Open: “Urbanalities” by Babel vs. Escha
This “short story-poem-comic strip-musical” by Chris Joseph and María Colino consists of 10 highly stylized Flash pieces in the Dada and Constructivist traditions. Two particularly arresting poems are “River” and “Sex/Conception” (see images above) because of how they use their images and randomly generated texts.
In “River,” the use of rifle crosshairs moving randomly in an urban landscape punctuating a generated text in which a random type of person is considered as a target, along with an equally randomized rationale for termination makes for a chilling speculation on the Beltway snipers’ rationale.
“Sex/Conception” is about the sexual politics of contraception, juxtaposing language of contraceptive methods with male chauvinist attitudes in a sequence involving the journey of a spermatozoid among ova.
For more about this amazing 10-minute generated film and musical experience, read Chris Joseph’s piece in CultureNet.
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Featured in The Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 1.
