Gago, Ana

Marques, Diogo

English

Repositório Institucional da Universidade Católica Portuguesa

ELO2019 University College Cork #ELOcork108made available to the public before.Bibliography:Raymond, E. S, 1999, The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by anAccidental Revolutionary, O'Reilly Media: Sebastopol.The ELO Conference TrifectaMark Marino (University of Southern California)These are Dakota-style one-word or one-phrase-at-a-time digital poems created using ErikLoyer’s Step.Works platform for one-click electronic literature, which he demonstrated at ELO2018.The first piece Souvinirecuerdos (a mashup of “souvenir” and “recuerdos”) presents alament of the aftermath of conferences, specifically the ELO conferences in Porto (2017) andMontreal (2018). This poem treats on the painful sweet feeling of conference fatigue, the madrush to collect some souvenirs, and the friction of re-entry into the real world as we reunite withour friends and loved ones. The second poem, conferencEliterature (joining “conference” and“e-literature”), celebrates real ELO panels and talks in a call and response litany that interleavestitles of talks from ELO 2018 with reactions from a second voice. This response character atfirst is stunned by the fascinating panel names, then becomes more curious, and then finallybegins to ask questions, seeming to come into a fuller understanding of what ELO is all aboutand wanting to participate. Thus, the poem traces the experience of the conference goer who hasnever before encountered the field, following their path from fascination to participation. Thelast piece is Suighenerous (a mashup of the Gaelic word for suck-- “suigh”-- plus the Latinphrase “sui generis,” of its own kind). Drawing titles from the 2018 conference and, when theyare available, the 2019 conference, I am using an algorithm to generate new machine-authoredpaper titles, which gestures toward the future of ELO as well as back to Rita Raley’s talk at ELO2018, in which she noted the imminent rise of computer-generated text.Taken together the three works, which combine arresting concrete poetry with rhythmicmusical accompaniment, pay homage to ELO, its presenters, and diverse ideas it collects at itsconferences. These poems lend themselves to a stage performance before the very communicatethey celebrate. The presentation will require only a projector and speakers to plug into a Maclaptop, although the works will be online and easily displayed on a PC as well. Each poem is only2-3 minutes long.From Stone to Flesh and Back Again: Digital Literature as AlchemyDiogo Marques (University of Coimbra) and Ana Gago (CITAR – Escola dasArtes/Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Porto)"The Stone can only be found when the search lies heavily on the searcher. – Thou seekest hardand findest not. Seek not and thou whilst find."Arthur Koestler, "The Act of Creation"One of the most discussed applications of Alchemy, herefore understandable as art, science,language or code, is the search for the Philosopher's Stone. It is called search, not discovery,because it is truly in the process that the stone operates and materializes; i.e. only byunderstanding its geometry, by reducing, melting and sublimating its composition, there is achance for revelation. Hence, the process is both the flesh and the animus within the Stone,ELO2019 University College Cork #ELOcork109combined in its multiple possible forms of creation. Happening from the outside in and insideout. From stone to flesh, and back again.In an evident parallel, we can, in fact, compare the artist (the writer, the poet) to thealchemist; for instance, in the way that both attempt to materialize their individual expression bya process of (de)codification. Thinking of digital literature and its well-known association withthe notion of ergodic by Espen Aarseth, in 1996, it can be seen as reminiscent of a longstandingrelationship of hermeticism with the “Royal Art” of Alchemy. Through artistic processes, and aswith alchemy, certain particularities of a given experience may indeed be modified, filtered,sublimated, multiplied, and sometimes even self-generated. Experimental writing techniques,such as combinatory poetry, literary cut-ups, or fold-ins, contribute to extending the word, andtherefore the text, adding multiple levels of meaning and affection.In addition, as with Alchemy, Digital Literature now seems to enjoy a peripheral status, not to beconfused with marginality, since peripheries do tend to shape and limit what they circumscribe –particularly those inhabited by certain elites.Based upon these principles, (DES)CONEXÃO [wreading-digits.com/desconexao], acyberpoetic project from 2018, by portuguese artist collective wr3ad1ng d1g1t5 in colaborationwith media artist Pedro Ferreira, aims to question the implications of digital technologies onhuman perception of time and over human relationships. In (DES)CONEXÃO, the accesspoint, its circular interface, contains and materializes 32 concrete/visual/sound/video/digitalpoems, organized accordingly to the four alchemical stages in the search for a potentialPhilosopher’s Stone: nigredo, albedo, citrinitas, rubedo. In a dialectic tension between twocompletely opposite experiences of time (realtime/runtime), the reader is invited to (de)activatethese fractal, fragmented and encrypted intermedia contents, so that a potential de-codificationmay take place.Moreover, given that it was intended to serve as a form of digital alchemy lab, it mirrorsthe ability of arts, namely of digital or “new” media arts, to question so-called reality, from theoutside in. In others words, artistic processes, specifically those in association with digitaltechnologies, are/as an alternative way of questioning what science, in its hegemonic role, can nolonger question by itself.Bucle: Archivo de ficcionesVinicius Marquet (Independent Artist)Ulises Carrión is not dead and maybe he has never been. Maybe his death was part of some lastperformance, a symbol beyond death. It was shamanic witchcraft; Or maybe his death was just aplot between particulars: a cultural project, an art product or an organized rule set left to followby well-known strangers and friends.Bucle: archivo de ficciones is a small archive of fictions that it is inspired in Carrión’s theoriesabout the book and dissemination of language, as his famous essay "The new art of makingbooks" among other projects.Bucle: Archivo de ficciones is a Hyperfiction text based on real life events that happened to Nosllamamos Track siete ( Author )during his research about Ulises Carrion life and legacy.Give Me a ReasonTerhi Marttila (University of Porto)“The button knows no prejudices, uniting concepts at random. It is in the mind of the interactorthat meaning begins to take shape.”

From stone to flesh and back again: digital literature as alchemy

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From stone to flesh and back again: digital literature as alchemy

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Repositório Institucional da Universidade Católica Portuguesa