Negative Energy
Monday, 15th September, 2008
Click image to enlarge
Archive for the ‘Itch Away’ Category
Store Debts: Electrocuting on Company Time
Thursday, 28th August, 2008
More from Ideas on Oedipal Bitstreams
Thursday, 31st July, 2008
kaput surprise squirm sing-along confessional
sequence bully
needy celebrities twist alpha
beats sanguineous nerve centre
pseudo-Springsteen
Parallaxative
Friday, 25th July, 2008
Another round of draft work with parallax effects (click on the image to open):
Resize the window to effect the effect. I’m trying to work with phyisical aspects of web interaction, scrolling, resizing, etc. — I guess as some kind of parallel to the thought processes behind some bookart practices which explore the phyisicalities of the medium in non-trivial ways. I’m obviously only at the start here - the example I’ve upped here needs tweaking (currently works best from very small, expanding slowly outwards) but gives me a pretty good idea on what changes I need to make in order to get a more effective interface working. Next, expect, animated gifs in the mix.
From Ideas on Oedipal Bitstreams, Draft 2
Monday, 21st July, 2008
Occasionally, I am a government in which
fine print ignition idiot footsie
splutters above eyes
smells of dead ego preposition
pull the punitive festival
oil task force
indicative superporno
the money stinks
of structures and flesh
Year 10
Sunday, 20th July, 2008
eat back
commodity deficits, metaphorical
loophole sexy enough for
office
forcing motorists
to jizz
so what you like
middle age destroys
the West
two mumbling ears
gearbox / totality / vinaceous / long-distance / harl / fag / written / organ / machinic / syntax / organs / spleened / in / sixths
Variations on an Old Theme
Saturday, 21st June, 2008
Yup, the old style is back. Here’s my problem: I tire of an old design, get stuck into a complete redesign, run out of time, and then get sick of that too.
Anyway, it seemed a bit ridiculous that my site has been down for so long, so I’ve re-uploaded it, and it’ll just have to do while I finish work for several clients and attempt to get my practice in gear. Then, maybe then, I’ll fashion my electroacres into something more aesthetically pleasing. In the meantime, I’m going for functionality…
Top 5 Countdown to a Face-Slaying
Tuesday, 27th May, 2008
5. The mere fact that you think
4. Will there be a full tour?
3. I am filled with anticipation
2. I love you lick
1. True ladies feed Jesus
I hope this helps.
Du Fu Procedural Translation, 2
Monday, 26th May, 2008
A Drawing of Spirits Ending
something alone and pure
sigh a battle
you are now angels
copies of ghosts
group flesh
I grieve and would forget
the poisonous song
always thinking and forgetting
now with the old
languid smile
officious and abruptly sobering
there are colors in the wind
lovelier than moon rising
venting beauty
the sky
a new sketching
silk thunder
so that even night
is art
Du Fu Procedural Translation, 1
Sunday, 25th May, 2008
With a small working note:
These poems were written using procedural methods. As part of my research, I have been interested in how the kinetic and generative qualities of certain digital media can be used as both presentational and compositional tools, creating fragments and variations of source materials. For me, Beth Ames Swartz’s use of mixed media in her paintings encourages a mixture of concrete reading and abstract viewing in which the visual qualities of the text (spatial placement and implied movement, opacity, noise) inform how the semantics of those fragments is interpreted within the wider context of the painting as a whole. The physicality of the text produces a synaesthesia and unique multi-directional readings through such attention to text in these works. For my response to Swartz’s work, I wanted to work with these ideas as a basis. I used Flash to break apart and visually reconstruct the language of the translated Du Fu poems found in the 300 Tang Poems anthology. This provided me with fragments of language as a starting point from which I could construct new poems which often distorted yet echoed remnants of the originals. It also allowed me to situate my writing in relation to those ‘problems’ encountered by translators of Chinese poetry, in terms of concision of language but also in terms of the problems of understanding when translating:
[E]ducated Chinese can read these poems fairly readily, but they are often at a loss to explain exactly what they mean. Worse still, Chinese characters link up nicely in compounds that have no literal equivalents in English.1
Rather than viewing this as a problem, placing myself in such a position provided me with a creative starting point through which to write and edit the fragmented work. Choice through chance, happenstance compounds. Writing through the new fragments produced a partly improvised, reactionary compositional method which created frequently unexpected themes, tensions, ambiguities, repetitions and variations. I wanted to maintain the synesthetic approach and sense of multiple readings and perspectives I feel are possible when reading/viewing Swartz’s paintings, and so I produced a digital setting for my work, randomly generative visual texts, as another way of approaching the text in relation to these paintings. As with Swartz’s paintings, each reading sequence is a different, multi-linear experience, with multiple entry points and readings produced through motion and space.
These poems will be published in a book responding to the work of Du Fu and Beth Ames Swartz, in November, published by Arizona State University. I’m working on a couple of online settings for the work, which will follow in a couple of weeks.
Rivers to Colour the Snow
a piece of sky
and the fierceness of angels
the talk of power this word has a new disciple –
lady, waiting for sun
the girth of glimmer
memorial girl, a dignified thunder
come back now because I am snow
charm the cold – dance like
the autumn
lustre to their ten thousand unheards
mountain fruit to restore the flesh
drifting by like Emperors‘ rules
we bury the clouds
the sky had banished
their very valour is in not knowing
drew from
intimate and
wealth and fame
in spite of
changes that have come
yesterday, I found smiles, and lips and offices
the marvel of bad luck
how hard it is to be God!
but now I see the distinction
ladies in the duckweed
and here you are
angels before thunderbolt
the fierceness of waters
- TRANSLATING DU FU, textetc.com - http://www.textetc.com/workshop/wt-du-fu-1.html (accessed 12th May 2008). This article contains a helpful overview of translation issues in Chinese poetry. [↩]