Hi

I found these interesting Jason but ever worry about two things, which 
preoccupy me: a) the separation of media within multi-media (that poetry 
'is' poetry, alongside images that 'are' images, music which 'is' music); 
and b) the notion that the internet is a direct vehicle for art.

I worked five years with the ten strong group of artists and poets Inprint. 
While our Poetry Vending Machine boxes could be truly collaborative between 
artists and poets, there was ever a tendency to play off the two mediums as 
collaboration. That is, poets would respond to a visual or vice versa. Works 
invariably split into separate media, supplementing, complementing, 
complimenting. Yet, what rarely happened was a means, a process, to find new 
ground. Last year I proposed a way forward could/should be exploring 
collaboration through film. Surprising, to me, both poets and artists ran in 
the opposite direction.

To be controversial a second: poetry does not work with paintings, 
photographs, illustrations, music . Poets too easily want 'literal' 
reference they perceive in these mediums - while many artists working in 
these mediums seek poetry as 'literal' scaffolding they can work away from 
but cling to, as justification for their abstractions. Different mediums 
should not hold each other up but create an amazing interior friction, in my 
view.

My best collaborative work has been and is with film makers, sculptors, 
performers and sound technicians. Sculpture seems a crazy starting point for 
poets to truly flex but surely, the biggest battleground in modern art has 
been in sculpture: the enclosure of space in form versus the opening of 
space as social interaction. And, of course, similar battles are onging in 
theatre and music.

For the sculptor, if space is occupied by a form, all is observation, 
appreciation. Yet, if space is ultimately 'opened out,' there is 
interaction, 'event.' In theatre, the great advances of the 20thC were cut 
back at the end of the century and into this one. It is as if theatre's 
being pushed back behind the procenium arch at the very time Microsoft and 
all are pushing us back behind a tiny screen.

Film is the one medium - the medium of Modernism - which survives all. I 
argue that the only success of the internet is YouTube and the myriad of 
tiny films there. Quite simply, a film (worth being called 'film') has to be 
made in the real world. This involves interaction, space and as many 
elements from different media as one wants!

I do not think there is or can be a digital poetry. Shoot me down in flames!

Rupert


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jason Nelson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 1:11 PM
Subject: digital poetry and netpoetic.com


> All,
>
>  I'll be launching a new digital poetry site soon called
>  netpoetic.com, the site will include biweekly digital poetry forms,
>  which I will be creating to act as bridges between the print and wired
>  including their source code, explanation, video talks on each etc...
>
>  here is a preview of the first two.........comments on the first
>  one are particularly sought....
>
>  dimension is night is night
>
>  http://www.secrettechnology.com/night/xtine.html
>
>  a letter today to attact a rushing hall
>
>  http://www.secrettechnology.com/night/dpoe2.html
>
>  cheers, Jason Nelson
>
>
> ---------------------------------
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