To: ".dirtee codah."
Date: Monday April 7, 2008 8:11pm
Subject:Subject: mez[angelle]. [[Int.errupt[ing] you.r
<< r [ea].Der ] [s norma.
t-iv. e r[[eadin.g pro.
c[ess]]]es [[[[[[[]]]]]]]]] + &p.us [h]ing.
A]]gain.st line[ar] . writ.ing
[M]od.es are strategies em[ploy]ed
by many writers, [artist]s. T[he]
[a] in. [t]er[active. web wri.tinG /
c.oDe poet.ry] [[[ of.
[M][ez] (or [M]ary Anne Bre[e]ze).
i.s en.gag.ing []]]]]]
i.n this kind of a pract[[[[ [ice
b[u]t [up] [on]] a part.I.cularly i.nte.rest.Ing scale.
Mezangelle (the language Mez is writing in) forces together human reader codings and computer reader codings and has developed as a language over the last twelve or thirteen years.
While it looks visually interesting, I encourgae one to absolutely experiment with reading Mezangelle aloud.
I should point out that above is an "imitation" of Mezangelle, and that such a rendition of Mezangelle actually takes it out of its original web context, where hypertextual links activate the virtual dimensionality - you can view an example of Mez's work - pro] [tean] [.lapsing.txts. - by clicking here.
Mezangelle exceeds a "restricted economy of meaning".
An endless variety of reading effects and possibilities are created by non-normative usages of punctuation, syntax and word fragmentation. What is interesting about Mez’s work besides its interruption of normative reading processes is that I noticed many different things about my own personal reading procedure and how I usually "work through" any piece of writing. I typcially experience a lot of horizontal backwards-forwards movement during reading (not dissimilar to most reading of normative print books where reader's often flick back and forth between pages). So while Mez interrupts our normative reading procedures, an awareness of what constitutes normative reading procedures is potentiated.
I engaged in multiple re-readings (and re-articulatings) of syntactic flows, creating shifting and mutliple dynamic specificities, concerning namely pace and "meaning" (usually at the level of a word or "sentence"/"line"). These altered depending on what “interruptions” I recognized and how I recognized them, and in what o[h]r.d[e]e[a]r.
The combination of human and computer reader coding creates tension not only betwen processes of writing and reading, but the multiple and diverse processes of reading. Mez evades conventional poetic undertakings by illustrating that poetry itself cannot be contained by normativity. pro] [tean] [.lapsing.txts. for example, displays the process of its own making, that which constitutes it, as a piece of writing. It requires a reader to navigate both the hyperlinks and linguistic irregularities, to engage in "paradgimatic reading". Reading over or past these non-conventional "interuptions" results in flattening linguistic embodiment into mere furnishings or accoutrements.
Be directed to other projects by Mez by clicking here and link to _knott404_ a very interesting blog project.
Showing posts with label E-Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label E-Poetry. Show all posts
Monday, April 7, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Fields of Dream - How To Write a Poem, Randomness & Anti-Randomness
The small, not like careened around the bend, nearing the burnt, it was a bloody stars day for sighing heavily in the christened crash sighing
Maw bit ate a clefting parchment and fell into a cuddle, leaving home it was a raining night as "animal" talk to me
The tight, blackened careened around the bend, nearing the burning holes, it was a stampingly day for nevertheless in the dusky aeons
Tell like cold, and with decided warbling over.
The lines of the poem above were created using Fields of Dream, a literary game where participants can do one or both of the following two things. They can write fill-in-the-blank texts, called dreamfields, that are then left as templates on the site for someone else to populate, with their own words. Or participants can blindly combine their own words with the words of the template, so within the dreamfields, that have been set up and left by previous users. The participant is blindly combining words because they do not know what the dreamfield they are inserting their own words into actually looks like. A template never exists for long, ten dreamfields are always available and by creating a new one, an existing one is erased, similar to a dream that may be forgotten upon waking up. It soon becomes obvious that there is no randomness within fields of dream; fields of dream explains “we are anti-randomness. Or rather, any randomness should come from [the participant's] mind, not from the server's pseudorandom number generator”, or aleatory computer generated procedures. For example, you may enter any word or part of speech when it asks for a noun - “There is no provision for editing what you have submitted; we are anti-editing, just write what you feel like writing at the moment and throw your words together with someone else's.” So while the participants inserted words may be completely "random", the template within which they are working is somewhat deterministic. The radomness is always determined, not by what a participant writes in - but by way of the syntactic structure of the lines. Compare the first and third lines of my poem. The project is collaboration between Nick Montfort and Rachel Stevens. Click here to play Fields of Dream.
Maw bit ate a clefting parchment and fell into a cuddle, leaving home it was a raining night as "animal" talk to me
The tight, blackened careened around the bend, nearing the burning holes, it was a stampingly day for nevertheless in the dusky aeons
Tell like cold, and with decided warbling over.
The lines of the poem above were created using Fields of Dream, a literary game where participants can do one or both of the following two things. They can write fill-in-the-blank texts, called dreamfields, that are then left as templates on the site for someone else to populate, with their own words. Or participants can blindly combine their own words with the words of the template, so within the dreamfields, that have been set up and left by previous users. The participant is blindly combining words because they do not know what the dreamfield they are inserting their own words into actually looks like. A template never exists for long, ten dreamfields are always available and by creating a new one, an existing one is erased, similar to a dream that may be forgotten upon waking up. It soon becomes obvious that there is no randomness within fields of dream; fields of dream explains “we are anti-randomness. Or rather, any randomness should come from [the participant's] mind, not from the server's pseudorandom number generator”, or aleatory computer generated procedures. For example, you may enter any word or part of speech when it asks for a noun - “There is no provision for editing what you have submitted; we are anti-editing, just write what you feel like writing at the moment and throw your words together with someone else's.” So while the participants inserted words may be completely "random", the template within which they are working is somewhat deterministic. The radomness is always determined, not by what a participant writes in - but by way of the syntactic structure of the lines. Compare the first and third lines of my poem. The project is collaboration between Nick Montfort and Rachel Stevens. Click here to play Fields of Dream.
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