#residentgeeks

A programme funded by the Australia Council for the Arts: a Geek in Residence is installed to deliver dynamic digital initiatives across an organisation and its community.

The idea being that the techies provide the "skills, information and connections needed to succeed in the digital era". The project appears to be in abeyance currently but I wonder why. It is funny how everyone has become a geek these days so maybe that is it.

But I am still waiting to see some of the really useful filtering/predictive text - multi-thread poetry, Boolean verse, 3D structural holographic towers of words and I wonder who is actually working on this stuff now. Rather than just getting scored up on a really good tweet - of course that is fun too - but...

The old news story is here http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/news/media-centre/media-releases/new-geeks-in-residence-for-arts-organisations/

And yes there is still just a really small part of me that would be happy if I could open my front door electronically at the press of a button...

3D poems again

Been having an enjoyable half an hour messing around with the QR code generator: the trouble is that my small phone app cannot handle anything too complicated - William Shakespeare and John Donne were both out - or in colour.

Nice if it could.

Plus the qrcode generators themselves have a word limit too - so bye bye Elizabeth Bishop.

The final solution for your delectation is a riddle poem in QRcode. A riddle within a code. As 3D as I can get so far. Enjoy.

You can read the original 3D poetry post here - I think the trees have reminded me -  http://poetandgeek.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/3d-poetry.html

In the forest

This poem has been haunting me this week here at p&g. It picked itself.

What I like about Zhang Zao's 1996 poem especially is that everything happens at the same time. A poem of transformation written in 3D. So the forest is like a generator, squirrels make telephone calls long distance, china shops, bills and ballet in the mist and vegetation. "You walk about,as if the forest isn't in the forest." And yet it becomes more forest because of it.

And that it was written on New Year's Day so it fits in with a whole other genre of new year poetry.

And Brian Holton's translation!

He feels he's got from the universe, for the first time, a pair of hands and violence.

3D chant

Imagine painting poetry? And no, I don't mean a line from a poem on your back or shoulder in the form of a tattoo. Or the name of your mother.

But a picture that records history and self that works in the context of a poem; the pictorial equivalent of the troubadour's lyre. Or a mediaeval map.

Not that unthinkable. In oral culture, cave painting to sand patterns kicked up with the feet in dance serve as a metre for the words sung or chanted.

Aboriginal people did not record their lives through writing, instead they sung their land in ceremonial events comprising singing, storytelling, and dance. Telling of ancestors, topography of the country, its landmarks, laws and customs.

Don't forget as you walk down the street and turn the corner on your way to work. 

What words come into your head each time you shimmy round the postbox and over the lip of the zebra crossing, examine the changing tree, chimney, window lights and people?

Is that memory chant brought to life?

3D poetry

Sound artists have introduced us to the idea of sound, phrases or words picked up using, for example, sensors or mics that are randomly triggered and then use an algorithm to form  an original output; one that very often can be repeated with endless variations.

But how about an actual 3D poetic form that stores variations in a designed way; it would have something in common with existing forms like the ghazal, villanelle or pantoum but perhaps more like a 3D chess board stretching up using an appropriate array to store the information.  Perhaps holding a collection of elements that are selected by indices computed at run-time. Grandmasters can hold all the moves in their heads so why can't poets? Folk musician and ballad singers come to mind with their knowledge of lengthy ballads and pieces with the intricate riffs and improvisations that might be used in a performance.

I think poets sell themselves short as to what we can actually manage.

So here goes, a three line stanza but each line can segue into a separate poem; imagine that times three. I feel inspired by the classical poets and  the Romantics who wrote their work on bark and trees (or at least wrote about doing so!); imagine leaves with a line or a word; and now imagine them floating down from the sky...each trajectory making a separate poem.

A job for the summer...

Some places you might like to visit: http://www.3dpoetry.com/, http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/salon/11713-music-60s-3ds-poetry-album.html,  http://janklow.deviantart.com/art/now-programmed-for-3D-poetry-197503010

All fun but none of them much to do with the content of this post.