RISD DIGITAL POETICS

Spring 2018

Work 4: TAVIT POEM

The paradox of convergence is its radiant divergence. —David Jhave Johnston, Aesthetic Animism 19

SUBJECT

You can choose your own subject. Personally, I have been thinking of Jhave’s concept of language as animate. Actually poets have always seen language as living. Across cultures, humans have also long conceived themselves as creatures of a greater force, whether children of God or the Gods or citizens in the collective or at the mercy of Fate. Now we’re looking at the question in terms of machine. Are humans machines? Are machines human? Is the machine/human interaction composite or organism? And where does language factor in the relationship? From all the questions and ideas that are in your mind, choose one to explore in this fourth work, the TAVIT Poem.

I suppose, as with the sonnet or the haiku, it’s not so much the form of the thing (14 lines, 17 syllables, or clicking a mouse), but the idea that shapes the form.

DEFINITION + BACKGROUND READING

Inquiry expands through embracing new terminology. The word text (derived from the fourteenth-century root weave) is not inclusive enough to incorporate dynamic, animated type. Multimedia digital poetry renders the term insufficient. Future theorists will require terminology speific to the domain. I suggest the adoption of acronyms: TAV (textual audiovisual) and TAVIT (textual audiovisual interactive).

David Jhave Johnston, Aesthetic Animism 5

I am sure you will find your own passages in the book to relate to this assignment. I found the following useful but you can certainly add to them:

· Chapter 2: Critiques, from “Lumps, Logarithms, and Julia Kristeva’s Chora” (46) to the end of the chapter (56)

· Chapter 5: Futures, “Summation” (194)

· Chapter 5: Futures, “To Conclude” (205-6)

POETS/ARTISTS

Again, you will have your own points of reference. I would probably start with and then seek less available examples

· André Vallias, Nous n’avons pas compris Descartes (1991) and The Verse (1991), http://www.andrevallias.com/

also Aesthetic Animism 65-6

· Nadeau & Lewis, Still Standing (2005), Electronic Literature Collection 2; also Aesthetic Animism 82-3

· Nelson & Horton, Nomencluster (2015), http://www.secrettechnology.com/ also Aesthetic Animism 133

DOCUMENTATION

For this poem, we will adapt the documentation exemplified in Electronic Literature Collection 3

http://collection.eliterature.org/3/ It’s fine to include all three sections in one doc.

1. Title of the work, author’s name

2. Metadata: year, language, keywords, tech details

3. Author’s Statement

DUE DATE

Thursday class: Wednesday 4/11, 9pm (to TAVIT folder)

Wednesday class: Tuesday 4/10, 9pm (to TAVIT folder)