ANALYSIS OF “THE PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST”
“The Portrait of the Artist” by
Peter Howard is a hypertext poem in which the author uses Macromedia Flash. The
author refers to this poem as “very weird”, I think he is right, but at the
same time it is very funny.
When you open the site where the
poem is, the first thing you see is a drawn orange frame in a grey background.
On the top of the frame it appears the title of the poem “The Portrait of the
Artist”, then on the bottom, the name of the author, Peter Howard, and then,
down the title appear and disappear consecutive phrases one behind another. The
first phrase that completes the original title parodies Joyce’s novel “The
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man”. Howard’s version says as follows: “The
Portrait of the Artist as an old joke”. Then “an” and “joke” disappear
obtaining then “as old” and we can relate all we see inside the frame as a
single sentence “The Portrait of the Artist as old Peter Howard”. After this
transformation, the author continues the original title with some other funny
phrases: “… with mild depression”, “…
with self-indulgent gloom”, “… alienated from society”, “… as little different
from everyone else”, “… unable to make up his mind”. Once all these phrases
appear, then we can read “Loading”. The whole introduction goes with a coloured
background that changes constantly.
The next thing we see are ten links
consisting on ten warnings. Some of these links warn from danger, others from
caution and others simply inform about environmental issues. If we put the
cursor on them they change in order to stress themselves, for instance some of
them change one colour to another, others exalt one of their elements and in
the case of the warnings on environmental issues they are reduced. We can click
on each one of them and they bring us to the most unexpected and surprising
solutions. I will explain how they work one by one:
- CAUTION. CONFINED SPACE. DO NOT ENTER
WITHOUT OBTAINING PERMIT.
First we read in green letters “The weasel goes…” and then in red letters
“pop!” The word “pop” explodes as a bubble emitting the appropriate sound.
- DANGER. CAUSTIC. We read “The words are the important
things.” This sentence disappears little by little as if it dissolves because
of the caustic. A part from this visual game, we can interpret it as even words
are vulnerable.
- CAUTION. BIOLOGICAL HAZARD. We read “Once upon a time…” and then
we see a picture of some young boys in the 70s or 80s. Someone is highlighted
with a circle, probably the author himself.
- DANGER. DO NOT ENTER. We hear electronic music while the
sentence “Oh, to be in April Now that
- RECYCLABLE WASTE ONLY. We see an
inanimate picture, a kind of watercolour of a cavalryman and horse that moves from
right to left. Sound of a neigh and some shots.
- CAUTION. EYE PROTECION REQUIRED BEYOND
THIS POINT. We read a
message divided in two parts consisting in two links,
the first one says “DON’T THINK” and the second one “JUST DO IT”. The message
is intermittent, first appears the first part and then the second one and thus
repeatedly until you choose one of the two links. If you choose “DON’T THINK”,
you see series of numbers and letters that don’t make any sense and then the
word “dis” in brackets. If you choose the second
link, that is, “JUST DO IT”, you only see the same word, “dis”,
in brackets. In both cases the word “dis” seams to
crack and finally disappears.
- CAUTION. BIOLOGICAL
MATERIAL. This part
consists on the repetition of the word(s) “care” and “don’t care”, which
function as a leitmotiv with the
combination of some other words or phrases placed between these two. A part
from this structure of “care” + word/phrase + “don’t care”, we see again
numbers and letters set out as if they were formulas.
- DANGER. DO NOT START THIS MACHINE. Here we can observe two parts of a
(written) conversation. Part A whose letters are mainly in blue (one in red)
says something and part B whose letters are in pink always answer “The
measurement must be between
- CAUTION. USE OTHER DOOR. We read the following assertion: “The only
thing we can be certain of is that it will look out of date”. The words “out of
date” are written in a font that imitates a gothic writing. Then the word
“only” comes to the foreground to emphasize the whole sentence. The background
is a kind of pale red with some yellow stripes and circles that move as if they
guide the reader to read the sentence.
- ENVIRONMENTALLY SAFE. We see an
image of a pink teddy bear that is pointed with some arrows with the words
“pink teddy bear”. Then it appears two more bears that are also pointed with an
arrow with the same words. Then it appears six more bears and the arrows and
the sentence “pink teddy bear” disappear. Then all the nine bears disappear two
and finally we read: “We leave the rest to the fervid imagination of the gentle
reader…”
Among all these warnings and their
content we see in a random way a subliminal “image” consisting on a text about Nordisk films that in fact are Danish films. Sometimes this
image is preceded by a fragment announcing this subliminal image and sometimes
it appears after it. The fragment in itself says: “fragme[a]nt sublime/inal”. Sometimes this
fragment appears without the subliminal image and sometimes it only appears the
part of “fragme[a]nt”.