colour

Transient self–portrait is an artistic research project questioning notions of reading and the electronic medium while exploring the possibilities of coding to interact with the work. I take as the point of departure two pivotal sonnets in Spanish literature that are normally studied alongside each other, En tanto que de rosa y azucena by Garcilaso de La Vega, a 16th Century Spanish poet, using Italian Renaissance verse forms and Mientras por competir con tu cabello by Luís de Gongora, a 17th Century Spanish poet from the Baroque period. Gongora's sonnet is a homage to Garcilaso's and the styles and the cultural aspects that appear on the sonnets are very different reflecting the attitudes from the Renaissance and the Baroque. This project is a response to some of the concepts that emerge from these sonnets; ephemerality of life, consummation, transient entities, fragility, which are also relevant to our age and the electronic world we inhabit. The creative process is that of producing, reflecting, programming and testing the medium to explore these notions in an electronic media society of dialogues with self-images, engaging the participant in a reading experience of ‘in’ and ‘out’ of language, via webcams and interactive aesthetics. The sonnets pass from different stages of written, visual, aural, language and code to dissipate into nothing.