2001 – I ❤️ E-Poetry

“Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney” by Shu Takumi

May 20, 2014 by J.C. Kuang

Open "Turnabout Beginnings", a case in Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations. — Open “Turnabout Beginnings,” a case in Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulations.

A thrilling courtroom drama delivered through a medium which blurs the line between visual and textual narratives, Ace Attorney, whose first release in 2001 proved unexpectedly popular in the West, can be counted among the works most responsible for bringing the visual novel paradigm to the mainstream. It, along with selected others which can be strictly categorized as true “visual novels”, such as:

…are most easily described as text-based adventure games which require minimal player input, since visual novels are formally labelled as ‘computer games’ by society at large. In practice, however, they are essentially a novel-length narrative retold through text and animation.

“[con]artist” by Randy Adams

May 2, 2014 by Leonardo Flores

This hypertext multimedia work by the late master remixer Randy Adams is an homage to the World Wide Web. Adams describes his impetus “to create a hypertext[url] Web art work that pays homage to the World Wide Web and, on the other hand, pokes some fun at it” and “to utilize and interpret, exclusively, text and images found on the web.” To achieve this he embarked upon a constraint-based writing described in detail within the project, but best read after experiencing the work.

“Paperwounds,” by Andy Campbell

January 7, 2014 by Ian Rolón

“Paperwounds,” is an intimate look into the sometimes-surreal, often-manic realm of the suicidal and depressed. It is an intense snapshot of the numerous facets that go into the decision of taking one’s own life, each of its disparate parts aligning to form a piecemeal narrative readers may only ever really guess at in its entirety. Presented as a crumpled up piece of paper, readers “unwrap” the suicide note by clicking on the highlighted/pulsating words within its folds. Doing so exhumes other, shorter notes the writer placed within the virtual letter, each one a different illustration of–perhaps–what drove the fictional victim to this ultimate negation of self. The interface, technological sounds, and brief animations when you mouse over certain texts combined with the ruined state of the materials create a forensic tone for the work, casting the reader in the role of an investigator. The poem may be zoomed in on, zoomed out from, flipped, rotated, dimmed, and made completely invisible–though doing any of the aforementioned does not seem to change the nature of the text at first glance.

“RedRidinghood” by Donna Leishman

October 4, 2013 by Bárbara Bordalejo

In “RedRidinghood,” Donna Leishman retells the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Using Flash in a similar way to “Deviant” (previously reviewed here), Leishman offers a modern reading of the traditional tale, which acknowledges its indebtedness to Angela Carter (thanked in the credits as the person who initiated it all). In this interactive narrative, Red Riding Hood sets out on her way to her grandmother’s house. In the woods, she meets a boy-wolf who will eventually seduce her, but also experiences the forest itself before falling asleep and dreaming.

“Random Paths” by Jody Zellen

November 18, 2012 by Leonardo Flores

This hypertext poem is structured linearly, yet it offers a couple of forks in the road which can sometimes lead to endless delay. Based on a holiday in Rome, the speaker’s sends her wandering eye and inquisitive mind through the city combining text and thematically related images in each node. The first node triggers a popup window titled “Rome_index” which provides a 6 x 5 grid of thumbnail images that respond to mouseovers, bringing up new images of Rome. This sensitive surface allows readers to perform a psychogeographic exploration of Rome as perceived by the speaker’s photographic eye. The circular linearity of the poem allows you to experience it multiple times, each time observing new snippets of this ancient city to juxtapose with the poem’s lyric voice.

Note: This poem is best read in Internet Explorer because it uses older JavaScript codes to create pop-up windows in a way that other contemporary browsers have difficulty understanding. You will need to enable pop up windows in your browser to allow all pop ups from the site.

“the data][h!][bleeding texts” by Mez Breeze

November 12, 2012 by Leonardo Flores

This multimedia poem gives a voice to a body and mind imagined through computational conditions. Mary Anne Breeze / Mez / Netwurker has developed a language practice known as mezangelle, which she uses in this poem to create a cyborg lyric voice. The implied metaphor in the title is that data has a body and it is bleeding, perhaps it has been wounded. Mapped onto electronic texts, the displayed texts are the skin, while the code is the rest of the body, including the blood. What we read is a combination of computer and natural languages, both of which are executable.

“The Minotaur Project” by Kim White

November 10, 2012 by Leonardo Flores

This four part “poem cluster taken from a hypermedia novel in verse (as yet untitled), which reimagines the classical myth of Kore” and reimagining the “Minotaur as a combination of human and machine” (quoted from the About page). The site of the labyrinth in this poem is the body and the mind, its obsessions, phobias, grooves, orifices, and sensory organs. Has Kore been partially trapped in a maze of her own body and mind (after being abducted by Hades and eating some pomegranate seeds)? Is the Minotaur trapped in the maze infinite logical loops that it can’t escape from? This challenging poem prompts reflection on these and more questions in four cantos, each of which creates an ingenious interface around a part of the human body. Each part is labyrinthine in its structure and requires attention to not miss brief animations and transformations in its language. And everything is meaningful in this tightly crafted work that selected as a finalist in the ELO’s 2001 Electronic Literature Awards. Featured in Cauldron & Net.

“Web Warp & Weft” by Helen Whitehead

November 9, 2012 by Leonardo Flores

This is a lovingly researched homage to the Luddites, a group of artisanal English textile workers who fought back against the industrialization of their craft. A substantial hypertext poem, it is woven from documentary information on the Luddites, excerpts from their writings and stories, HTML, Java applets, JavaScript, history, myth, and Whitehead’s vision to lend it coherence. There is so much to learn, discover, enjoy in this piece and several ways to explore it in a carefully crafted interface.

“Delimited Meshings” by Talan Memmott

November 7, 2012 by Leonardo Flores

This hypertext work of poetry, theory, and narrative is exquisitely programmed in HTML 3.2 using JavaScript from 12 years ago, which means that it is currently best read in Internet Explorer, which retains its responsive elements. This DHTML piece uses JavaScript to modify the Document Object Model (DOM), which means that the document is the same, but once you activate certain parts of it, its rendering becomes modified with the addition of static or kinetic elements.

“Whispering” by Sean Donohue

November 4, 2012 by Leonardo Flores

goingonsix — Open: “Whispering” by Sean Donohue

This video poem delivers lines of poetry in a sequence that emphasizes lines and words through kinetic language and precise timing to unnerve the reader. From the outset, it begins to set its creepy tone through as short looping soundtrack that provides a metronomic quality to the poem, which unfolds line by line drawing attention to certain words by flashing snippets of almost recognizable images and words. Its visual design uses oranges and reds to contrast with a blue window-like rectangle that changes position slightly over the course of the poem. The train-like sound reinforces a sense that the reader is on rails, leading to an inevitable, chilling conclusion as the poem’s imagery unfolds and the reader realizes where this is leading its readers.

Featured in Cauldron & Net.