irony

An interactive e-poem.

Try our useful online tool to find new meaning in your life. Give it a spin and see which dictum, watchword, slogan, epigram, mantra, motto, pitch, patter or spiel fortune favours for you!

A Revolution of Words invites the speculative reader to Spin the Revolution and thus a play on words becomes a game of chance where meaning is at stake.

Concept and words by runran, UI design and codework by crissxross, graphics curated by runran.

The last collaboration for R3M1XW0RX between its founder Randy Adams (aka runran) and Christine Wilks (aka crissxross).

In memory of Randy Adams (1951-2014).

Épigrammes created by Jean-Pierre Balpe in 1997 and published in DOC(K)S/ alire 10 is a text generator that formulates epigrams or short satirical writings. These satirical writings use sarcasm and irony to show truths of human beings, or rather, delicate truths that are normally private. The role of the viewer is to examine the generated fragments and to find the links within the text. The viewer always has his/her own history that contributes to the sense of the text. Therefore, the viewer is never naïve, and, according to Balpe, each time that the viewer reads the work, he/she sees a new text that provides the opportunity for a new meaning. Each short epigram describes or speaks of a different situation for one or several characters, and these small anecdotes show thematic coherences. The women in the epigrams swear and gossip about the superiority of women, creating a satirical, often sarcastic, theme of the higher morality of women that is proven or established with a false assurance by the feminine characters. One epigram says : “Evelyne glose, Evelyn jase tout le temps, Ses compétences sont reconnues de tous, Tout un chacun déclarerait ses mérites, et proclamerait sa supériorité…” In the epigrams with masculine characters, the text offers a different tone that consists of the use of satire and sarcasm in a pejorative sense, which is also often vulgar. A strong coherence of theme is not evident between the two sexes, but, one could say that the characters show the faults and the traits of humanity according to Balpe. The repetition of phrases and forms in the epigrams also adds a thematic and structural coherence. In the two epigrams that follow, the structures repeat and follow a formula found in the other epigrams. The formula consist of a name, then an ellipsis (that suggests the elimination of information), and then three lines (with the same general sense and format), followed by an ellipsis and an expression or a proverb. « Zoé… Zoé jure que la femme est l’avenir de l’homme, Elle l’assure, elle le promet Le souvenir n’est jamais certain … La douleur embellit l’écrevisse. » « Guillaume… Evelyne dit : la femme est l’avenir de l’homme, Il l’affirme, il le répète Rien n’est sûr à qui se souvient… A toute chose sa saison. » The phrase that repeats itself, « la femme est l’avenir de l’homme », references a verse in « Le Fou d’Elsa » by the poet Louis Aragon. This use of phrases as repeating scriptions, as well as structural forms, is a mark of a generator, but Balpe uses repetition to give an impression of coherence that supports the interpretation of the theme. Balpe strongly uses satire in the words of the generator that shows the two sexes in a pejorative sense. The text comments on humanity and life with an underlying dark tone: « La vie n’est pas un long fleuve tranquille ».

Simanowski considers that Barbosa “deconstruct[s] its form by running it through his text generator. (…) The outcome is predictably absurd and humorous, and portrays wild deviations from the mundane occurrences found in the original. Applying the chance procedures of a text generator to this poem inevitably subverts the status quo of his subject. It spices up the boring life of the city man by turning the depressing poem into seasoned surrealist lines. The form of the computer-generated text responds to the chosen content of the database. The result seems to declare that there is no other chance than accepting the chance. (…) Although the content of the outcome is owned by the machine, the meaning belongs to the human behind it (…)” (2011: 102-103).

In this second volume of Cybernetic Literature, which is devoted to fiction, Barbosa publishes a narrative synthesizer, addressing the concept of “matrix-text” as a transformable grid by the computer program. Being aware that in the fictional field there is a concern for semantic and narrative coherence, the author publishes the most interesting outputs of the variants of the series “Era Uma Vez...” [Once Upon a Time...], “Fábulas” [Fables], “Histórias dum Baralho de Cartas” [Stories of a Deck of Cards] and, finally, “História dum Homem Citadino” [Cityman Story], whose literary reception has been more explored, e.g. Christopher Funkhouser (2007) and Roberto Simanowski (2011), who curiously read it as a poem.

[Source: Álvaro Seiça, "A Luminous Beam: Reading the Portuguese Electronic Literature Collection" (2015)]

C()n Du It is a volume of poetic audio-videoclips, presenting the most important phenomena of visual culture and asking questions about a man’s place in the online sphere and about identity in the era of avatars. Intense, expressive and ironic pictures, show in an epigrammatic form our daily internet ‘rituals’, like clicking, posting, chatting. References to animation, film, advertisement or video games create dynamic, expansive clips. No ‘dry bones’, using a metaphor from ‘logical poem’, but a truly ‘fleshy’ poetry, precise and firm. The style of the whole volume may be described as a ‘post-Atari’, with green color reminding of system commands and simple font expressing nostalgia for the uncomplicated, 8-bit world. The spectator is forced to simultaneously cope with the picture and sound and experiences a true stereophonic reality. In so uncertain 20th century a man is a constantly reborn avatar, a pixel or just a printed circuit on the motherboard of society.

“Seattle Drift” leads us to think about different poetic “scenes” and how a text can enter and exit these poetic traditions through the deceptively simple mechanism of “drifting.”

(Source: Leonardo Flores, I ♥ E-Poetry)

"Cunnilingus in North Korea" is a work that challenges both the political system of North Korea and the sexualisation of Western Society. The voice in the work is that of Kim Jong-Ill and the text presented as a speech.

Brainstrips, a series of comic strips for the web, explores key concepts in philosophy, science, and math. Each work is created in Flash and includes text, animations, audio, and video. "Deep Philosophical Questions" (2008), answers six important questions that slip between the cracks of serious philosophy, into a place where logic and pedantry have no play. This work uses copyright-free comic strips from the Golden Age of Comics (American comic books created in the 1930s and 1940s). The strips have been re-colored and digitally edited to enhance their clarity and to accommodate new dialog boxes and Flash animations. "Science For Idiots" (2009), explains some of the greatest science puzzles of our time. This work uses comics and clipart images that have been digitally edited and then animated to create a multimedia story event for the viewer. Sound is also an integral part of the story, and it has been layered into each segment of the piece. The final result is a dynamic visual and auditory experience for the reader, and a closer look at the potential within animated strips on the web. "Higher Math" (2009), examines key concepts in math: addition, subtraction, irrational numbers, multiplication, geometry, and the Googolplex. Each concept has a human element, and their commonality, a bridge between math and ethics. These three works use images, video, and audio files acquired online, and modified by the artist. A credits page is included in the work.

(Source: Author's description from Electronic Literature Collection, Volume Two)