circularity

Questioning the notion of cybertext from Espen Aarseth (1997), beginEnd presents itself as a reflection on the mechanisms and materialities inherent in the book as an object. Beginning with the retelling of Finnegans Wake and the notion of intercircularity that characterizes this singular work of James Joyce, beginEnd is a combinatorial and continuous poem online, which reconverts in a digital transcoding the possibility of containing at one time two distinct moments.

“The Stone can only be found when the search lies heavily on the searcher. – Thou seekest hard and findest not. Seek not and thou whilst find.”

Arthur Koestler, The Act of Creation

[(DES)CONEXÃO (2018), by artist collectivewreading digits, in collaboration with media artist Pedro Ferreira, is a cyberpoetic artifact developed under the artistic residency “Realtime Runtime People”, promoted by the INVITROgerador (Universidade Aberta). Having its first instantiation [realtime], in July 2018, at Atelier Concorde Lisbon, as a #cyberpoetic installation complemented with #livecoding #liveremixing#performance, (DES)CONEXÃO was also presented at ARTeFACTo 2018, without its digital component. The intention at stake here was to reinforce itsinitial questioning – a reflection on the ways technologies alter our perception of time –, by giving visibility and expressiveness to textual and poetic layers behind the surface of the artifact. In dissecting the machine and its fragmented layers of different data, certain experimental writing techniques used, that allow us to extend the word, and therefore the text,  – such as combinatorics, literary cut-ups, or fold-ins – are cut wide open. Beyond the circular walls of its anatomical theatre, the remains of these mediated and transmutated philosophical stone(s), once modified, filtered, sublimated, multiplied, and sometimes even self-generated were revealed. In runtime.

"Consumição" ("Consumption") presents itself as a digital wordlyphagic variation of a sequence that has as its starting point the paradox between noise and silence that permeates language and communication. In a collision of centripetal and centrifugal forces between the excess of speech and the reduction of words to the (almost) silence, which at one time is exhausted and renewed, in the form of a spiral, in the curves that revolve around a certain point, moving away or approaching according to a certain law, space is opened up to the consumption of words, which are devoured, chewed, digested, and returned, to be swallowed up again.

With the classic text of Gustave Flaubert as its starting point, this multi-channel installation is scheduled for exhibition internationally from early 2014. A work about the link between capitalism and romance, Mieke Bal and Michelle Williams Gamaker’s revisionist take on the 19th century novel was filmed in Åland, Finland in summer 2012 and Paris, France in winter 2013. The installations bring together the brilliant talents of actors Marja Skaffari, Thomas Germaine and Mathieu Montanier and many others. By creating deliberate anachronism and intertextuality, the work attempts to show how Flaubert was in many ways a post-modernist and feminist. It explores the way dominant ideologies – specifically capitalism and its association with emotions, and romantic love with its commercial aspects – are still dominant after 150 years. The Madame B. installation offers a radically new interpretation of the text, replete with powerful symbolism that evokes this reimagining. In this way, it questions visually the role of women in a society driven by masculine impulses. The installation pieces explore different visual modes, and demonstrate how these have themselves the power to create an immersive experience.

(Source: http://www.miekebal.org/artworks/installations/madame-b/madame-b-instal…)

A work of interactive fiction.