script

Flocks of books open and close, winging their way web-ward. A reader is cast adrift in a sea of white space veined blue by lines of longitude, of latitude, of graph, of paper. The horizon extends far beyond the bounds of the browser window, to the north, south, east and west. Navigating this space (with track pad, touch screen, mouse or arrow keys) reveals that this sea is dotted with islands… and by islands I mean paragraphs. These fluid texts are continuously recomposed by JavaScript files calling upon variable strings containing words and phrases collected from a vast literary corpus – Deleuze’s Desert Islands (2004), Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1610–11), Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), Bishop’s Crusoe in England (1971), Coetzee’s Foe (1966), Ballard’s Concrete Island (1973), Hakluyt’s Voyages and Discoveries (1598–1600), Darwin’s Voyages of the Beagle (1838), and many other lesser-known sources including an out-of-date guidebook to the Scottish Isles, and an amalgam of accounts of the classical and quite possibly fictional island of Thule. Individually, each of these textual islands represents a topic – from the Greek topos, meaning place. Collectively they constitute a topographical map of a sustained practice of reading and re-reading and writing and re-writing on the topic of islands. In this constantly shifting sea of variable texts a reader will never wash ashore on the same island twice… and by islands, I really do mean paragraphs.

(Source: Author's description)

Scriptpoemas (2005-) is a collection of poems or “poemas” which is still being written by Antero de Alda. He was described by Rui Torres as an explorer of “new paths for computer-animated poetry” (Torres, 2008). These short and (apparently) ready-to-consume poems were created using Flash, Javascript and ActionScript and they often enact the activity or attribute described in their title. Each poem seems to convey the literal meaning of the words used to describe them: the “poem in prison” is presented behind bars, the “spherical poem” can be described as a round object. However, as soon as the poems are activated by the reader, new details begin to surface. Antero de Alda makes use of the digital environment to uncover the many faces of a poem and the evasiveness of language. The arbitrariness of signs is, after all, widely explored by Alda in each poem. Nothing is what it seems and icons, concepts or famous photographs are defamiliarized and turned into traps designed to betray the reader’s senses. Verses, stanzas and verbal language are reshaped as, or intertwined with, icons, images, sounds and animations. These are not straightforward representations of objects, but particles of an ongoing reflection on language, literature and life.

So far, the following poems have been included in Scriptpoemas: Poema a 33 Rpm [33 RPM poem]; Poema Avariado [broken poem]; Poema na Prisão [poem in prison]; Poema para Jogar [playable poem]; Poema Suicida [suicidal poem]; Poema Pornográfico [pornographic poem]; Poema Zoom; Túnel de Poemas [tunnel of poems]; Sementeira de Poemas [seedbed of poems]; Poema Negro [dark poem]; Poema Ilegível [unreadable poem]; Poema Objecto; Poema Graffiti; Poema Embrião [embrio poem]; Poema Código de Barras [barcode poem]; Poema Habitado [inhabited poem]; Poema de Pedra [stone poem]; Poema Camuflado [undercover poem]; Poema Em Viagem [travelling poem]; Poema Trapezista [trapeze poem]; Poema à Lupa [poem through a magnifying glass]; Galeria de Poemas [gallery of poems]; Poema Puzzle; Livro de Poemas [book of poems]; Poema de Artifício [fireworks’ poem]; Poema Relógio [clock poem]; Poema Tremido [shaky poem]; Arquivo de Poemas [poems’ archive]; Poema na Tv [poem on TV]; Poema de Natal [Christmas poem]; Para não Esquecer [not to forget]; Manta de Poemas [quilt of poems]; Poema Carambola [carom poem]; Poema Carambola 1; Poema Reflexo [reflection poem]; Poema Escondido [hidden poem]; Poema Mensagem [message poem]; Poema de Passagem [stop by poem]; Poema Cinético [kinetic poem]; Poema Translúcido [translucent poem]; Poema Iluminado [illuminated poem]; Poema Diário [daily poem]; Poema Saltitante [hopping poem]; Poema Festivo [merry poem]; Poema em Construção [poem under construction]; Poema Intermitente [intermittent poem]; Poema Adesivo [adhesive poem]; Poema Declamado [recited poem]; Poema Declamado 1; Poema às Moscas [dusty old poem]; Poema às Feras [poem thrown to the beasts]; Poemas Entrelaçados [interlaced poems]; Poema (Im)Possível [(im)possible poem]; Poema no Espaço [poem in space]; Poema Esférico [spherical poem]; Poema Caleidoscópio [kaleidoscopical poem]; Poema Cibernético [cybernetic poem]; Poema Dactilografado [typed poem]; Poema Galáctico [galactic poem]; Poema em Código [poem in code]; Poema Arrastado [dragged poem]; Poema Colorido [colorful poem]; Poema Serpente [serpent poem]; Poema Centrífugo [centrifugal poem]; Googlepoema; Poema Telegráfico [telegraphic poem]; Poema Antifascista [anti-fascist poem]; Poema Psicadélico [psychedelic poem]; Poema Esqueleto [skeleton poem]; Poema Matrix; Poema Cativo [captive poem]; Poema Óptico [optical poem]; Poema Rotativo [rotative poem]; Poema Em Casa [poem at home]; Poema Subaquático [underwater poem]; Poema de Amor [love poem]; Poema por Tamanho [custom size poem]; Poema do Mar [sea poem]; Poema Ao Luar [poem under the moonlight]; Poema à Janela [poem at the window]; Poema de Pesquisa [research poem]; Poema Americano [American poem]; Micropoema; Poema Circulante [circulating poem]; Poema Flutuante [floating poem]; Poema ao Vento [poem to the wind]; Poema Elástico [elastic poem]; O Rasto do Poema [the poem’s trace].

References: Torres, Rui (2008). "Scriptpoemas' introduction", in http://www.anterodealda.com/scriptpoemas.htm.

The title of this book, pronounced “shebang,” consists of the first two characters of most files containing scripts or interpreted programs. The “shebang” tells the system to use whatever follows to run the file — that the file is a Perl, or Python, or Ruby, or other program. “Shebang” also means “the entire universe of things that is under consideration,” as in “the whole shebang.” The book is a contribution to conceptual writing, published by a small press, most known to readers by word of mouth or via independent bookstores. It is an essentially subversive offering; having no words, letters, or even numbers in the title is, thus, appropriate.

(Source: Nick Montfort at http://http://nomnym.com/successes.html)

#! (pronounced “shebang”) consists of poetic texts that are presented alongside the short computer programs that generated them. The poems, in new and existing forms, are inquiries into the features that make poetry recognizable as such, into code and computation, into ellipsis, and into the alphabet. Computer-generated poems have been composed by Brion Gysin and Ian Sommerville, Alison Knowles and James Tenney, Hugh Kenner and Joseph P. O’Rourke, Charles O. Hartman, and others. The works in #! engage with this tradition of more than 50 years and with constrained and conceptual writing. The book’s source code is also offered as free software. All of the text-generating code is presented so that it, too, can be read; it is all also made freely available for use in anyone’s future poetic projects.

(Source: http://counterpathpress.org/nick-montfort)

A search engine poem which is part of a set of 88 scripted poems, scriptpoemas (2005-).

My work involves making marks with a rhythmical distribution of signs on a surface. Not just drawing on a surface but also physically changing it.

The work 2 sides/2 lados is a mixture of drawing, laser cut, wall drawing and book art. Passing from one technique/material to another the invented script undergoes transformation. The initial drawn script is digitally manipulated and cut from the paper to leave voids – the marks appear by their absence. The same marks are then transferred manually to a corner wall.

My current practice is concerned with finding a way of synthesizing the duality generated by site-specific works to produce work which involves a site-specific element and a broader element, but whose elements are integral – there no longer being an original and a copy or a site-specific version and a documentary version. Each is part of the work in its entirely – yet each is independent.

A story of love, and after-love. Eternity is a fickle thing, and the moments just keep coming. Clouds shift, the sun moves past, and squirrels are collecting nuts, so where does that leave us?

Into the Green Green Mud is an ode to change & impermanence, both in content and medium. Starting from a simple text “script” we are creating a number of inter-related “performances” in various media. This version includes text, images, code, and animation, with a soundtrack that you can download and listen to. Future versions might include a printed book, a live multimedia performance, sky writing, or anything else we decide to explore.

TRANS.MISSION [A.DIALOGUE] is a computer-generated dialogue, a literary narrative of generations of transatlantic migration, a performance in the form of a conversation, an encoded discourse propagating across, beyond, and through long-distance communications networks. One JavaScript file sits in one directory on one server attached to a vast network of hubs, routers, switches, and submarine cables through which this one file may be accessed many times from many places by many devices. The mission of this JavaScript is to generate another sort of script. The call “function produce_stories()” produces a response in the browser, a dialogue to be read aloud in three voices: Call, Response, and Interference; or: Strophe, Antistrophe, and Chorus; or Here, There, and Somewhere in Between.