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Deena Larsen has been a confirmed electronic literature addict
for over a decade. In 1988, Larsen tried to go beyond linear text to show
the connections between women in a Colorado mining town. She wrote poems and
connected them on a model train railway bed, with differently colored
embroidery thread to signify connections. This didn't work-one couldn't see
the threads after a while. A friend suggested using a computer-which can
show links through a click of a mouse. This first work, Marble
Springs ( Eastgate, 1993), is now a collaborative
hypertext where readers can add their own stories and connections.
Larsen's next works
revealed her innate fascination for complex structures and furthered the
addiction. Samplers: Nine
Vicious Little Hypertexts (Eastgate, 1996) uses quilt patterns to show the
geometrical structure and quilt stitching to show the inner connections in
this bunch of short stories with everything from sentient traffic barriers
to coyotes who can destroy the world. Ferris
Wheels , the inaugural Iowa Review Web work, tells
a story of a ferris wheel ride, as the heroine
takes spaceships and subatomic particles into account before answering a
marriage proposal. Stained Word Windows from Word Circuits is a geometric poem about rifts and views. The Pines at Walden Pond, at Cauldron & Net, lets the reader
click on pine branches to explore branching thoughts on visiting Thoreau's
pines.
To show the deeper
connections between meaning and layout, Larsen turned to Japanese kanjis. She superimposed English words over the
structure of the ideograms, eliciting resonances within the placement of
the strokes. These little works, or kanji-kus,
appear in many Web journals, including Sea
Whispers published in this issue
of Currents, Bubbles at Electronic Poetry Center, Ghost Moons
at Akenatondocks, Power Moves at Cauldron
& Net, Mountain
Rumbles at New River, Spiritual Comfort at PIF, Dream
Merging at Aileron, and The Language of
the Void at Riding the Meridian.
Larsen took this idea one
step further and created a multiple layer mystery novel using the kanji structure.
Disappearing Rain is a mystery about Anna, a Japanese-American
college freshman who has disappeared, leaving only an open Internet
connection. The titles of each section form part of a kanji-ku. Thus, the poem forms a structure for navigating
through a story. These haikus then bring new layers of meaning and
resonances to both the series of poems and the story.
Now, Larsen is
experimenting with structure as a direct metaphor. Her latest work, e:electron, in
collaboration with Geoffrey Gatza, is forthcoming
from the Blue Moon Review. The poem is a complex interweaving of three very
different ways to use the periodic table of elements as an extended
metaphor for a love affair. The periodic table itself becomes a double
acrostic poem where love is the bond between elements. Clicking on each
element adds a new electron, or word-memory, to the atomic structure. An
underlying philosophical treatise, Poly-linear Valances, uses the seven
valances, or energy levels of atoms, as the structure for showing
relationships and connections between atomic theory and life.
- How do you define
your work--what categorizations/classifications (traditional or
otherwise) would you use to distinguish e-poetry in general and your
work in particular?
I define
my work as a completely new genre - it is different from poetry, different
from novels, different from any linear writing. Imagine having to explain
that sculpture is different from painting - that it is a three dimensional
art form. In the same way, electronic writing is multidimensional, using
structure, links, sound, motion, etc.
- What are you doing in
e-poetry that cannot be done in more traditional modes (such as linear
paper)?
I show
structure as metaphor. In "Samplers," I used geometric patterns
to show a structure - for example, my story about incest follows two
interlocking diamonds - one with the experience with the father and one
with the experience with the lover. In my kanji-kus
such as "Sea Whispers," the structure takes on a literal meaning
- I use the Japanese kanji or ideogram as the starting point for the work.
My new work, "e:electron" with Geoffrey Gatza, uses the structure of the periodic table of
elements to discuss bonding and love in various stages or orbit shells of a
relationship. Just as John Donne used a compass as an underlying metaphor
for circling his love in "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning," we
use the bonding structure of the atoms as an underlying metaphor for a love
that lasts a lifetime. Each atomic structure shows one additional electron
and in "e:electron," we show one
additional word to indicate another memory, another event in the
relationship. I am now also experimenting with Flash to determine structure
inherent in images such as Michelangelo's David.
- If you "collaborate" with others
(for instance, outsource particular technological aspects of a
"poem"), do you feel this affects the poem's
"authorship?"
In this
world, you need to collaborate with others, as the work demands many
different skills, from computer programming to graphic designs to text
writing. It is hard to be a jack-of-all-trades . . . Further,
each aspect carries its own symbolic connotations or symbiociations.
So we have to be very clear about what the work will do and how it will be
created. Authorship becomes a product of the collaboration - with each
aspect throwing in new nuances and flavors.
Further,
each work collaborates with the reader as the reader chooses which parts to
read and in what order. The reader becomes an active participant, and the
authorship then changes with each reader.
- Who are your readers
and how are you interacting with them? How is youraudience
similar to and/or different from that of the traditional poet's?
I try to
write for a range of audiences. I arrange my works so that people
unfamiliar with hypertexts can get something interesting - I always include
a default path so that you can simply press <return> or easily get to
the "next" screen. But my work goes beyond this simple interface
to offer intriguing insights to people who are more experienced with
hypertext and electronic literature. For example, in "Samplers,"
I have hidden commentaries in the names of the links (this is a Storyspace document and Storyspace
lets you name your links). "E:electron"
on one level is a simple love story and on another is an evolved
philosophical treatise.
The
audience that reads electronic literature is different from one reading a
poem either in a book or even in a poetry slam. If I could, I would put out
a sign saying, wanted:
Readers
who are not afraid to click.
Readers who want to explore.
Readers who want to have some serious fun.
- What excites you
about this new medium for poetry? And what particular drawbacks (if any) does working with electronic
technology present?
We live
in the most exciting time imaginable - we are present at the birth of an
entirely new genre. Everything is new; everything is possible. Nothing has
been discarded or disproven. There are no right ways to write this, no
conventions that cannot be shattered. Anything you create will be one of a
kind.
I love
finding a new way to say something. I get a thrill when two pieces connect
in ways I hadn't planned on but that still work well. The writer's high of
creation is so much more complex and satisfying in electronic poetry
because of all of the connections, of all of the potential "aha's."
Further,
now we have many more toys to play with than we did even a couple of years
ago. Flash has come into its own as a programming language so we can create
causal links, motion links, new structures, time sequences, etc. It is
still a lot of work to learn these tools, but practically anything we can
imagine we can make real.
- How are you
integrating/embracing other media such as sound, animation, and
navigation?
My
interest has always been more in the way the words are put together and the
way the story is told than in sound and animation, so I have been very slow
to integrate these aspects. I am beginning to integrate a great deal more
imagery and a few sounds in my work now, but I am mostly leaving this
promising exploration to others.
I am
still fascinated by navigation and navigation as structure. For me, the way
the piece is put together, where each node or word is in a work is the most
important part. I want to show the spatial relationships between my
concepts. For example, "Ferris Wheels" is structured as a Ferris
Wheel, and each stage in the journey corresponds to a stage in the
character's thought process. In "Pine Whispers," each branch is
in a precise relationship to the other pine branches of thoughts. The best
print analogue would be the conventions of a sonnet, where each line has a
prescribed place in the overall argument. I use links, image maps, and
other navigational tools to reinforce this structure.
- What kind of
aesthetic is emerging in the field?
Determining
the emerging aesthetic is like trying to taste a tornado while you are in
the middle of it. The great thing is that there are so many aesthetics from
in-your-face slam Flash to quiet reflections, from arcane theory to simple
storytelling, from elaborate to simplistic. The one thing that e-poets have
in common is their attempt to find out what this media can do and how it
can work. We are all a bunch of Ernie
Kovacs playing with our new tv toys and finding out what is and is not effective in
this new media.
- What do you think the
future holds for e-poets and e-poetry?
This
media is not tv, it is not radio, it is not even a computer program. It is a many-to-many
worldwide communication network - the first one the human race has ever
had. I hope the future for this communication is bright and that it will
remain in the hands of the many rather than in the hands of a controlling
interest. I hope that we can keep the internet freeer
than tv became. I hope we can continue to play
and to determine what works in this new media. I wish I were sure of this -
but I am deeply cynical about what business and government interests can
do. The Internet freedom is worth hanging onto and fighting for.
If we have
a many-to-many communication network in the future, then I think the future
is incredibly bright for e-poets and e-poetry. There won't be a way to
categorize e-poetry because each piece will continue to be a unique work.
We will never run out of new forms of expression, of new ways to combine
words, sound, image, navigation, links, structure.
We will find new links and new civilizations and boldly go where no text
has gone before
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