DIGITAL POETRY
Jorge Luiz
Antonio (1)
In broad terms, the constituents digital poetry are: the existence of a
computer (hardware and software); digitality; the
presence of infographic images; the existence of a
kind of poeticity, with or without the presence of
the word; sounds associated with words or music, integrated to the whole set;
the plural signification of the infographic image,
whether associated with words or not; the possibility of interaction with the
digital text, through an interface, including the possibility of modifying it;
the constant use of intertextuality, hypertextuality; and storage on magnetic media such as
video-cassettes, cassette-tapes, floppy, zip or hard disks, cd-rom
– although this does not rule out storage on paper, either partially or
totally.
The use of a computer, even if we are reading a piece of traditional
literature such as a sonnet, implies a mediation which alters the final product
(2). Access to poetry through a machine is totally different from opening a
book, a magazine, a newspaper, or a copybook. The computer re-makes the text
(3).
If mapping the constituents of digital poetry has been a constant
problem, finding a denomination has been equally difficult. Below is a
non-exhaustive list of terms which have been used at different times, sorted
into alphabetical order:
Autopoems – Theo Lutz,
http://www.stuttgarter-schule.de/lutz_schule_en.htm
(English)
http://www.stuttgarter-schule.de/lutz_schule.htm
(German)
Cin(E)Poetry
- creative work of film and poetic video makers. The group involved is called
LTV (Literary Television), from the
George Aguilar´s site, the creator of the
concept of cin(E)poetry: http://www.george.aguilar.com/
Click poetry – David Knoebel
(
Knoebel’s site: http://home.ptd.net/~clkpoet/maincont.html
Computer poem - Théo Lutz (1959,
www.unibuc.ro/eBooks/filologie/derer/balestrini/1.htm
Cyberpoetry (4) - For Barbosa
(1996), it is essentially permutational poetry, and
for Capparelli and Gruzynski
(1996), it is a visual and interactive poetry adequate to the digital and
electronic media; the term is also used by Komninos Zervos and Brian Kim Stefans.
Sérgio Capparelli
and Ana Cláudia Gruzynski’s site: http://www.ciberpoesia.com.br/
Komninos Zervos (Australia): http://www.gu.edu.au/ppages/K_Zervos
Brian Kim Stefans’s site: http://www.ubu.com/papers/ol/stefans.html
Cybervisual - named by
E. M. de Melo e Castro for a series of infopoems which were presented in a collective exhibition
in
Diagram-poem - non-linear experiences by Jim
Rosenberg since 1966, with a series of multi-linear poems called "Word
Nets", that, from 1968 on, evolved into the
"Diagram Poems".
Jim Rosemberg’s site: http://well.com/user/jer/diags4/d4.1.html
Digital Clip-poem - Augusto de Campos in his site
(1997).
Augusto de Campos’s site: http://www.uol.com.br/augustodecampos
Digital poetry - newspaper Folha
de S. Paulo (1999); term used since 1990, especially derived from digital
poetics. Also a generic name of the E Poetry – An
International Digital Poetry Festival (
Electric word - although using word,
instead of poetry, Jim Andrews presents some considerations about the
use of the poetic word in a digital-electronic context. (Andrews
1997-1999). It is also a title of Richard Lanham's book.
Jim Andrews’s site: http://www.vispo.com
Electronic poetry or e-poetry – generic name given to
poetic works on computer (Funkhouser 1996); a general
denomination which has been confirmed by some research centers and universities
as EPC – Electronic Poetry Center (http://epc.buffalo.edu),
directed by Charles Bernstein and Loss Pequeño
Glazier, at the Suny in Buffalo, USA, British
Electronic Centre(http://www.bepc.info), United Kingdom, ELO – Electronic Literature Organization (http://www.eliterature.org/), held in
New York, which deals with electronic poetry and literature, NZEPC – New
Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre (http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/about.ptml),
and others.
E-Poetry - Subtitle of Glazier’s book (2002) and the name of the
International Digital Poetry Festival occurred in State of New York University in
E Poetry Festivals since 2001: http://epc.buffalo.edu/e-poetry/festival.html
Experimental poetry - name adopted by many countries,
poets and poetic movements: the Portuguese Experimental Poetry (decades of 60's
and 70's), a general Hispanic-Brazilian-American movement, according to Clemente Padin, from 1950 to
Clemente Padin’s
EPE Estúdio de Poesia
Experimental in the url: http://www.pucsp.br/~cos-puc/epe/index.html
Galleries and net anthologies - texts
blocks or galleries, more specifically visual poems (Capparelli
et al 2000).
Holopoetry - denomination given by Eduardo Kac
in 1983.
Kac’s site: http://www.ekac.org/holopoetry.html
Hypermedia poetry- "includes
graphics, moving visual images, and soundfiles linked
with (or instead of) printed text; a variety of intertextual
associations and graphical combinations are possible" (Funkhouser
1996). A Brazilian example is Andre Vallias’s Aleer: Uma Antologia Laboríntica (site: http://www.refazenda.com.br/aleer/).
Hypercard: Alphabetic
and visual texts are arranged on a series of digital filecards
and linked to each other; some files include sound; the supercard
enables the use of video (Funkhouser 1996).
Hypertext: Historically, written text only, with links to
other writing; some titles include static visual images; gradually evolving (Funkhouser 1996).
Hipertextual
poetry - George Landow (1995), use
of non-linear model, applying hypertext.
Infopoetry (5) - Melo e Castro, with two different meanings, one in Álea e Vazio (1971)
and another, in the paper The Cryptic Eye at Yale University in 1995.
Internet poetry – poetry which
circulates in emails through Internet.
Interpoetry or hypermedia
interactive poetry - Philadelpho Menezes and Wilton Azevedo’s cd-rom title and theory (Antonio: 2001)
Intersign poetry - Menezes (s.d.) in the Estúdio de Poesia Experimental (Studio of Experimental Poetry) at the
Communication and Semiotics Program at PUC SP.
Studio of Experimental Poetry site: http://www.pucsp.br/~cos-puc/epe
Kinetic poetry - poetic genre in which animations
are created in poetry by means of various techniques (Capparelli
et al 2000).
Looppoetry – cd-rom created by Wilton Azevedo
(http://www.wiltonazevedo.com.br)
which is based on the writerly of time and
repetition.
Net poetry - poetry in the WWW.
Network hypermedia - Predominantly exists on the World
Wide Web (WWW); currently without synchronous sound and video capabilities (Funkhouser 1996).
New media poetry - term used by Eduardo Kac in an anthology of essays under the same title (1996)
written by Jim Rosenberg, Philippe Bootz, E. M. de Melo e Castro, André Vallias, Ladislao Pablo Györi, Eduardo Kac, John Cayley and Eric Vos.
New visual poetry - experiences which go beyond
traditional visuality, producing 3D visual poems (Capparelli et al 2000). One
Brazilian examples is Elson Fróes’s Popbox (http://paginas.terra.com.br/arte/PopBox/)
Palm poetry – an experience made by the students of
Palm Poetry site: http://digitalmedia.upd.edu.ph/dmf2001/palmpoetry.html
Permutational poem - Nanni
Balestrini (1970,
Nanni Balestrini´s site: www.unibuc.ro/eBooks/filologie/derer/balestrini/1.htm
Pixel poetry or pixel poetics -
Melo e Castro’s Algorritmos
(6) (1998).
Poem on computer - Gilberto Prado and Alckmar Luiz dos Santos (1995).
Prado and
Poems factory - computer programs which generate
text (Capparelli et al 2000).
Poetechnic or digital
poetics - Plaza and Tavares (1998: 119) do not separate poetry from
poetics; they use digital poetics to denominate the various ways of
making infographic images. Plaza and Tavares use
Luigi Pareyson's concept of poetics (the
various forms of poetics have operative and historical characteristics) and
Umberto Eco's (poetics is an operational program initially proposed, or even
better, it corresponds to the project of formation or attribution of a given
work).
Sound poetry - some sound poetry sites which
recapture experiences from Marinetti's Futurism and
Hugo Ball's Dadaism (Capparelli et al 2000). Philadelpho Menezes Neto (1960-2000) has developed this kind of poetry in
Text-generating software - Programs which
automatically arrange words and images (Funkhouser
1996).
3D transpoetic - Melo e Castro (1998).
Videopoetry- although
it refers to poetry made with video techniques (Melo
e Castro, Arnaldo Antunes
and
Videotext - language media and distributor of information
by means of a telephone as a means of broadcasting. Despite the use of the
suffix text, it was used for poetic production (Plaza 1986).
Virtual poetry or vpoem - Ladislao Pablo Györi (1995).
Ladlislao Pablo Györi’s site: http://lpgyori.50g.com/
Visual poetry or new visual poetry – name
given generally to 2d and printed visual poetry that part of digital media
(floppy disk, CD-ROM, Internet, WWW) due to this special and natural tendency
and actuality. In Brazil, for example, we have Arte Visual (Visual Art)
(www.poemavisual.com.br ), since 1996, an anthology of visual poetry coordinated
by Victor Hugo Manata Pontes since 1996, Sígnica: Um Balaio da Era Pós-Verso (Apesar do Verso) / Signic: a
hamper of the post verse era (in spite of the verse) (http://signica.vila.bol.com.br)
coordinated by Omar Khouri and Fábio
Oliveira Nunes since 2000, and the important real and
virtual venue curated by Regina Vater,
the Brazilian Visual Poetry (http://www.imediata.com/BVP)
. There also many individual visual poets like:
Web poetry - poetry in WWW since 1990.
As stated above, this list is not intended to be exhaustive, but it does
show some of the names which have appeared as digital poetry has developed.
NOTES
(1) From Brazil, poet, writer, researcher, university
professor in São Paulo, is currently studying digital
poetry for getting his PhD degree in Communication and Semiotics Program at the
Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo; wrote Almeida Júnior através dos tempos (Almeida Junior throughout the time)
(1983), Cores, forma, luz,
movimento: a poesia de Cesário Verde (Colours, form,
light, movement: the Cesario Verde's poetry) (2002), Ciência, Arte e Metáfora na Poesia de Augusto
dos Anjos (Science, Art and Metaphor in the
Poetry of Augusto dos Anjos)
(2004), besides many articles in printed and electronic magazines. Some of his
researches are in Brazilian Digital Art and Poetry on the Web (http://www.vispo.com/misc/BrazilianDigitalPoetry.htm)
and he made some digital poetries with Fatima Lasay,
from Philippines, as E-maginero - http://www.digitalmedia.upd.edu.ph/digiteer/gegenort/),
and with Regina Célia
Pinto, from Brazil (Lago Mar Algo
Barco Chuva: www.ociocriativo.com.br/lagoalgo/
).
(2) To the notion of poem we can extend the notion of word plus
sound plus image in a digital-electronic environment, which includes hypertextuality, hypermedia, interface, programming, and so
on.
(3) It is necessary to say that other techniques (paper, ink, print,
pencil, and so on) also determine other kinds of limitation and configuration
of the subject to these technologies, for it depends on the way we try to
"translate", represent, interpret, or read the reality elements by
making art in a general sense.
(4) Examples: cyberpoetry, for Komninos Zervos, is a combination
of concrete, sound and computer poetries; langu(im)age, according to Jim Andrews,
is composed by visual, sound, verbal and electronic poetries; it is called
visual poetry from cyberstream, by Ted Warnell, and it is a mixture of visual and verbal poetries
with the use of computer and collaborative work and hypertextuality;
and so on.
Ted Warnell’s site: http://warnell.com
(5) Infopoetry is also the name given by E. M. de Melo e Castro in the Course of Infopoetry
and Sound Poetry in Postgraduate Program in Communication and Semiotics (Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo) which was
given to eleven students in the first semester 1997.
(6) Possible translation: the word algorritmos
is composed by algo (something) plus ritmos (rhythms), but the whole word algorritmos is related to sound poetry and rhythms
in verbal poetry and also reminds us, from the sound point of view, of the word
algoritmo (algorithm), which is related to
computer programming.
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