Oni Buchanan

“The Mandrake Vehicles” by Oni Buchanan

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Screen capture of “The Mandrake Vehicles” by Oni Buchanan. White-colored background with black-colored words as text. There are letters of the colors yellow, green, light green, orange, brown and light-brown colors around the screen capture, on a bigger side than the text. Some words can be read, others are in disorder and cant be read. Some of the words readable are: “Animals, grace like, parasols, green, nauseating, top, a, by, fork”, etcetera.

Open “The Mandrake Vehicles” by Oni Buchanan

This suite of three installations that explore what Buchanan calls the “Mandrake Form” are cleverly executed poetic texts reminiscent of Tom Phillips’ celebrated artists book, A Humument, but with a Lettristic economy of words that’s in tune with the ecological motto “reduce, reuse, recycle.” In these poetic texts, the words aren’t lost or painted over: whatever isn’t needed that doesn’t “float” away cascades into other words neatly stacked at the bottom of the window. But there’s more: pay attention to specific words as they take form and fall; follow specific letters as they make their way down, and you’ll be delighted by the witty word play that gets lost in the big picture. There is much to be discovered in these poems

Featured in Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 2.

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