This collection of short animated concrete poems— or “word art” as Christopher prefers to call it— is reminiscent of Ana María Uribe’s Anipoemas and Neil Hennessy’s “Paddle” and “Puddle” poems because they are minimalist explorations of words and their components. The wit and inventiveness exhibited by these poems allow for moments of insight and reflection on the ideas presented. For example, the simplest of kinetic operations create a powerful comment on the supposed binary opposition between the words in “east & west” and “poles apart.” The trio of poems on bipolar disorder uses visual transformations of words to critique popular misconceptions, the use of medication to treat it, and praise The Icarus Project.
Explore this page to discover some very smart visual deconstructions of binary opposites. Scroll down to read his short essay on the poetic tradition. Follow the link to more to discover more of these outstanding explorations of the expressive potential of simple word transformations in digital environments. And discover how many ways Christopher is able to use the letter Y to advance his poetic vision.
