"inextrinsic" poetry?
Q. WHAT IS INEXTRINSIC POETRY?
A. DIGITAL LANGUAGE ART WHOSE STRUCTURE AND MOVES ARE BASED ON CONTRADICTION. (Such digital poems are "inextrinsix").
The word“inextrinsic” was coined to characterize these digital poems because the word embodies an apparent contradiction, or tension (“in-ex”): a simultaneous move in different directions. The poems are made with the aim of going deep into poetic language (intrinsic) in ways that were nigh impossible pre-digital; but also to move outwards, leading to associative, or metonymic, traces (extrinsic).
The electronic, inextrinsic Readers work on this threshold between the known and the new.
First close up of inextrinsic poem Starwoman: (punct.uation). Base poems by William Blake (1789) and Penny Florence (2016)
These images are photos of inextrinsic digital Readers (Readers with a capital R) in action at the Newlyn Art Gallery where the installation was part of the group show Drawing Down the Feminine, curated by Kate Walters.
Second close up of inextrinsic poem Starwoman: (punct.uation). Base poems by William Blake (1789) and Penny Florence (2016)
They are interactive, showing some of the changes in the same poem at different moments. As the human reader hits certain designated keys (usually 1 - 6), the Readers perform varying moves. The speed of what happens can be changed, for example, or the backgrounds. Common to them all (so far) is the fading out of areas of text as the Reader moves forwards or backwards through the text. This bit is a partly random effect of the way the Readers are programmed.
Base poems of Starwoman (punc.tuation). This is what you see before you start the Readers.
Think of a pun: it brings two words together while changing the associations implied by context and taking you somewhere else. Paranomasia, or punning, in some form is often seen in digital poetry. There's more to it, too. Puns can have a visual or a sound element that transposes from one of these senses to the other. By bringing them together, puns encourage synaesthesia, where one sensory experience triggers another. Most commonly, this involves hearing colours, but potentially between sensory experience can move between all five senses. Inextrinsix offer unexpected mergers in visual language and syntax. It works right on the edge of consciousness. Difficult connections just appear, as in a joke or a dream. It's one of the ways new meanings emerge.
Starwoman (punct.uation) brings together Blake's illuminated poem The Book of Thel (1780s) and David Bowie's Ziggie Stardust (1970s). Bowie was never quite earthbound, either as himself or as Ziggy. His now legendary "Ziggicide" seemed to me to parallel Thel's story. Neither could quite be born in this world. Like the feminine. You could say that the world put a full stop, or interruption, in their ways of being. It punctuated it. So the punct.uation bit of the title introduces this idea of of a break.
One of Blake's original engravings of the motto for The Book of Thel (c1789).
Editors of Blake often print the second line of Thel's Motto with a question mark instead of a colon, and it's true that Blake wasn't always consistent himself. But the difference really matters. Because the colon blurs any simple opposition between the eagle and the mole. What they begin knowing is unique to each of them but it can't be contained. A question mark makes the motto much less open because it means that you've got four separate questions, and the implication that the first and the third go together and so do the second and the fourth. But with the colon, there's no such clear division.
The same goes for Ziggy and Thel, women and men. "Thelo" is Greek for "I want". The question is not what do women or men want, but rather what does the feminine want. In both senses: want meaning desire and want meaning lack.
Last word (for now) on the inextrinsic.
The word “inextrinsic” was coined to characterize these digital poems because the word embodies an apparent contradiction, or tension (“in-ex”): a simultaneous move in different directions. The poems are made with the aim of going deep into poetic language (intrinsic) in ways that were nigh impossible pre-digital; but also to move outwards, leading to associative, or metonymic, traces (extrinsic). Think of a pun: it brings two words together while changing the associations implied by context and taking you somewhere else. Paranomasia, or punning, in some form is often seen in digital poetry. There's more to it, too. Puns can have a visual or a sound element that transposes from one of these senses to the other. By bringing them together, puns encourage synaesthesia, where one sensory experience triggers another. Most commonly, this involves hearing colours, but potentially between sensory experience can move between all five senses. Inextrinsix offer unexpected mergers in visual language and syntax. Perhaps the most important thing about this is that it works right on the edge of consciousness. It's one of the ways new meanings emerge. Difficult connections just appear, as in a joke or a dream. The electronic, inextrinsic Readers work on this threshold between the known and the new.
See also on my collaborator's site: John Cayley's page - Inextrinsic reading. See also Daniel C. Howe's site.
