Concrete poetry is a literary movement from the 1950’s which uses arrangements of letters and linguistic elements to enhance the meaning of a poem. Since it relies so heavily on design and typography, it can also be considered an art movement born from the anti-impressionistic, non-representational concrete art of the 1930’s which attempted to create universal art. Being an intermedium between text, typography and sound, concrete poetry is a ripe area to explore using digital technologies. Using the works of prominent concrete poet Eugen Gomringer, my final project will re-imagine his poems in a digital landscape in an attempt to detach the text from its paper roots (or, keep it in dialogue with its counterpoint) and provide new readings based on interactions. Using various coding practices including html, css, and javascript, a selection of Gomringer’s poems from The Book of Hours and Constellations (Something Else Press, 1968) will be re-presented digitally and experimentally while maintaining the minimal aesthetics of the original form. Interactions and sound will offer another layer of interpretation and turn the reader into a performer and player of the text. The experimental nature of this project may yield messy, unexpected results but I am open to the possibilities that could arise.
In the example above, one of Gomringer’s most well-known poems, the word “silence” is repeated 14 times and alludes to the 14 lines of a sonnet. Traditional linear structure and punctuation has been abandoned. The resulting frame forms an empty space which can be interpreted as silence itself. In this way, the meaning is created by both the presence of the word and its visual form. In digital form, the space might be enlarged on a mouse-hover, the words might fade or become larger or smaller, a sound representing silence might be heard, or three-dimensional space might be used as opposed to two-dimensional. Other possibilities might include collaged text and onomatopoeia techniques seen in Dadaist and Futurist poems that only appear as the result of a reader’s actions. These are characteristics that cannot be experienced on a paper page and offer opportunities to create expanded interpretations – in this case, what is and isn’t “silence”, what does it look like, sound like or feel like?
In a theoretical framework, this project also explores paratext in digital media. Can code, interfaces, screens, keyboards be considered paratext and how do they differ from the original idea of paratexts in relation to the codex? Gerard Genette, in addition to defining the term “paratext”, also described it as a “threshold”, “an undecided zone”, “the fringe”. This project takes into account those terms as a central principle of how to present these poems, how to design their interface, and how to encourage the reader to interact with its content.
As sources of inspiration, I cite the lo-fi First Screening, a series of kinetic poems developed by “bpNichol” in 1984 on an early Apple computer. The original code is no longer available but others have since re-created the project in more current coding languages. Although there are many contemporary examples of kinetic text and experimental writing on the internet using coding, this is one of the earliest examples I could find which speaks to the project’s ability to counter the obsolescence of many digital endeavors. As a more contemporary example, Eugen Gomringer’s own website is uniquely developed to showcase his poetry, writing and other musings using digital media. The user must type in a word to start and is then presented with a series of texts, videos, and photos related to Gomringer and his work. It’s like a collaged film/narrative where the user will never encounter the same sequence twice. I’m particularly interested in this aspect of the reader as a performer with the ability to create something that can never be repeated again in the same way.
“The constellation is a system, it is also a playground with definite boundaries. The poet sets it all up. He designs the play-ground as a field-of-force & suggests the possible workings. The reader, the new reader, accepts it in the spirit of play, then plays with it.
With each constellation something new comes into the world. Each constellation is a reality in itself & not a poem about some other thing.” –Gomringer, 1968
This quote by Gromringer, written in the preface to the book I intend to use as the source material aptly describes the project I hope to accomplish. Gromringer’s ideas of “reading” and “playing” directly relate to the readings from this class.
—
Birke, D., & Christ, B. (2013). Paratext and Digitized Narrative: Mapping the Field. Narrative 21(1), 65-87. doi:10.1353/nar.2013.0003.
Drucker, J. Multiple sources …
Genette, G., & Maclean, M. (1991). Introduction to the Paratext. New Literary History, 22(2), 261–272. https://doi.org/10.2307/469037
Gomringer, Eugen, et al. (2021). Words Form Language: On Concrete Poetry, Typography, and the Work of Eugen Gomringer. Triest Verlag für Architektur, Design Und Typografie.
Gomringer, Eugen, and Max Bill. (1960). 33 Konstellationen. Tschudy.
Owens, Trevor. (2012). Glitching Files for Understanding: Avoiding Screen Essentialism in Three Easy Steps. The Signal. http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2012/11/glitching-files-for-understanding-avoiding-screen-essentialism-in-three-easy-steps/.
Rothenburg, Jerone. (1968). The Book of Hours and Constellations: Poems of Eugen Gomringer. Something Else Press, Inc.
Very promising project: I’ve often wondered how this course would work differently if it were focused on poetry rather than the novel, since in many ways the history of 20th-21stC poetry lends itself to “doing things” much more readily than the “bookier” genre of the novel. As with all projects that are grounded in cultural making (and like conceptual artworks in general), the theoretical frame is as important as the “thing itself.” You clearly have a rich context that has fed into the desire to work with the material, from Genette (whose work on “paratext” I wanted to fit into our class) to Drucker to literary historical precursors like the dada movement. So the final object should have a mini-catalog essay or similiar, either packaged with the digital exhibit/publication or, separately, as a white paper kind of thing. Avanti! This looks great, and I can’t wait to see it.
Also, you might check out the work of my Hunter colleague, Andrew Demirjian: highly relevant to what you want to do!