Take it (2013) is a digital videopoem created by the Brazilian digital poet Wilton Azevedo. Conceived originally in English, this videopoem consists of video images that intertwine the verses constantly moving across frame according to the soundtrack frequency through an interface with a Processing script.
Visually, Take it presents a similar discourse to postmodern typography also called “grunge typography”, an important design movement that influenced a generation of graphic designers at the nineties. David Carson is one of its main references. Wilton Azevedo, who is also a graphic designer, deconstructs the verbal sign, breaking the word into multiple pieces, overlapping verses over each other until the textual code loses its readability and meaning. However, with the absence of poetic syntax, the soft soundtrack and the voices of American poets Nico Vassilakis and Steve Dalachinski dictate the pace for the poem.
In the literature, the Azevedo’s videopoem has some similarities with the work of Isidore Isou (1925-2007), founder of Lettrism which proclaims the destruction of traditional poetry in favor of an aesthetic based on the letter and sign. Although less radical, Azevedo does not abolish completely the verse but does not hesitate to incorporate visual signs of various origins into your poetic.
Despite the possible connections with the works of Carson and Isou described in this article, Take it intends to explore the – ” scripturesphere” – a concept through which the Brazilian poet investigates a expanded digital writing resulting from potential interactions between mathematics and verbal visual and sonorous codes set in digital media.
In the digital ambience, we note that the meaning of words no longer fits in themselves, as well as mathematically there is a dark side of the cube and its existence, we just can not see it. The word in this digital ambience seems to suffer from the same problem: there is a meaning that is no longer linked to a usual sign or poetic, but to a sign that shows itself in expansion, dilating, it is there, but is only detected by its binary components or scripturesphere. (Azevedo)