changing text

When materials that support texts change, the content have to change. Matters is a physical reflection on how the materiality could affect the text. From ceramic tiles to displays, each new supporting material has opened new possibilities for writing.

The support does more than sustain the text, it limits and potentiates it at the same time. The rules of the text are established thanks to these materials, which are implemented as a medium for the text. The physical, the chemical, the sociology, and the politics of these mediums definitively influence the literary use of the ideas.

The change in supporting materials allow us to tap into new possibilities that poetry has the pleasure of exploring and amplifying. Similarly, the poetic endeavour is obligated to question the physical, chemical, social, and political limitations of either medium as a support for the text. The expressive reflection allows the revision of rules established by the use of either format and, perhaps, generates new uses of a medium; or in an extreme case, generates a new medium for the diffusion of the text.

In this case, a combination of nonconventional materials has been used in the text, which are manipulated thanks to the use of simple electronics that creates magnetic fields either through audio to generate vibrations or through a sequential movement.

Drawer 1 – “Paper alive”: we use speakers to create a surface in constant vibration on which we will place a mixing of non-newtonian fluid. The system respond by a proximity sensor: The closer the viewer to the drawer, the greater vibration intensity of the surface. The vibration excite the non-Newtonian fluid allowing the viewer to read some parts of the text that lies beneath the surface.

Drawer 2 – “Blot alive”: This work requires a slow reading. This installation use a iron fillings, which will be manipulated with magnets to travel over a fixed text that never will be totally displayed. The blot moves very slowly and will cover parts of the text which meaning will be constantly changing through the movement of the magnetic filaments.

The generative hyperfiction its name was Penelope is a collection of memories in which a woman photographer recollects the details of her life.Like a photos in a photo album, each lexia represents a picture from the narrator's memory, so that the work is the equivalent of a pack of small paintings or photographs that the computer continuously shuffles. The reader sees things as she sees them and observes her memories come and go in a natural, yet nonsequential manner that creates a constantly changing order -- like the weaving and reweaving of Penelopeia's web.Begun in 1988, the work was exhibited in a computer-mediated artists book version at the Richmond Art Center in Richmond, California in 1989. It has been re-created through the years. Four versions have been identified by Dene Grigar, in Rebooting Electronic Literature: Documenting Pre-Web Born Digital Media: Version 1.0: "The exhibition version." Created in 1989 with Malloy's own generative hypertext authoring system, Narrabase II, in BASIC on a 3.5-inch floppy diskVersion 2.0: "The Narrabase Press version." Published in 1990, this version is an extensive revision of the 1989 version and features a new cover and the edited text; it was released on a 5.25-inch floppy disk, self-published via Narrabase Press, and distributed by Art Com Software. She reports that she may have produced copies on 3.5-inch floppy disks for later requestsVersion 3.0: "The Eastgate version." This version is a retooling of Version 2.0 by Mark Bernstein from the original BASIC program into the Storyspace aestheticVersion 3.1: Published on 3.5-inch floppy disk for both Mac and PC formats by Eastgate Systems, Inc. in 1993 but copyrighted in 1992Version 3.2: Published on CD-ROM in 1998 with no changes from the original. This version does not appear on the Eastgate Systems, Inc. websiteVersion 4.0: "The Scholar's version." Created under the auspices of the Critical Code Studies Working Group 2016 from Jan 18 to Feb 14, 2016 as a DOSBox emulation of Version 3.0 and includes uses the new text and translations of the Odyssey by the authorA special note: An iPad version has been in development since 2012 by Eastgate Systems, Inc. It was designed with the same aesthetic as Version 3.0 but used the affordance of mobile touch technology for its functionality. To date, it has not been completed. its name was Penelope was reviewed in The New York Times Book Review,  Washington Post Book World, The Bay Guardian, Postmodern Culture, the Chicago Tribune, Poets & Writers, MFS Modern Fiction Studies, American Book Review, San Francisco Chronicle, among others.  It was exhibited at the 2012 MLA Convention, The Electronic Literature Organization Conference, the University of Nevada, Reno, The Space, Boston, MA, and the Richmond Art Center, and, among many other collections,  is included in the Poetry Center and American Poetry Archive (video of reading) and the NYC Museum of Modern Art's special collections. (1990 Narrabase Press edition)