Holographic poetry is better understood in the context of the multiple directions that visual poetry took in the twentieth century, and in order to make clear some theoretical issues of holopoetry which will be discussed ahead I shall proceed to summarize some of the highlights in the development of this literary genre.
The words in "Secret" are dispersed in the semantic darkness of a potential space. The reader is invited to navigate this space and create verbal and visual links between immaterial presences, voids, and distant signs. This VRML navigational poem was the first poem written directly in VRML.
(author description)
A delicate and silent animation. It suggests an inebriate mental state in which foreground and background blend in almost undifferentiated fashion. The poem articulates the fleeting apparitions of the words from within themselves, as if one word would write another. Words will momentarily manifest themselves in unexpected areas on the screen, often bordering the very edge. The piece communicates as much through the verbal apparitions as it does through their carefully orchestrated evanescence.
(Source: Author's Description)
A 7-minute, single-channel digital videopoem (edition of 5). This work takes language into a domain of trance where the subtle dissolution and reconfiguration of verbal particles is charged with a feeling that is at once calm and tense.
(source: author)
Collection ZKM Museum, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany (1/5)
Collection Museo extremeño e iberoamericano de arte contemporáneo, Badajoz, Spain (2/5)
Collection Alfredo Hertzog da Silva, São Paulo (3/5)
Private collection, Miami (4/5)
This is the first poem written specifically for Internet 2. The poem is a world with 24 avatars, each a different word. Each reader, in order to read the poem, must establish his or her own presence in this textworld through a verbal avatar. As remote participants choose a word and log on with their word-avatar, they contribute with their word choices to determine the semantic sphere of that particular readerly experience. Once in the world, they make decisions about where to go. In so doing, they move towards or away from other words (i.e., towards or away from other participants), producing a syntax of transient meanings based on the constant movement, as well as the approximation and isolation of the words. For example: the word “blood” moving towards the word “abloom” has a very different meaning from the word“titanium” moving away from the word “violet”. Here is the complete list of avatars readers may choose from: abloom, blood, canyon, daze, eleventh, fabric, grace, hour, ion, jet, kayak, lumen, mist, nebula, oblivion, pluvial, quanta, radial, sole, titanium, umbra, violet, xeric, year, zenith. This poem was experimentally read online throughout 1999 using a special server in the Art and Technology Department of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
(source: author)
In this looped and silent installation-poem 7-foot tall letters are projected against the wall. They emerge out of focus on the right, move across diagonally into focus, and disappear again out of focus to the left. Literal and at the same time metaphorical, the verbal material evokes multiple analogies: "Nothing Above To Left Or Right Nothing Below".
(source: author)
Runtime looped animation in which language continuously emerges and disappears. As a speech fragment is repeated and letters disappear from it, new meanings emerge.
(source: author)
An interactive hypertext piece based on the sefirotic tree of the Kabbalah. "Storms" is organized in vocalic and consonantal bifurcations. To navigate through the poem one is invited to click on a letter at any given time. In some instances, navigation can also take place by clicking outside the word. If the reader does not make a choice, that is, if he or she does not click on a vowel or consonant, or in some instances also on empty space, the reader will remain stationary. The poem does not have an ending. This means that one can continue to explore different textual navigation possibilities or quit at anytime. Originally a Hypercard stack, it is available below in an identical Flash translation. (source: author)
Minitel animated poem shown online in the group exhibition Brazil High-Tech (1986), a minitel art gallery organized by Eduardo Kac and Flavio Ferraz and presented by Companhia Telefônica de São Paulo. Upon close scrutiny, the apparently random letters and numbers that form the bardcode reveal hidden meanings (in Portuguese). When viewers logged on they first saw a black screen. Then, a small white rectangle appeared in the middle of the screen. Slowly, vertical bars descended inside the horizontal rectangle. At the bottom, viewers saw apparently random letters and numbers, reminding one of conventional bar codes. Upon close scrutiny the reader noticed that the letters formed the word "Deus" (God, in Portuguese). The spacing of the letters revealed "eu" (I, in Portuguese) inside "Deus". The numbers were not random either. They indicated the date when the work was produced and uploaded to the Brazilian videotex network.
(Source: Author)
Minitel animated poem shown online in the group exhibition Brazil High-Tech (1986), a minitel art gallery organized by Eduardo Kac and Flavio Ferraz and presented by Companhia Telefônica de São Paulo. Letters forming the word "caos" (chaos, in Portuguese) ricochet off the edge of the screen to simultaneously form the open-ended hourglass outline and the infinity symbol. As they zigzag, the letters overlap suggesting new meanings.
