This poem was written in response to an 1863 copy of Nature’s Secrets or Psychometric Researches by William and Elizabeth Denton as part of the Red Room Poetry’s Poetry Object project. It is also part of a larger collection of biographical poetry concerning the life of scientific lecturer, Spiritualist, and radical, William Denton (1823–1883).
This presentation will explore random e-poetry and interspecies based on two electronic works: one that intersect humanity and insect-like robotics titled “Robot-poem@s”, and an eproject/poem based on a performance with sheep: “Negro en ovejas/Black on Sheep.” Robotpoem@s consist of insect-like robots (five quadrupeds and a bigger hexapod) whose legs and bodies are engraved with the seven parts of a poem written from the robot’s point of view in bilingual format (Spanish and English). Binary constructs such as creator/creature are questioned by these creatures purposely chosen from open-source models resembling insects and spiders, thus emphasizing anxiety and removal from humans while underlying the already problematic relation between humans and technology. The final segment of the poem, number VII, rephrases the biblical pronouncement on the creation of humans, as perceived by the robot: “According to your likeness / my Image.” With this statement, the notion of creation is reformulated and bent by the power of electronics, ultimately questioning its binary foundations. An interface to explore these robopoem@s can be found at tina.escaja.com (requires Flash): http://www.uvm.edu/~tescaja/robopoems/quadrupeds.html. This interface shows the original quadrupeds with options for listening to the poems in three different languages (English, Spanish and Chinese), interacting with 3-D models of the quadrupeds, and experiencing Augmented Reality components triggered by the panels that served as matrix of the robot-poets. On the other hand, “Negro en ovejas” is a digital “ovine poem” which intersects words and sheep in an interactive poetic project that allows random poetry as created by the sheep as they graze in the pasture, a performance enhanced and extended to the possible variants created by a digital interface: https://www.badosa.com/obres/ovino/index.html This project includes, therefore, various levels of poetic action and interaction. First there is the process of constructing the text, the base-poem formed by words which have meaning in and of themselves, but also acquire new meanings by contacting with other words (the noun “Sol” - “Sun”- and the verb “Es” -“Is”- become the plural “Soles” -“Suns”- through proximity or contact). Once the written pieces are constructed, they are assigned to sheep who will freely form poems in a performance of movements and bleating which will become its own entity. Finally, when the event is transferred to the digital artefact, any web surfer can access and reproduce the process in a cybernetic interaction and in an exchange which affords them creative authorship: the web user, just like the sheep, creates the poetic experience, joining forces with the sheep as well. The presentation of the interface at ELO2019 would potentially capture some of the verses in a suggestion and proposal of new interactive dimensions. Both e-lit projects allow for a questioning of binaries and media-assumptions based on electronics, interspecies and random poetry.
As a programmable writing project, Letters from the Archiverse can be considered both a visual poem and an application. Its most current version was composed (and continues to be developed) with architectural modeling space software AutoCAD. Combining methods and techniques drawn from traditional lineages of concrete poetry and ―open-field‖ composition with 3D image modeling, the poem offers writers and viewers alike the opportunity to engage in the materiality of screen-based writing, while exploring new directions and theories in visual language art. In the current phase of the project, readers are able to explore and manipulate the poem on the iPad, using a commercial architectural drafting app.
Our demo of the app will emphasize the Archiverse project as a working model as well as a critical interrogation of the general future of digital composition tools – in a manner not dissimilar to Microsoft Word’s current technological augmentation and extension of the typewriter. Within the Archiverse, writing re-emerges as a boundary-less, multidimensional, networked field, inviting the reader to assume a position of constant ―field‖ exploration. Here, she becomes something more than a mere text producer or consumer; she takes on the roles and responsibilities of a collaborator and co-creator of a vast multimedia, intertextual cosmos.
(Source: Authors' abstract from HASTAC 2013)
