brian kim stefans – I ❤️ E-Poetry

“Dibagan” by Brian Kim Stefans and Geniwate

January 16, 2013 by Leonardo Flores

In this collaborative poem Geniwate takes a relatively simple interface and page space designed by Stefans and makes it powerfully political. The audio recording of a reporter telling the story of surviving an RPG attack in Iraq, along with a photograph with a large drop of blood on the lens, make for a chilling backdrop for the poem. With this frame of reference set, the poem is presented as a stack of words at the base of five columns, which the reader can position by placing the mouse on the base of a column until it reaches the desired height on the screen. It takes some time to place and read the words on each column (which are readable both vertically and horizontally), which allows the looping audio clip and changing hues on the image clip to sink in for a visceral experience.

“When You Reach Kyoto” by Brian Kim Stefans and Geniwate

January 11, 2013 by Leonardo Flores

This collaborative work is built using Geniwate’s (Australian writer Jenny Weight’s nom d’ordinateur) “concatenation engine” and Stephans’ images and text. This “page space” is a computational upgrade to the cut-up, because in addition to randomly joining lines of verse, it cuts them further and places them in different positions of the page, creating multiple lines and readings of the same text. The gorgeous oversaturated images of urban and natural landscapes serve as a backdrop for an explosion of letters in different font sizes and lines of free verse, all of which serve as links to the next piece of the concatenation. The sound clips are nowhere nearly as pleasant as Brian Eno’s “Burning Airlines Give You So Much More,” which has a line that inspired the title of this poem, and perhaps some of its postcard-like visual design and conceptual language choices, such as the frequent use of “you,” “she,” and references to writing.

“The Dreamlife of Letters” by Brian Kim Stefans

March 18, 2019January 21, 2012 by Leonardo Flores

Open “The Dreamlife of Letters” by Brian Kim Stefans

This 11-minute silent film in Flash is a second-generation response to an essay by Rachel Blau DuPlessis about an essay on sexuality by erotic novelist Dodie Bellamy. His initial response to DuPlessis’ piece was to extract its words, place them in alphabetical order, and write a series of concrete poems with them (available here). Fortunately for us, he was unsatisfied with the result and created this graceful work of kinetic poetry that is as much a testament to his talent as to why Flash became such an important piece of authoring software.

Find a quiet, solitary space to lose yourself in this piece because to glance away for a moment can mean missing out on a gorgeous sequence in which signifiers dance.

Featured in The Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 1.

“The Dreamlife of Letters” por Brian Kim Stefans

February 13, 2019January 21, 2012 by Leonardo Flores

Screen shot from “The Dreamlife of Letters” by Brian Kim Stefans. Orange background with black text. The letters “de” are placed in the middle of the screen with ends of a word around it. For example, on top of “de” there are the words “lite”, putting these words together would spell “delite”. Text (without including the letters d and e in front of them): “lite, ntist, lft, light, licious”. — Abrir “The Dreamlife of Letters” por Brian Kim Stefans

Este corto silencioso de 11 minutos en Flash es una repuesta de segunda generación a un ensayo por Rachel Blau DuPlessis acerca de un ensayo sobre sexualidad por la novelista erótica Dodie Bellamy. Su respuesta inicial a la pieza de DuPlessis fue extraer sus palabras, organizarlas en orden alfabético, y escribir una serie de p oemas concretos con ellas (disponibles aquí). Afortunadamente para nosotros, por su disatisfacción personal con el resultado, creó este trabajo elegante de poesía cinética, lo cual es tanto un testamento a su talento a el porqué de cómo Flash se ha transformado en una pieza tan importante de software autorial.

Encuentre un espacio callado y solitario para perderse en esta pieza, porque apartar su vista por un momento podría significar perderse en una hermosa secuencia en la cual los significantes bailan.

Exhibido en The Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 1.

Traducido por Julianna Canabal-Rodríguez

“Star Wars, one letter at a time” by Brian Kim Stefans

September 28, 2018January 20, 2012 by Leonardo Flores

Open “Star Wars, one letter at a time” by Brian Kim Stefans

This Lettriste treatment of the screenplay for Star Wars: A New Hope (the 1975 4th draft as found in this fan site) focuses our attention on the script one fingerstroke at a time. I don’t say “letter” (as the title suggests) because we hear every letter (tap), space (bump), end of line (ding), and desk-jarring carriage return (ka-chunk), making us very aware of the materiality of a typewriter.

“Generative Poetry” by geniwate

September 18, 2018January 3, 2012 by Leonardo Flores

Open “Generative Poetry” by geniwate

These three works all use geniwate’s “concatenation engine,” a page architecture designed in Director and inspired by William Burrough’s cut-up. The first one, “Concatenation,” creates a responsive space of exploded letters which generate phrases when clicked upon by the reader following algorithms that randomize word selection and arrangement on the screen. “When You Reach Kyoto,” places the engine in collaboration with Brian Kim Stefans’ photography and text and was published as part of the Machine Poetics “page_space project.”