Wow, it’s been a busy couple of weeks.
The beginning of the semester is always rough, getting info understood, munching down on committee work, and wrestling with the continual work of curriculum development. Charles Deemer will soon be teaching an online hyperdrama course for us (Spring 2010) and docs are being written for the new media program, casting up our best effort for program establishment and transfer.
In addition, I’ve added a few features to That Night I Saw, which will add cyclical twists to the internal navigation of the poem, especially when it comes to intermediate stopping points. But, realy, what’s important is the internal language, and what’s interesting is how links emerge naturally from the poem’s structure.
I’ve been back to reading Octavio OPaz. Reading his poetry always jiggles the concretion and relationship handle. I’ve been bothering too much with the technology, I’ve learned, playing with half-backed concepts rather than with the real work of mining, dredging, and bricklaying.
When you say you’re bothering too much with technology, are you saying that it pulls you away from the narrative?
While I fully believe that technological efforts are just as creative as artistic (and may even be considered as such, particularly in architecture, hypertext form, sculpting, etc.) ones, do they impede each other at all even while complementing and blending simply because of the mental involvement and absorption required by either? Take out the word “technological” and replace the idea of writing and painting simultaneously to create, such as in graphic/text (comics?) narrative; do they compete for the artist’s attention?
For me it is becoming a question of technological overkill. Do I need flash for this poem, in other words, or is my knowledge of flash too limited to effectuate a technique. But do I really have a sense of what that technique would look like?
I think I understand exactly what you mean. All I might suggest is that you read it once through as a reader, or if you can’t distance yourself yet, have someone else read through it with the idea in mind of “possibilities.” Then again, you may find that simple and direct is what the piece is seeking: story selects form