bill marsh – I ❤️ E-Poetry

Open “6-string Aria” by Bill Marsh

This brief video poem is delicately built from just a few simple elements: a guitar aria, five handwritten letters, simple animation, and a handful of words scheduled into the presentation. The poem explores different meanings one can arrive from the elements of the word aria, such as air and area. As the letters move and rotate around a common axis, they delineate a space for different readings, as well as the implied space of a relationship in trouble. The gentle reconfiguration of the two hand-drawn “I”s into two mathematical symbols suggest a resolution to the conflict implied by the text, particularly when juxtaposed with the final clustering of the letters.

Featured in Cauldron & Net.

Open “Landscapes” by Bill Marsh

The first impression these five short installation pieces by Marsh gave me was that of slightly garish, amateurish compositions using simple software drawing tools and overusing the color gradient fill tool. After a little research on Peter Max’s psychedelic paintings and reading an essay by Marsh on his poetics, one has a bit more context to appreciate its subtleties and take a closer look.

As conceptual works, these smart little poems are successful in provoking thought on the representation of nature in electronic media and film, the human struggles in urban spaces where they are constantly monitored, Biblical proverbs, and flying saucers. (Do you see them, too?)

Featured in The Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 1.