Inspiration and Discussion

Maria introduced my group members and I to some books she thought might to be helpful with the project and our wish to use concrete poetry as inspiration. We did some research on concrete poetry and its historical context by looking at "An Anthology of Concrete Poetry" by Emmett Williams, published in 1967 and "Concrete Poetry: An International Anthology" by Stephen Bann, published in 1968. These books have been in great use for interconnecting previous theory and our current practice.

After skimming through these books I decided to do some further investigation on concrete poetry in analog and digital media. This link (http://dichtung-digital.de/2003/parisconnection/concretepoetry.htm) was extremely interesting with its exploration of concrete poetry.

A great historical example from this website also discusses semiotics, which interestingly enough can be interlinked with concrete poetry and calligrams; "In the figurative poems the text shapes a certain figure, in religious context often a cross, in Baroque secular figures as well as here a goblet as a wedding poem for a couple from Bremen in 1637. This poem is an early version of interactive writing, which calls the reader either to turn around the paper or their heard in order to perceive the text. The deeper wit of this playing with form lies in the fact that after this performance one feels dizzy as if one had just drank a goblet full of wine. 

The philosophy behind this playing with form, behind this shift towards typography, is to free the word from its pure representational, designational function. While in literature the physicality of language - such as its graphical aspects - normally is neglected and even considered to poison the authority of the text, the relation between signifier and signified, here the visual form of the word was used as an additional meaning. The word not only represents an object it presents it on the visual level. The goblet is to be seen before one even starts to read".

There is so much to be discussed on concrete poetry because of its long history. Our project has a great aspect of originality as it explores the creation of a shape with words in a digital medium. We're creating a stop motion animation with an element of excitement, seeing that the figure will not be revealed until the end of the song. Rather than producing our project with static photographic shots and later editing them, we are continuously using modern software to produce this piece of work. As I don't think anyone else in my class are taking a solely digital approach to this project, I think that gives my group a unique advantage. We wish to experiment and become better at the programs which are the future of digital media.