The software word: digital poetry as new media-based language art

摘要

Drawing particularly on kinetic digital poetry as a kind of software language art, this essay suggests that such a scripting-and-programming-language based textuality is not a continuation of the poetry-as-we-know-it by other means, but a new medium with its own specificity set at the intersection of the literary avant garde, net art, software art, browser art and text-based electronic installations. It is of importance that this programmable medium applies an expanded concept of textuality based on the application of netspeak and the symbols of programming languages, meaning also that the language of the code is involved in new poetic dynamic structures with striking visual, animated and tactile features. Kinetic digital poetry runs in loops, the loop being the medium adjusted to the demand of organising text components in time-based sequences, which seems to be the mode best suited to the perception of contemporary individuals and to the demands of mainstream visual culture. One of the crucial tasks of this essay is to demonstrate a shift from traditional hyperfiction and hyperpoetry to more sophisticated forms and to the specificity of software language art devoted to a new audience. The institutions in which such a textual practice exists are the rooms of club-, DJ-, and VJ- culture, mailing lists, newsletters, digital arts conferences and digital art exhibitions, rather than university classrooms and libraries.