Re: [-empyre-] hello,

[marcus bastos <bastos.marcus@gmail.com>]

Dear Brigid,

nice to have you here!

You said that: <<In my own work and projects the relationship that Sue
is getting at, between print and the digital, is very key.>>
But the relationship between word and space also seems to be central
to your work, isn´t so? Actually, the way words occupy the avaible
space (either on the printed page or elsewhere) seems to be an
important parameter to understand contemporary writing. It is
well-known how Mallarmé started this movement of abandoning the
framing of texts in sentences and paragraphs (wich can be understood
as an equivalent of the rupture of perspective, in painting). It could
be argued that "Un coup des dés" started a process that implies in an
increasing "tridimensionalisation" of writing (maybe that´s not the
best term, but I can´t think of other at the moment). This process
reached the stage where writing was actually an exploration of
architecture, such as in some works of Lawrence Weiner and Augusto de
Campos. The most well-known example is probably Jenny Holzner, who
adds another elements other than the placement of text in space.
Probably, the shift from print to digital is smoother than we tend to
think, given that the move was gradual — from the flat page of the
traditional book, to the shattered page of post-Mallarmé writing, to
the luminous surfaces explored in videopoems by Richard Konstelanetz
and Lionel Kearns, and so on, until we finally reach digital. (And I
don´t want to suggest that digital media are the end of this process
towards 3-D space and nothing more. Actually, digital media starts a
whole new set of problems.)

Anyway, I´d be interested in learn a little more about the role of
space, when you create your textplans.

best,
Marcus


On 10/5/05, Brigid Mc Leer <mcleer.bridge@virgin.net> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> Hello! Sorry to be such a late starter - and already I am suffering the
> repercussions of arriving late to the party - everything is already
> underway, people are deep in conversation, maybe a little tipsy and the
> dancing is getting going! What I mean is that the posts so far are
> already sooo rich and there is so much to respond to it is hard to know
> where to begin. In fact, in order to take it all in, I'm going to have
> to print these posts out and read them on my long tube journey this
> morning. (one of the few advantages of having to use London public
> transport is the fact that it takes a very very long time!).
> However this very experience I'm having says a lot, I feel, about
> writing in digital space or material. For me, one of the crucial
> changes that the digital introduces is this illusion of continuous
> 'presentness' - as we are all in a constantly simultaneuos time-space.
> One in which the speed of exchange (in writing) is so rapid it not only
> apes the immediacy of speech based conversation, but also has that
> added dimension of 'permanence' (yes I know this is an illusion of
> sorts too, as we are talking about the digital), such that the writing
> stays in the 'air' as it were, piling up into the site of these
> exchanges.
> In my own work and projects the relationship that Sue is getting at,
> between print and the digital, is very key. Partly because I find that
> in order to contain or to deal with the rapaciousness of digital
> space/materiality I have to resort to physical means, but also because
> I think for many people the digital (and digital writing) is still a
> mimicing device, where non-digital histories, conventions, spaces and
> materials are translated but not perhaps as forgotten as we might
> imagine.
> I recently wrote a paper about email as a correspondence form, relating
> it to the more 'old-fashioned' and increasingly less used form of
> letter-writing (and epistolary literatures). To frame this paper I
> write it as a letter addressed to a friend of mine who died 5 years
> ago. He was a writer and would have enjoyed this as a tactic I think.
> But I was interested in the effect of this non-material space on how we
> conceive of where it is and where we are in relation to it. And in
> particular, as I mentioned earlier, its illusory presentness.
> ... Mmmm, just some starting thoughts, unformed, even though written
> down!
>
> more soon,
> very pleased to be 'here',
>
> bests
> Brigid
>
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