Final project link

Fun times last night! Thanks for a wonderful semester and hope to see you all soon!

– Patricia
pbelen@gmail.com

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.

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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.

Like the experimental qualities of John Dos Passos’ prose, our Manhattan Transfer project is an experiment in the digital possibilities of annotation and interpretation. The novel is a portrait of urban life in Manhattan featuring characters whose stories sometimes collide. The text is fragmented, jumping from one character’s journey to the next and then returning at any point. First published in 1925, the writing shares aspects with other forms of modern art such as cinematic techniques, narrative collage, and a fascination with urbanization and technology.

My team (Raquel, JP, Miaoling) and I have created a website devoted to the novel where we have provided the entire text (available through the public domain), historical background information and multiple layers of interpretation strategies. The digital format and use of technologies can provide new historical contexts for understanding the time period of the 1920s and Dos Passos himself and can also yield fresh interpretations of the text. The collaborative nature of this project allowed us to focus on different aspects which suited our interests.

John Dos Passos, Book cover design for Manhattan Transfer, Harper & Brothers, 1925

For my part, I chose to focus on avant-garde and modern art. Although connections can be made with many works of Cubism, Futurism, and Expressionism happening in the same time period as Manhattan Transfer, after learning that Dos Passos was also an artist, I thought it would be interesting to concentrate  on his own paintings and use them as the source of hypothes.is annotations for Chapter 1: Ferry Slip. Dos Passos never achieved major success as an artist but there are many parallels between his art and literary works. The first edition book cover uses a Dos Passos work to convey the complexity and dynamism of the city with its jagged forms. In other paintings, Dos Passos uses multiple perspectives and planes like a Cubist, similar to the multiple narratives and characters found in the novel. In the text, Dos Passos even writes like a painter at times: “skyblue and smokedsalmon and mustardyellow quilts, littered with second hand gingerbread-colored furniture”. So, although Dos Passos’ innovative writing can be traced back to other modernists like Joyce, Stein and Cendrars, we can also see influences of artists such as George Grosz, Lyonel Feininger, Fernand Léger, and F.T. Marinetti. Hypothe.is, while somewhat limited in terms of functionality, was an appropriate choice to do these annotations because the hypothes.is panel can be hidden for those not interested in art. This is something I struggle with looking at the website now – how much our interventions may be distracting and actually influence the reading vs. allowing one to read the text first and foremost and then choose to interact with our interventions.

AI-generated image of character Tony Hunter.

In contrast with the historical paintings, we also used AI technology to generate ‘new’ images based on the text. I used Midjourney to generate the character faces. Despite the novel being cinematic in nature, it was never made into a film. Therefore, we felt this was a way to help envision the characters. It was an interesting process to type in keywords and see what the AI bot came up with. For example for the character of Tony Hunter, I typed in “1920s gay man mental breakdown actor nervous photorealistic new york city”. I was surprised by the assumptions and stereotypes made by the AI bot -for all characters, I was given images of white people. It seems that is the default unless you indicate a specific race. I suppose, given the fact that the tool was created by humans, perhaps this should not be surprising.

Overall, I think the project was a great way to try out digital tools to re-invent this novel. However, I sometimes question whether our additions add to the text or if they are extraneous bits added on top to distract. Would a reader prefer our website, Project Gutenberg, or a physical copy of the book?

Thanks to Raquel for developing the WordPress site, AI images and Kumo map; Miaoling for suggesting AI and creating the character map; and JP for contributing audio and historical images.

Over the course of this semester, I am increasingly viewing “the book” as a verb (or at least more related to verb than noun) – capable of being interactive, inspiring actions by its readers, creating spaces of performance around it. Drucker’s article “The Virtual Codex” has not only made the case for the historical links between codices and digital media, but she also has a convincing argument for the continued and future potential of the book format in printed form, while electronic books and other born-digital publications may be stalled by the screens’ reliance on print culture. When Drucker writes “rather than think about simulating the way a book looks, we might consider extending the ways a book works as we shift into digital instruments”, I think of digital media’s (or perhaps those who work in its boundaries) frequent inability to recognize how its inherent new spatial models could possibly work, instead of merely expanding the notion of print. As Drucker points out the conceptual and intellectual motivations behind a book’s structure and format, I wonder what unique motivations drive the construction of websites and digital publications that aren’t borrowed from print. Even the terminology we use has the all-too-familiar book references: webpages, files, documents, scroll, forms, tabs, menus, etc.

Since “The Virtual Codex” was written in 2003, it is understandable that the digital projects Drucker cites as examples of promising new environments for “e-spaces” are now defunct. Sophie, an electronic book publisher, has not been updated since 2008. The Institute for the Future of the Book, the think tank responsible for Sophie, now lives in the past with its last blog post dated 2017. The Ivanhoe gameplay concept, while still available and usable through Github, goes to a dead link for “future directions for Ivanhoe”. Meanwhile, artists’ books, zines, and independent publications continue avant-garde art movements’ traditions of pushing the boundaries of print. F.T. Marinetti’s inventive use of layout and typography in Futurist publications and Dada journals’ challenging content and form are early 20th c. examples. More recent history has produced countless artists from Dieter Roth to Irma Boom who invent new ways of creating experiences from print. Zines continue to reach communities of subcultures, sometimes using digital media to their advantage by social networking. Even popular novelists can dabble in the book arts.

So, where is the “new” in new media when it comes to reading? Sure, we have annotations, hyperlinks and can embed videos, tweets, etc. but I question whether this is really a new experience or whether we just keep adding layers of information (noise) to make the content seem richer instead of truly thinking about how the reader participates in a text. This is not to say there aren’t people doing interesting things with digital media beyond Kindle editions. Especially, if we expand our definition and look beyond fiction works, we can include virtual games with no shortage of examples. But, maybe there is no audience for new virtual reading worlds? If the codex is already virtual as Drucker argues, perhaps our acceptance of its ubiquity may be preventing us from moving forward in new “e-spaces”.

“The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Lui is a short story told from the point of view of a young, Chinese American man as he recalls his relationships with his American father and his Chinese immigrant mother, who was trafficked from China to marry an American man. Being the child of immigrants, the story is profoundly moving to me and I was curious if the audio version would have the same emotional impact of reading the text.

The official Simon & Schuster audiobook is available on audible.com. It is narrated by a single, male voice. The reading is straightforward with no special effects or music in the background. The quality is very good and the narrator sounds like a professional voice actor. However, I did notice some odd choices in this audiobook version. In the story, the mother does not speak English well. In the text, when she speaks Chinese, the phrase is in quotes with the English translation presented in the next sentence (“Laohu.” Look, a tiger.). In parts of the audiobook version, the English translations have been omitted. Perhaps, the publisher or narrator felt providing the English was cumbersome or not necessary? I disagree with this decision, it would have been helpful for the listener to hear the English. Although it doesn’t take away the meaning of the story, it’s a small detail that did not need to be removed. Not being a Chinese speaker, I can’t comment on the pronunciation of these sentences in the audiobook. However, they blended seamlessly with the rest of the audio.

The narrator does change his voice for different characters. It was particularly noticeable when the mother is trying to speak English – at times, the narrator subtly attempts what appears to be a Chinese accent which I found slightly distracting and maybe even inappropriate. To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about this – we already know the mother is Chinese and does not speak English, is the audiobook enforcing a stereotype by having the narrator raise his pitch and speak with a (seemingly) Chinese accent? The narrator also changes his pitch (higher) when speaking as a child and lower when speaking as the father.

I also came across another audio version of the story in the “LeVar Burton Reads” podcast where Burton reads a short fiction in each episode. It was interesting to compare the two audio versions of the same story. Curiously, this version also omits some English translations. I’m a fan of this podcast so I expected a high production value. This version has ambient music playing in the background and each time a character speaks, it sounds like an echo coming from the right or left speaker. These details add texture and dimension to the story. And, although there is also a single, male narrator, Burton carries the story much better in my opinion. He characterizes his voice for effect but doesn’t attempt the Chinese accent, instead focusing on the emotion of the character, like speaking in a hoarse voice when the mother is sick or a loud voice when the young man is angry. Lastly, Burton’s version is almost twice as long as Simon & Schuster’s. His pace of reading must have been much slower but it was not noticeable. In fact, I appreciated his pauses and clear enunciation.

In some ways, the audiobook versions forced me to slow down and pay attention as opposed to speed reading a book. But overall, I still prefer the printed text version of this story. It’s hard to ignore the interpretive nature of someone reading out loud.