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Prehistoric Digital Poetry: an Archeology of Form, 1959-1995

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Prehistoric Digital Poetry: an Archeology of Form, 1959-1995 Prehistoric Digital Poetry MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY POETICS Series Editors Charles Bernstein Hank Lazer Series Advisory Board Maria Damon Rachel Blau DuPlessis Alan Golding Susan Howe Nathaniel Mackey Jerome McGann Harryette Mullen Aldon Nielsen Marjorie Perloff Joan Retallack Ron Silliman Lorenzo Thomas Jerry Ward Prehistoric Digital Poetry An Archaeology of Forms, 1959–1995 C. T. FUNKHOUSER THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS Tuscaloosa Copyright © 2007 The University of Alabama Press Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380 All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Typeface: Minion ∞ The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Funkhouser, Chris. Prehistoric digital poetry : an archaeology of forms, 1959–1995 / C. T. Funkhouser. p. cm. — (Modern and contemporary poetics) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8173-1562-7 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8173-1562-4 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-8173-5422-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8173-5422-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Computer poetry—History and criticism. 2. Computer poetry—Technique. 3. Interactive multimedia. 4. Hypertext systems. I. Title. PN1059.C6F86 2007 808.10285—dc22 2006037512 Portions of I-VI by John Cage have been reprinted by permission of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, pp. 1, 2, 5, 103, 435. Copyright © 1990 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. To my comrades in the present and to cybernetic literary paleontologists of the mythic future “The poem is a machine,” said that famous man, and so I’m building one. Or at least I’m having it built, because I want something big and impressive and automatic. You see, people will stand in front of it and insert money, dimes or quarters, depending upon the poem’s locus. Yes the whole thing will clank and hum and light up and issue a string of words on colored ticker-tape. Or maybe the customers will wear ear-phones and turn small knobs so the experience will be more audile-tactile than old fashioned visual. In any case they will only get one line at a time, This being the most important feature of my design which is based on the principle that, In poetry, “one perception must immediately and directly lead to a further perception,” And therefore the audience will be compelled to feed in coin after coin. Now I admit that the prototype model that you see on display is something of a compromise, as it has a live poet concealed inside. But I assure you that this crudity will eventually be eliminated Because each machine, I mean each poem, is to be fully computerized And so able to stand on its own feet. —Lionel Kearns, “Kinetic Poem” (1968) Contents List of Illustrations xi Foreword xv A Chronology of Works in Digital Poetry, 1959–1995 xix Introduction: Evolving Circuits of Digital Poetry 1 1. Origination: Text Generation 31 2. Visual and Kinetic Digital Poems 85 3. Hypertext and Hypermedia 150 4. Alternative Arrangements for Digital Poetry 199 5. Techniques Enabled: (Pro)Fusions after Poetry Computerized 221 Appendix A: Codeworks 257 Appendix B: Holography 265 Acknowledgments 271 Notes 275 Bibliography 325 Index 341 Illustrations 1.1. “Computerized Japanese Haiku,” by Margaret Masterman and Robin McKinnon Wood 57 1.2. Excerpt from “II,” by John Cage 66 1.3. Screenshot from PataLiterator, by mIEKAL aND 73 1.4. Detail from MERZ poems, by Randolph Valentine and Doug Rogers 76 2.1. Illustration from “Computer Texts,” by Marc Adrian 96 2.2. Detail of the Boolean Image/Conceptual Typewriter, by Carl Fernbach-Flarsheim 98 2.3. Illustration by Leslie Mezei, from untitled series 100 2.4. Illustration by Adele Aldridge 103 2.5. “Observances,” by Lillian F. Schwartz and Ken Knowlton 104 2.6. “The Flying High Tail Longhorn Gate,” by David Daniels 105 2.7. “Ninho de Metralhadoras,” by Erthos Albino de Souza 106 2.8. “Automatergon 72-1,” by Greta Monach 107 2.9. “Stability” (1992), by Clemente Padín 108 2.10. “The Collected Sayings of Time,” by Jim Andrews 109 2.11. Illustration in Polkinhorn, Bridges of Skin Money 111 2.12. Storyboard diagram for Roda Lume, by E. M. Melo e Castro, in Antologia Efémera 120 xii / Illustrations 2.13. Roda Lume diagrams, by E. M. Melo e Castro, illustrated in Antologia Efémera 121 2.14. Povo-Ovo, by Silvestre Pestana 125 2.15. “INSTANCENCE,” by Geof Huth 127 2.16. Screenshot from “Amour,” by Philippe Bootz 129 2.17. Stills from “Le mange-texte [The Text Eater],” by Jean-Marie Dutey 130 2.18. Illustration from “4320,” by Alan Sondheim 140 2.19. Still from “Voies de faits,” by Jean-Marie Dutey 142 2.20. Illustration from “IO,” by André Vallias 144 3.1. Screenshot of main interface from “Les mots et les images,” by Jean-Marie Dutey 159 3.2. Detail of screenshot of graphical overlay from “Les mots et les images,” by Jean-Marie Dutey 160 3.3. Screenshot from “Autobiographie,” by Jean-Pierre Balpe 161 3.4. Screenshot from “Autobiographie,” by Jean-Pierre Balpe 162 3.5. Screenshot from A Life Set for Two, by Robert Kendall 164 3.6. Detail from introduction to Intergrams, by Jim Rosenberg 166 3.7. Screenshot from “Intergram 10,” by Jim Rosenberg 166 3.8. Screenshot from “Intergram 10,” by Jim Rosenberg 168 3.9. Screenshot of frame from “Intergram 10,” by Jim Rosenberg 169 3.10. Screenshot from Virtual Poem 12, by Ladislao Pablo Györi 174 3.11. Screenshot from Virtual Poem 12, by Ladislao Pablo Györi 174 3.12. Screenshot from “Les trois petits cochons,” by Jean-Marie Dutey 176 3.13. Screenshot from “Les trois petits cochons,” by Jean-Marie Dutey 177 3.14. Screenshot from The Speaking Clock, by John Cayley 187 3.15. De¤nition for “xyzxyx,” by Geof Huth 191 Illustrations / xiii 3.16. “Writing Instructions,” screenshot from Marble Springs, by Deena Larsen 193 5.1. Screenshot from the arrival of the beeBox, by Aya Karpinska 230 5.2. Detail of screenshot from the arrival of the beeBox, by Aya Karpinska 231 5.3. Screenshot from “New Word Order,” by Sandy Baldwin 246 5.4. Screenshot from “ceci n’est pas un nike,” by Giselle Beiguelman 247 5.5. Screenshot from Birds Singing Other Birds Songs, by Maria Mencia 249 A.1. “Birth of God/uniVerse,” by Lionel Kearns 258 A.2. “Timesharing: Conditional Jump,” by Archie Donald 260 A.3. Illustration from “The Verse,” by André Vallias 262 B.1. Six points of view of the holopoem Adhuc, by Eduardo Kac 266 B.2. Still (detail) from holographic poem Antitheses, by Richard Kostelanetz 268 Foreword A basic statement about literature might be that any statement is possible: literature means I can say anything. At the same time, certain statements are already subject to regulations and distributions. A basic statement on poet- ics might be that it deals with the possibilities for statements at a given mo- ment: poetics means what is possible for me to say now. (Of course, I may still say what remains impossible.) However provisional and contested these basic statements may be, they open onto the problem of de¤ning digital po- etry, which is no more and no less than the problem of contemporary po- etics. The de¤nition of digital poetry remains up for grabs. For the true skeptics—and they do exist—digital poetry is an impossibility. In this view the computer is intrinsically unsuited for the creative act of writing poetry for a variety of reasons, ranging from the fact of its strict programming to the inverse fact of its lack of a structure for invention. A milder version of this position sees no real poetry yet written in digital media—all ®ash and no creativity, at least so far. Even the enthusiasts of digital poetry, those in the know, cannot agree on the de¤nition of digital poetry. Of course, this is all for the best, a necessary debate in an emerging ¤eld. What is most interesting is the reemergence of basic aesthetic questions from the speci¤c problem of de¤ning digital po- etry. The question of de¤ning digital poetry devolves to the question of po- etry itself, of distinguishing what makes a poem a poem and not something else. If this is a very old question, it is also one that is more or less muted in the broad normalization of avant-garde poetry. In what might be seen as the segmented contemporary institution of poetry, especially in academic settings, it is perfectly possible to earn a PhD or tenure as a student and xvi / Foreword scholar of innovative poetry. Of course, this is also all for the best, but given such friendly conditions for innovative work, where we know the answer to basic questions of poetics, we too quickly cease to ask the questions. These questions are immediate in digital poetry. Digital poetry is the contempo- rary site of intense concern with poetics. Loss Pequeño Glazier’s Digital Poetics: The Making of E-Poetries was the ¤rst book-length work on digital poetry and remains the benchmark. Gla- zier led the way for the critical assessment of digital poetry as a subject of academic study. His work cogently argued for the innovative literary signi¤- cance of digital poems. His method is critical in the most fundamental sense: he makes distinction. To convince that possibilities of invention and creation in digital poetry parallel those in other media, Glazier isolates spe- ci¤c examples of innovative practice through parallel sequences of innova- tive poets: Williams, Creeley, and Mac Low, for example, and in digital po- etry Cayley, Rosenberg, and Glazier himself.
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