From the Avant-Gardeto the Digital Vernacular

Contemporary Digital Poetry and Poetics

Keynote talk for Oslo Poetry Film Festival

November 18, 2012

Scott RettbergUniversity of Bergen

Electronic Literature Research Group

Digital Culture ProgramLinguistic, Literary, and Aesthetic

Studies

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Raoul Housman, “Tête mécanique : l'esprit de notre temps” (1919)

Decentered Movements

In documenting art on the basis of the supreme simplicity: novelty, we are human and true for the sake of amusement, impulsive, vibrant to crucify boredom.…I write a manifesto and I want nothing, yet I say certain things, and in principle I am against manifestos, as I am also against principles.…I write this manifesto to show that people can perform contrary actions together while taking one gulp of fresh air; I am against action, for continuous contradiction, and for affirmation too, I am neither for or against because I hate common sense.

--Tristan Tzara

Redefining Audience, Recasting Reception

R. Mutt (Marcel Duchamp), “Fountain” (1919)

Reuse, Reinterpret, Remix

“L.H.H.O.O.Q” by Marcel Duchamp (1919)

Megan Sapnar et. al. “Pushkin Translation.” (2000)http://www.poemsthatgo.com/gallery/fall2000/pushkin/

Olia Lialina “My Boyfriend Came Back from the War” (1996)http://myboyfriendcamebackfromth.ewar.ru/

Mystery House Taken Over (2004)http://www.turbulence.org/Works/mystery/

Nick Monfort “Taroko Gorge” (2010)http://nickm.com/poems/taroko_gorge.html

Using Language as Raw Material for Abstract Art

Hugo Ball, “Karawane” (1917)

“The Hugo Ball” by Talan Memmott in Drunken Boat #8 (2006)http://www.drunkenboat.com/db8/panlitjudges/memmott/hugo_db/index.html

“Nio” by Jim Andrews (2001)http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/andrews__nio.html

“Birds Singing Other Birds’ Songs” by Maria Mencia (2001)http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/mencia__birds_singing_other_birds_songs.html

Random Acts of Creativity

Tristan Tzara

To Make a Dadaist PoemTake a newspaper.Take a pair of scissors.Choose an article in the newspaper of the length you wish to give your poem.Cut out the article.Then cut out carefully all the words that make up the article and put them in a bag.Shake gently.Then remove each cutting one after the other in the order in which they emerge from the bag.Copy conscientiously.The poem will be like you.

You will now become ‘an infinitely original writer with a charming sensitivity, although still misunderstood by the common people’.

“Regime Change” by Noah Wardrip-Fruin, David Durand, Brion Moss, and Elaine Froehlich (2003)http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/wardrip-fruin_durand_moss_froehlich__regime_change.html

Nanette Wylde, “Storyland” (2002)http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/wylde__storyland.html

Scott Rettberg “Frequency” (2009)http://retts.net/frequency_poetry

“This is How You Will Die” by Jason Nelson (2006) in Drunken Boat #8http://www.secrettechnology.com/death/deathspin.htm

Kurt Schwitters’s Merzbau Sculpture (1923-1927)

Use of Found Materials and Collage

Hannah Hoch “Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany” (1919-1920)

Hannah Hoch, “Heads of State” (1918-1919)

3by3by3 (2006-Present)http://3by3by3.blogspot.com

You And We, A Collective Experiment (2009)http://www.Bornmagazine.Org/Youandwe/

Talan Memmott “Self Portrait(s) [as Other(s)] (2003)http://collection.eliterature.org/1/works/memmott__self_portraits_as_others.html

Signposts: Pointers toThe Digital Vernacular

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Rob Wittig “The Fall of the Site of Marsha” (1999)http://robwit.net/MARSHA/

Mark Marino “LA Flood Project” (2010-11)http://laflood.citychaos.com/

Rob Wittig “Grace, Wit, and Charm” (2011)http://robwit.net/?project=grace-wit-charm

“Hot Air” by Chris Ault (2009)http://www.hyperrhiz.net/issue05/ault/project.html

Clement Valls “Seed Drawings” (2011)http://clementvalla.com/work/seed-drawing-52/

John Cayley and Clement Valla “Hapax Phenomena” (2011)http://clementvalla.com/work/hapax-phaenomena/

Mimi Cabell / Jason Huff ”American Psycho, 2010”http://www.mimicabell.com/gmail.html

John Cayley “The Readers Project / Common Tongues” (2012)http://www.elmcip.net/creative-work/common-tongues

Check out more E-LIT

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The Electronic Literature Organizationhttp://eliterature.org

The Electronic Literature Collection, Volume 1 and 2http://collection.eliterature.org

ELMCIP Electronic Literature Knowledge Basehttp://elmcip.net/knowledgebase