This post is also available in: Español (Spanish)
This poem is divided into 6 parts, each one a 4-line stanza that asks or answers a series of questions “in a wired way,” providing the linguistic text of the poems in a way that provides a traditional counterpoint to the presentation. This poem is “wired” in several ways:
- It is scheduled perfectly synchronized to a minimalist musical score consisting of an alternation of a low and a high note played in a guitar in equal time intervals. To keep things interesting, the note is sometimes played as a chord or brief sequence, with variations in volume, but keeping time like a metronome. Don’t forget that a guitar is a set of taut wires of different widths that produce musical notes when strummed.
- The text is synchronized to appear with the playing of each note, one word at a time. It starts in the center of the line and then adds a word to the left and one to the right of the growing phrase until the line is complete. Reading the text as it appears creates a new line, adding meaningful texture to the poem.
- After the initial display, Jhave inserts minimalist variations in the scheduled text, extending the range of meaning of the original text. The variations are subtle but meaningful, as Jhave adds, removes, or substitutes a letter from one or two words in the poem, and occasionally replaces a word for its antonym.
- There are 6 background videos, some of which have kaleidoscopic effects that match well the duality of musical notes, which the user can change to create juxtapositions between them and the words. The mirror images of the kaleidoscope videos emphasize thematic dualities in the poem.
The dualities expressed in this poem manifest themselves in so many ways, from traditional to electronic poems, low to high notes, static to scheduled kinetic texts, yes and no, all the way to the presence and absence of marks on a page (ink on paper) to the combinations of an and off electric signals— the ones and zeroes of binary code.
