restrained sense of humor to create play between meanings of words (such as “eye” and “I”), abstraction and representation, and the senses used to experience the rich textures of Mondrian’s paintings.

(Source: Leonardo Flores)

Miles away from your average Valentine’s Day e-card, this poem superposes pithy language about sex and love on a video of a large black fish breathing through its gills as the words float before it. The sounds and image are not in the least romantic, yet reinforce the idea of embodiment, put forth in such beneficial terms.

(Source: Leonardo Flores)

The Mystery House Advance Team has reverse engineered Mystery House, the first text-and-graphics adventure game. Members of the Advance Team have reimplemented it in a modern, cross-platform, free language for interactive fiction development, and have fashioned a kit to allow others to easily modify this early game.

Modified versions of Mystery House have been created by the elite Mystery House Occupation Force, consisting of individuals from the interactive fiction, electronic literature, and net art communities:

• Adam Cadre (Varicella, Photopia)
• Daniel Garrido, a.k.a. dhan (Ocaso Mortal)
• Michael Gentry (Little Blue Men, Anchorhead)
• Yune Kyung Lee & Yoon Ha Lee (The Moonlit Tower, Swanglass)
• Nick Montfort (Ad Verbum, Implementation)
• Scott Rettberg (The Unknown, Implementation)
• Dan Shiovitz (Lethe Flow Phoenix, Bad Machine)
• Emily Short (Savoir-Faire, City of Secrets)

Visitors to the Mystery House site can play these modded games and can also create their own versions to offer online there. The Mystery House Occupation Kit allows artists and authors, with or without programming experience, to hack at and reshape Mystery House, easily modifying the "surface" aspects. Artists and writers may also choose to undertake more substantial renovations, engaging with, commenting on, and transforming an important interactive program from decades past.

Mystery House is a primitive interactive fiction for the Apple II by Ken and Roberta Williams, who published the game in 1980 through their company, On-Line Systems (later called Sierra). The game was a hit -- Sierra sold more than 10,000 copies in a very small, new market for home computer software. Mystery House accepts one- or two-word typed commands from the user and presents crude, monochrome line drawings and terse textual descriptions. In 1987, in celebration of Sierra's 7th anniversary, Mystery House was placed in the public domain. The modifiable Mystery House Taken Over reimplementation has likewise been placed in the public domain by the Advance Team.

(Source: About MHTO page on the project site)

"Dig" by Steve Duffy uses Javascript to create an elegant representation of verbal conflict in simple white text on black background. Through the use of floating frames and marquees, the harsh reality of "digs," or emotional, sarcastic jabs at a person, are cleverly represented in a case where less is more. The absence of audio allows for readers to focus where they should: the startling white text scrolling quickly along the black background. The text also moves at varying speeds from left to right and right to left, creating an interesting visual experience.

Readers get a sense of the conflict through passages like, “Everything you tell me is true but you lie lie lie," and "No-words mean more than some words. Each word worms its way out of things… Here is the blind mole driven to dig. I'm a poor creature, deluded, digging in the text. I don't believe a word of it." As the text flows in both directions, Duffy illustrates how people can dig themselves deeper and deeper as arguments escalate.

(Source: Electronic Literature Directory entry by Joy Jeffers)

"Timetrain" by Dorothee Lang is an ethereal experience created in Flash that uses the visuals of a train station in combination with audio and carefully crafted text to take the reader along for a ride. As images and phrases move across the screen and new juxtapositions are created, the reader is presented with opportunities for self-reflection. As the bottom of the picture moves to the right, forward, while the top of the picture moves to the left, backward suggesting spatial as well as temporal movements as trains "arrive" and "depart." The text floats in the middle as the pictures show a 360 degree view of the station.

(Source: Electronic Literature Directory entry by Joy Jeffers)