How does it make you feel?
What does it makes you think about?
What are the other media forms that it uses, or is similar to?
If we accept that Jason's works are poetry - How do you "read" digital poetry like that?
Wittenoom:
I am a little unsure about how this piece of e-Art made me feel. It confused me a little. If it were a poem, written in stanzas, I probably would have understood it less as I wouldn't have the background music creating a mood, I wouldn't have the pictures provoking thought. But then, by that token, perhaps I would have understood it more, or been able to come up with my own interpretation of the art due to the lack of distractions and the ease of reading and contemplation?
Birds Still Warm From Flying:
Again, I am a little confused. Perhaps I am just poetically illiterate? Or so uncultured that I don't understand anything? Perhaps I shouldn't be admitting that in a public place? I found this one hard to follow, which perhaps was the point. The music was distracting, and the text hard to read as it overlapped each other, or was too small. Perhaps I just have a silly computer? Either way, I got irritated with it and moved onto...
Evidence of Everything Exploding This:
Now this one looks interesting, I am still waiting for it to load, but there is a blurb on the front page which I completely comprehend and I actually have a basis of thought for what I am looking at. Let's see if I change my views once it is loaded.. Woah, freaked out by the prophecies created in this piece of e-Art. Whilst, again, this was a little busy, I think that was the point. This would have to be my favourite piece of work so far, possibly due to the aforementioned blurb that, which made it what I was looking at more clear.
By the way, Adam, maybe you should tell Jason that in the blurb for this game he used the wrong form of its!! (that's the teacher in me.. and I have probably made a fool of myself, as his misuse, knowing my luck, is probably some sort of form of irony!)
Stunningly Harmful Songs:
This is a collection of videos with a song being sung in the background, and bordered by an animated scene and title. The work that I enjoyed the most was titled Super Heaven and was a video of the contents of one's fridge, with the lyrics repeating the words super heaven. Perhaps to some people, the contents of the fridge really is a super version of heaven? Perhaps they are referring to supermarket heaven.. All of the products bought and consumed from these grocery chains is obviously their main goal, right?
Ok, so it was clear here that most of these works confused me a little, mostly due to the overuse of media (audio, written words, videos etc), which tended to cloud the message a little for me. In all though, I do consider these works as art, and more specificially, poetry.
As Griffith (2006) noted, authors created their literature in order to express ideas for us, as the readers, to enjoy, interpret and analyse (if one wishes). In these works, Jason Nelson, has indeed intended to pass upon a message, and while it is in a somewhat non-conventional format, it is still poetry. How do we read digital poetry such as this, you ask? Well, my answer is that you read it the same way as you read any poetry. Griffith (2006) believes that to interpret literature, and in this case, poetry, one needs to use their imagination to relate the work to their experiences and to actively theorise about the meaning behind the literature as one is reading. Won't this mean that each person's interpretation may be different, just as with 'normal', traditional poetry? The fact that it is e-Art and in digital form doesn't change what it is, it just makes the experience that more involved and, possibly, thought provoking.
References
Griffith, K. (2006). Writing essays about literature: A guide and style sheet. Boston, MA: Thomson Wadsworth.
Nelson, J. (n.d.). Secret technology: Net art: Digital poetry: Video oddities. Retrieved January 31, 2011, from http://secrettechnology.com/
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