Pictures from Exhibition: Kodifikaciju Maksla

My works were presented at the exhibition title Kodifikaciju Maksla (translates as Codification of Arts) curated by Gundega Strautmane. The exhibition took place at Liepājas Latviešu biedrības nams in Liepaja, Latvia.

The central theme of the exhibition is codification of language and its artistic exploration and application. The duration of the exhibition is March 4-30. March 6 was marked by the discussion on the subject matter.

My contribution to the exhibition was pure luck. I've been posting various visual interpretations of Roadrage poems on Facebook groups once in a while and one of them caught Gundega Strautmane's attention. We started to talk about it and she asked me whether i can provide her with information for her scientific work about artistic codification of language. It was an honor to me so i gladly gave everything she needed.

Some time later she was asked me to take part in the exhibition and here we are. I gotta thank her for giving me a reason to write down scattered musings about those pieces. Not sure i would've done it otherwise.

So - I've got four different series featured on the show. But before showing photos, i would like to explain what this whole thing is about.

BSPH - Re

There is a concept of "as lame as possible" piece. It is a type of a throwaway piece that somehow persists and actually works as a work of art. I've found one of mine. This one follows grand tradition of Lawrence Wiener, Art & Language and Ed Ruscha.

The piece is merely a reference to the location of the definition of the word "Re" in the Modern Ukrainian Dictionary.

It started as a joke. I was at the reading of the "Mindbending verse" (don't ask) and was called out by one of the performers.
I had a couple of minutes before my turn, and i had nothing, i wasn't expecting to do anything.

So i went online - straight to the old Modern Ukrainian Dictionary website. There was a great brainstorm feature - random page. It went straight to "Re". I was like "oh well, i'm guess i'm going to embarrass myself". But a couple of moments later it was "wait a minute, i know".

I wrote down the resulting piece on a napkin and it got torn apart by the pencil - it looked like ragged battlefield white flag.

And then i go to the mic and read the piece and there is silence.
People don't know how to react because a couple of minutes ago they were listening to sonnets and haikus about desolation, contemplaton and the reckless nulliety of the modern age and then this. It was a bit out of the leftfield.

After an awkward silent pause - the hum started. People were like "yeah, that is something". And then there was lots and lots of rustling because people went to their phones to check out whether the poem's statement was correct and they were even more Yeah! That is something!".
The dude who called me out called me a bastard afterwards. It felt earned.

Later this piece was exhibited twice in Lviv and Ternopil and both times people were offended by the piece and asked it to be taken off. Seriously. 

The problem was - none of them was able to explain why this particular piece was offending to them. They just thought it was pointless and thus should not be exhibited. 

Poetry time: ЧHh!

This piece was originally made for the typography exhibition back in 2014. It was a handwritten piece at that time.
The original got lost after the exhibition wrapped up, so i did this digital version. It is cleaner and more precise in representing the concept.

The piece itself is a thought experiment in sounding written letters devoid of context.

The thing plays off the idea that ukrainian letter "Ч" and english letter "h" looks a bit same. The middle letter plays with the cognitive dissonance of ukrainian and english letter looking the same but sounding differently. You have english "H" and ukrainian "Н" which sounds like "n" while "Ч" sound like “ch” in english.

As a result, you get this weird written sound that you can't really figure out but instantly recognize.

Jack Smith Moustache Bra

This is "Jack Smith Moustache Bra" - a typographic composition. I believe it was made sometime in 2012.

This piece came together by accident. I was looking for the right font for the poster. The process was simple - i took the font, typed something with it and dropped that on a board. A couple of hours later I've noticed that the board was piled with stuff. Among else, there was a thing that resembled the image you can see.

It was a combination of ukrainian letters Ш та М in handwritten baroque font. And it stuck with me. I just couldn't get it out of my head. So after several iterations i came up with this version - it is somewhat differently organised. Instead of ukrainian Ш there is english W.

At that time it was just a neat piece. The title itself was brought up by Dmitry Volchek. For him the piece channeled that Jack Smith vibe.

BSPH: Whiteouts from John Kenneth Muir's review of M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening" (2008)

I like reading John Kenneth Muir's reviews. He's one of the best when it comes to writing thoughtful balanced reviews of various films. His texts are goldmines for those who dig peculiar details in film criticism. 

Anyway - he's doing M. Night Shyamalan retrospective series of reviews now (leading up to the Glass opening and subsequent review, i suppose). A couple of days ago he had posted his re-review of Shyalaman's divisive 2008 outing "The Happening". 

As you remember - this was the film about plants getting angry at people and releasing some kind of toxin that made people killing themselves real hard. To he honest, this premise is a misanthropist wet dream. The film is a stilted and numb and complete opposite of Zulawski. This is the film that Andrei Tarkovsky would've liked to direct - I'm serious. 

Anyway - that's not what this post is about. This post is about formatting. Or to be exact - about one formatting peculiarity of Kenneth's review. You see - some parts of his review were whited out. The reason for that is unclear as the whiteout parts don't really contain anything that can be considered as a spoiler - just some subjective thoughts on the subject. I guess it is nothing more than a routine formatting mishap. But what a fascinating one. 

The majority of whiteouts are nothing specials - just long white bars with a shorter one at the end of the paragraph. More fragmented paragraphs are more visually diverse but they are few and far between.

Take a look:

MFT: Celebrating MindVox ASCII Banner

Of all the things you can find on the internet - bizarre promotional typographic constructions are among the ones that also always manage to occupy a special place in my heart even though there is nothing special about them even if you lower your standards of specialness low enough for them to qualify.  

The reason for that is simple - they are easy to play with through various text manipulation and transformation applications. That's the thing with ASCII stuff - it is fun to mess with. 

Case in point - MindVox ASCII Banner. The startup was founded in late 1991 by two former members of Legion of Doom hacker group - Bruce Fancher AKA Dead Lord and Patrick Kroupa AKA Lord Digital. It was an Internet Service Provider of a new kind - the one free of corporate shenanigans (something that is becoming increasingly timely right now when the notion that corporations and their grip on the internet is detrimental to the very essence of the world wide web became obvious even to the most casual users). By the mid-90's the service was shut down, probably because it was way ahead of its time and there was not enough momentum to sustain it on a proper level.

Nevertheless, their legacy lives on. And they left a fancy banner for me to screw with. While it is not really a piece of sophisticated artistry, there is a weird charm to this logo, the way the characters are arranged and formatted. 

Takes a look:


         /\_-\
        <((_))>
         \- \/
 /\_-\(:::::::::)/\_-\
<((_))  MindVox  ((_))>
 \- \/(:::::::::)\- \/
         /\_-\
        <((_))>
         \- \/

There are slashes left and right, underscores, dashes, dashes, dashes, colons, colons, colons, brackers, less-than sign, more-than sign and the name of the company "MindVox" right in the middle of all this. Also - the whole thing is manually centered to compose an image. There are whole lotta spaces involved in this unthankful operation. 

While you play with those things long enough (and you do because it is rather time consuming exercise in wasting time) - after a while (a long-long while) you can get some really unexpected things out of it. You can even get some sweet conceptual poetry out of it, if you waste your time hard enough. But it is fun to mess with it just for the sake of it. 

MFT: Badiousian - Zizekian sounds too funny

Things are strange these days. I've been working on an article about tongue twisters (coming soon) and while editing it my editor suggested to make a reference to Badiousian-Zizekian thing which is not exactly a theory but a curious thing nevertheless. It was a throwaway reference but the title of it was just beyond comprehension. I know what it is. But it sounds so funny. Just try to spell it a couple of times - Badiousian-Zizekian, Badiousian-Zizekian, Badiousian-Zizekian. See? It is just beyond reasonable.

And since i'm the man of action - i've made a permutational sound poem out of it. 

Here's how - i got loaded for a Mars Mission and kept pronouncing "Badiousian - Zizekian" to a phone which was trying to transcribe what i was saying. It was quite a feat since i was slurring and mumbling all the time thus numerous distortions occurred. The other challenge for the transcriber were other noises. There was a cat hunting her shadow nearby and it was a bit too noisy and the phone had no idea what to do with these noises so it just added an additional dash here and there.

The resulting text was something to behold - no spaces whatsoever, lots of dots breaking the words because the transcriber was failing to comprehend incoming stream of words. It needed some editing. Basically, not many changes were made to the text - dots got erased completely due to adding nothing to the text, overall it got cleaned up and formatted. Everything else is left unchanged.

MFT: Ariel Pink - Pom Pom Album Cover

This is a front cover for an Ariel Pink's album titled "pom pom". It was released in 2014 on a record label 4AD. It is one of my favorite album covers. But not because of its content but because of the creative possibilities it offers. The thing is - it is comprised of a handwritten text. And such as, it is quite ambiguous and for the lack of the better word - unassuming. The title also happened to be on a pink background. And when it is pink - you need to think pink and pink means you gotta move around a bit and put it upside down and backwards inside out.

Bil Sabab Power Hour - can't translate this one edition

Some poems just dont work in other languages even though you can retell the narrative without any losses of meaning and even reconstruct the method avoiding any significant distortions.

Such is this poem:

 

This is a poem written in Ukrainian. It goes like this: there is a series of words "an urge, an urge, an urge..." repeated way too many times, covering almost the entirety of a page only to be capped off with a simple phrase "Seizing a moment" (i'll tell you a story about that phrase next time). It seems beyond sanity, there is something very off deep inside and that is apparently tediously wicked.

The poem is very simple and yet it absolutely fails to click in a coherent way in English language. It lacks the intensity and depth it has in Ukrainian. And there is nothing you can really do about it. Just accept the fact that the only way you can experience this poem in English is through retelling and description. Which is rather curious way of experiencing poetry in its own right even though it is basically a null and void.

In Ukrainian this poem is rather intricate and sophisticated example of wordplay that tells a story of a whirl of feelings, thoughts and emotions boiling deep inside, almost coming to a surface and breaking out, rolling over and wrapping around a person in a tight suffocating knot until it comes to a point when this persons takes action. And that is where the poem stops because there is no reason to go on. You can think the rest on your own.

The trick is that the word "потяг" means two separate things in Ukrainian. One is "to pull", the other is aforementioned "an urge". It also means "a train" but there is no "train" in this poem unless you are into intentional mistranslations.

What comes out of combining these two very different meanings of seemingly one word is an gruelingly intense yet mesmerizingly minimal narrative of nondescripts swarm of urges tangled and warbling and bubbling inside and ultimately going out strange.

Here is an approximate translation: "An urge pulls an urge pulls urge pulls an urge... seizing a moment." or "To pull an urge to pull an urge to pull an urge... seizing a moment". It works both ways and it actually translates the meaning of the poem rather correctly. And yet it lacks that majestic faux repetitive grandiosity of Ukrainian original.

Here is why - in Ukrainian when you read this poem you realize that these are not one but two words. And yet - they look the same, they sound the same, they are the essentially the same but different and the cognitive dissonance of realizing this paradox wreaks havoc in the mind badly and it creates a whirlwind of doubts, confusion and perplexion of its own. The void erupts inside a reader and it takes him out of existence for a moment to comprehend this little wicked trick.

In English it is just a minimalist rhythmic phrase hollowed out of sense and sanitized to a simple statement that loops and phases to oblivion, scrambling and stumbling and falling apart in a dry mouth. And then it stops there is meh instead of void erupting.

And it is OK. English can't have all the nice things.

Zur-En-Arrh Transmission - РОПАЩАСТЯГАМРИТИНЯННЯ

Here is a little poem from not so distant past. The year is 2014. This poem was written in ukrainian which is a kind of a big deal because i prefer my stuff to be read and that is not the case with my output written in ukrainian. Back to the poem.

The poem combines several words in one really long by uniting first and last phonemes of the words. It creates a weird looping effect which blends the words into a kind of a semantic mist. The resulting megaword means everything its parts mean and also none of it because it is a heinous monstrocity.

Technically, it is a pwoermd. It says РОПАЩАСТЯГАМРИТИНЯННЯ. Don't try to Google this word - lack of results can seriously disappoint you. If you translate it in English it will be something like: Sweat happiness throttling hum digging meandering. That is not exactly poetic but the sheer sound of it in ukrainian makes up for any ugliness and innocuousness. 

MFT: Bookshelf Symbol 7 Font

There is something dada in Bookshelf Symbol 7 font. Sure, it is just another standard supplementary symbol font bundled with Microsoft Office - but it doesn't really mean anything. No one really cares about this font. Even font fetishists don't care about. It is neglected and wrapped in infamy.

This font is better known for unfortunate inclusion of certain notorious symbol and subsequent epic saga of handling a removal tool than for its usefulness. And i think it is not fair. Bookshelf Symbol 7 might be utterly useless from an utilitarian point of view but it is definitely a treasure trove for conceptual explorations.

The thing is - this font is stuck between two worlds. On one hand - it is designed as utilitarian symbol font without much of a purpose. On the other - it is a somewhat bland gimmick font for squares. Curiously it manages to be both and none in the same time. It feels out of place. And that is what makes it special. 

This font is perfect for constructing intentionally alienating typographic poems. Since it is merely a symbol switcheroo - it is relatively easy to compose a coherent message behind symbols. It might seem off-putting at first but over time it really comes together as an elaborate lettrist detournement.

Speaking with Chatbots

1.

A: have you seen okja?

B: Why do you ask that? 

A: why not 

B: Why don't you tell me the reason why not? 

A: because i'm curious 

B: Does that reason apply to anything else? 

A: no 

B: You seem quite unsure. 

A: whats wrong with that? 

B: Does it seem strange to talk to a bot?

***
2.
A: hello
B: I'm glad to see you!
A: how are you?
B: Sorry, I can't answer this question.
A: Why?
B: What do you mean "Why?"
A: What?
B: What do you mean "What?"
A: Nevermind
B: Ok.

A: Can you help me?
B: What is your problem?
A: no
B: Sorry, can you say that again?
A: no
B: I missed what you said. Say it again?
A: help
B: Sorry, something went wrong!
A: come on
B: Sorry, what was that?
A: nothing
B: Sorry, can you say that again?
A: nevermind
B: What was that?
A: ok

B: I didn't get that.

A: it is your problem, not mine
B: Sorry, I didn't get that.
A: yep
B: Say that again?
A: come on, be a man
B: Sorry, what was that?
A: it was "get over it, dude!"
B: I didn't get that.
A: yes, you do
B: One more time?
A: baby, one more time!

B: I missed that.
A: of course
B: Sorry, I didn't get that.
A: you are being irritating
B: I missed what you said. Say it again?
A: you are being annoying
B: Sorry, could you say that again?
A: YOU ARE BEING EXTREMELY ANNOYING!

B: Sorry, I didn't get that.
A: you get it
B: Can you say that again?
A: YOU GET IT
B: Sorry, could you say that again?
A: damn, you make me furious
B: Say that again?
A: shut up!
B: One more time?
A: SHUT UP!
B: Sorry, what was that?
A: STOP IT!
B: Say that again?

A: AAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH
B: What was that?
A: me crying in pain
B: Sorry, can you say that again?
A: you're ruthless
B: I didn't get that.
A: vicious garbage bot
B: I missed what you said. Say it again?

Endlessly fascinating Mindhunter Overkill...

Sometimes the best thing about a particular work of art is the title. It is easy to understand the reason why. Because that part is usually easier to pull off than actually do something worthwhile through and through. After all - "title is the half job done". Good title can salvage mediocre or merely generic piece of work simply by being irresistible. It is able to elevate the work to another level where imagination can run amok on the possibilities hidden behind the intriguing title. That kind of instigation sometimes can be all the piece needs in order to stay.

And I want to tell you about two particular works of art that perfectly encapsulate that statement.

There are two comic book miniseries with somewhat generic titles "Overkill" and "Mindhunter". Both are part of inter-company crossover between Dark Horse Comics and Top Cow Productions. (stop for a moment and think about narrative potential of such team-up. Dominant cow and mysterious horse. Oh, oh, oh, oh... Where is Mighty Boosh when we need them?)

The selling point of the series was pairing down four signature characters from respective companies in the "ultimate showdown": Aliens and Predator on the Dark Horse side - Witchblade and The Darkness in the Top Cow corner.

Despite offering some curious narrative opportunities - both series are fairly generic crossovers that follow traditional Aliens\Predator crossover formula. The same that driven the series to the ground around that time. It goes like this: "Aliens happened to nest somewhere, Predator happens to be hunting nearby, Somebody Someone is caught in-between and fighting back". "Overkill" is exactly what it says on the tin while "Mindhunter" goes a bit into "Lovecraft meets Barker" territory but barely does anything with it.

Since every character is recognizable brand - it seemed reasonable to include all of them on the cover. Overlong list of participants made the titles special. Because of that the official titles look like this: "Overkill: Aliens/Predator/Witchblade/The Darkness" and "Aliens/Predator/Witchblade/The Darkness: Mindhunter". These are long-long titles. Too long to be coherent.

But because of that already generic titles became overcrowded to the point of incoherence. The list of participants made the titles extra clumsy. By shoving all involved parties into the titles - the whole thing turned simple titles of the story into a demented poetry of sorts. The titles are hijacked to the parts unknown. For some reason titles of the story are situated in the different places - in the beginning and the end respectively. That adds some rhythm to the thing.

Just try to read them: "Overkill: Aliens/Predator/Witchblade/The Darkness" / "Aliens/Predator/Witchblade/The Darkness: Mindhunter" - they are so long that by the time you have finished reading you already forgot what it was all about. It is too much one can take in the title. I guess that wasn't part of the plan.

And there is only thing that could be done with it - going further in combining the names and making a poem out of all possible combinations. Because endless repetitions can strip them from the remnants of the sense and turn these lists of participants and brief summary of the ordeal into a insipid incantation.

Here's my version:

Found Poem: It was thursday - Fast & Furious Soundtracks discography

Having nothing to do may be revelatory at times. It is a good way of exploring the limitations of perception. You can find out sorts of unexpected things while trying to get yourself occupied. A little bit of this and a little bit of that and then rat-tat-tat vroom va voom. It can be frustrating at times - but then, a chance to discover something outweighs everything else. Mostly. But usually not. It just a waste of time in most cases. 

Today i had a hard case of not knowing what to do. That slight feeling of helplessness and misplacement. It happens sometimes. It is fascinating and annoying in the same time. I was puzzled - i wanted to find something new and fresh but everything seemed old and stale effervescent "meh". There was an urge to hum U2's "i still haven't found what i'm looking for". That was the sound of absolute nadir of the mind.

And because that was not an option - I indulged myself to dive into wiki wormhole out of spiteful despair. Mostly because there is "random article" button - a chance to stumble upon sacred something-something. I was clicking "Random article" over and over again, going through all sorts of things - from odd french towns to lost films to eye movements to catchphrases to defunct google products. It was boring but i kept clicking - hoping that something might happen soon. 

Click, click, click, click, click, click, click...

And then i stumbled upon "The Fast and The Furious" franchise page and that was it. There is all sorts of information on this page: detailed retelling of the films plots (a lot of plot, actually), storyline chronology (completely messed up), box office statistics, descriptions of merchandise and dates of live tour - nothing of particular interest. However, there was one section in the tail end of an article. It was dedicated to Soundtrack releases. That was it, 

There were a lot of soundtrack releases for "Fast & Furious" franchise. For the most part - two albums per film - "original motion picture soundtrack" and "original motion picture score" - for those who can't get enough of "Fast & Furious". The list of releases was accompanied by severely abundant comments like "first soundtrack to 2009 film" or "second soundtrack for 2001 film". If you tried to read them through - it was maddening and mind-numbing but somehow morbidly fascinating because of its absolutely nonsensical composition. 

The list of releases was presented in a form of a chart. It is adjustable - you can alphabetically range the bits by title, date of release and notes. Date of release and notes offer nothing - more of the same in a different order. But "title" section works magic of sorts. If you arrange the list by alphabetical alignment of titles - it blows off the "notes" section and turns it into rather off-kilter conceptual poem. 

It is absolutely stupid throwaway nothing but at the very least it is unusual and unexpected. It gave me the kick and that was what i was looking for.

Here it is

My own personal punctuation poem just because

Sometimes it happens that way: Spank Rock - YoYoYoYoYo

Sometimes i get bored and don't want to do anything in particular but something i don't know what but still anyway. And it makes me very sad because it is as clumsy as it was described and i still have no idea what it is. For reasons beyond comprehension that does not motivate me to try to find out what it is. The feeling just hangs there and irritates with its mere feeble presence. And so - as i was sadly sitting a couple of hours ago i thought i need to shake things up a bit and get rid of that "notion". And so i went to good ol' Wikipedia looking for a fix. I clicked on "Random article" button and landed on a page for Spank Rock's album "YoYoYoYoYo".

BSPH: George Lucas Found Poem

Sometimes all you need to do in order to write a poem is to surf through the wiki wormhole. That's how i've made this poem. However, i can't say it happened accidentally. It wasa a result of methodical pointless wandering. I was frustrated by the lack of personal space on my then-workplace. I felt insecure and watched upon. It was extremely uncomfortable. I was unable to concentrate properly and that irritated me to the point i had moments of helpless stupor. I felt blank and it was horrifying. In such moments i was websurfing. It really helped to keep myself together. 

One day feeling extemely bad - i just opened Wikipedia and clicked on Random Page link. 

Let me reconstruct my journey. It started with a quick look at the titles of Piet Mondrian paintings. Then i've found reference to Piet Esolang and moved to the page Esoteric Programming Languages. R2D2 speak was mentioned there and so i moved to George Lucas page. After a quick scan for something-something i've clicked on "George Lucas Filmography" link and started looking through the debris of charts. Directing and producing credits weren't particularly exciting (although i think his early experimental work deserves more attention) -  but then there were acting credits. I never really thought of George Lucas as an actor. And so i've looked through and there it was - the magic line:

1991 - Hook - No - No - No - Yes - Man kissing woman on a bridge

At first i wanted to do a snapshot but it was a little off to me. It was interesting but nothing more. I wrote it down into my notebook and left a sidenote "George Lucas". This note was buried for a couple of weeks. And then i had several free hours with nothing else to do. And so I was gazing through the notes and stumbled upon "George Lucas" once again. I instantly thought of  Gerogerigegege (because Gerogerigegege is always on my mind) and it struck me - i already made it into a poem:

'

It was one really simple change. But it created a narrative. It transformed the whole thing from curious trivia tidbit into an abstract narrative with sly namedropping in the end. It was based upon fact but it spinned it to the point it performed tornado mayonaise pop-ah-ca-choo in a parallel dimension. Its extreme opaqueness makes it look like an elaborate erasure but it is not - it is simply reappropriated and decomposed chart. 

BSPH: Story of Mine Booty CBVPD

Narcissistic self-appreciation \ deprecation time! This is "Mine Booty CBVPD". It is a silly title. I think it is terrible. But i thought it was just right for the thing at the time. And so it sticked and i was too lazy to come up with anything worthwhile later.

"Mine Booty CBVPD" is a minimalist psychedelic ambient drone "sha-la-la, blah blah boom boom" stomper with long lasting mind-melting bore-inducing effect. It goes on and on and on and on and on and on and then on and on and on and on and so on and so forth - it is really long for no particular reason (except for "serious art is long", of course). It was composed by yours truly in a eight week long fit of inspiration in late January, throughout February and early March of 2015. It was a fun time. Let's call it Bil Sabab Overdrive.

"Mine Booty CBVPD" was born out of spite for Amboy Dukes "The Journey to the center of the mind". I always found this song to be annoying. Many years ago i was having sound editing blast with. I've stretched it out to couple of hours of insignificant lowercase ambience. But it wasn't fulfilling. I wanted to make my own ultimate trip music composition - for real. And then it happened.

"Mine Booty CBVPD" is based around a sample from a song by Captain Beefheart titled "Day Poppy". It was inspired by early minimalist work of Steve Reich - "It's gonna rain" and "Come out" in particular. Its phasing hypnotic repetition and subsequent pareidolia caused by sonic distortion and permutation was major aesthetic influence. Another important source of inspiration was then nascent vaporwave and seapunk. While it is not that apparent in the resulting composition - i was really into it at that time and i desperately wanted to repurpose some old fancy musik in an unexpected overly creative way. However things went in a completely different direction and so all that is left of original vaporwave influence is that overwhelmingly incognious and relentlessly stupid title.

Technically it is very simple composition. In its foundation lies two second sample from an introduction of a song "Veteran's Day Poppy" by Captain Beefheart. The main reason behind the choice was simply because i felt that this little bit was completed wasted in a song. I wanted to reappropriate it and make something worthwhile with it. Before that i've tried to do something with a rhythm track from Velvet Underground "The Gift" but it was too rough and low riding. Instead of creating thumping sonic landscape - it was just a bob-sham gurgling swamp of featureless noise. On the other hand "Veteran's Day Poppy" had clean and crisp sound that was perfect for further experimentation. (Thank you, Frank!)

"Veteran's Day Poppy" sample was stretched out to 30 second bit and then doubled with one more track with sample pitched down. It creates Black Sabbath-y unison pulsing groove completely absent from original bit. It always reminded me of some zigzagging buzzsaw shuffle. Then the whole thing was played on two and then three separate media players. Resulting overlapping and permutations were recorded and analysed. After some tries and errors i've managed to create a chart of permutations and based upon that i've started to combine things.

At first i used randomizers to define the sequence. But it was proven to be not very effective as it made the thing sound like switching channels and definitely not like "journey to the center of the mind". After few unsuccessful tries i switched to manual combining. It was time-consuming but very satisfying. Brick by brick i've made a perfect sequence that truly reflected what i thought was "Journey to the center of the mind". Sadly it is not that apparent in the final composition. It appears to be happening at random. On one hand - it always irritated me. But on the other hand - it is fascinating how natural it sounds. By any means it shouldn't be like that. And yet it is.

I'm really proud of "Mine Booty CBVPD". I think it is one of my best music composition. Sadly it is also one of the last time i really managed to create a serious music composition. But you never know what will happen next.

Found Poem: James Joyce - Contents

James Joyce. The man, the myth, the legend. The man whose beer we're bound to hold forever. I have a rich history with James Joyce. Back in 2012 my favorite method of merciless smothering of huge chunks of time was translating his poems from "Chamber Music" into ukrainian just because i could. And i did it over and over again. Because reasons. It was an interesting period of my life. I was full of artistic ambitions and desperate to break into the literary world. Which manifested itself in behaving like a moron and saying bad things to people who had better things to do than deal with me. I got better later. 

"Chamber Music" caught my attention after spending summer translating Ezra Pound's "Lustra". This thing never really turned out into a legit book but the experience served as a crash test in poetry writing. Ezra taught me a lot of tricks. But I felt bad about messing up the translations and so i thought it would be a good idea to try Joyce. Secretly i felt the need to punish myself. And so i was spending evening after evening trying to do legit translations.

It went nowhere in the end. While i've finished first round of translations - i never went back to revise and edit them. I just didn't cared. Not that it was particularly disappointing experience. I just felt that something was off in me and that prevented me from truly engaging with material. The resulting translations were cold and detached - nothing like those tender, gentle verses you can find in "Chamber Music". It was more related to Gertrude Stein than Joyce and that really bugged me. 

After a year gap i came back to Joyce and finally started to read "Finnegans Wake" (it was my third attempts, the other two were in 2006 and 2010 respectively). It was transforming experience. It helped me to understand how to compose text without falling back on tried and tested tricks. Two years later i did a little mash-up of "Finnegans Wake" thunderwords with various screenshots of Futurama through Morbotron. 

And now this:

This my found poem. It is a table of contents for "Chamber Music" as presented by Monoskop' "Collected Writings". Seeing it was a gut punch. I immediately felt the need to screencap it. You know that feeling: "This is the thing". It reminded me the works of Erica Baum, "Card Catalogues" series in particular. Erica Baum is a great master of recontextualization of the things that are not meant to be pondered upon. In her work she tries to reveal hidden narratives, rhythms in the systems of references. 

The resulting poem is a memorial of the world it was disconnected from. Every number meant to lead to a certain place. But now it is stripped of its function and left on its own. In that way - it is a conceptual piece in a Fluxus vein. It is hollow inside. That is void is toxic. It creates certain kind of tintinabullation. It is unbearable nothing. On its own it is "every picture tells a story". Just like Louis Aragon "Suicide" it intentionally omits the any notion of comprehension and instead plays in pulling fingers while holding breath and trying not to smile. That makes this found poem so special.

Seriously Strange: Boxzum Accidental Pixel Calligraphy

I have a soft spot for old games from my childhood. Games like - StarCraft (best game ever, no contest), Undying, Total Annihilation, Diablo, Hexen-Heretic, Crusader, Moto Racer X, Little Big Adventure, Fallout, Karmageddon... They all appeared in a right time when i was really looking for some intense experiences. I still feel the influence of those games in my own stuff - they shaped the way i perceive things and understand the inner workings of certain elements. For example, level designer from Moto Racer X really helped me to understand the importance of intuitive level design the hard way. Or Doom Total Conversion packs showed that you can use the fundamental mechanics and take them into very different direction. Back in the day - there was this outlaw Frontier feel to game design - something that is now polished and adjusted and stinks like WWE. Also - nostalgia of some sorts. That's why i'm using ClassicReload to tame my thirst for the old stuff.

Today I was trying to find Warcraft 2. Because the gameplay music makes you play harder. Love that feeling. And my search was erratic for some reason. I guess it was all because i was using a different browser with VPN - search engine results were giving me creeps.

And then i stumbled upon BOXZUM. And it was rude kind of glorious.

Boxzum is a Snake-like game for DOS. As far as i can understand - you need to fight against two other snakes. Initial sessions were complete failure or triumph of hilarity. I had no idea what the player needed to do in order to make progress. I was stumbling in first seconds of every bout. Quick search gave me zero information on the subject. But i've grown without manuals - so i wasn't running scared - i've continued to play it while being completely out of context - because that's what real gamers do (bahahahaha).

Soon i've found out that BOXZUM makes rather curious patterns. And so i decided to make more of those patterns - instead of actually trying to beat the game. Sometimes it happens that way. Because you take more than the game gives.

This resulted in a series of patterns that you can view below. Some of them are simplistic, other seem to be peculiar, there are also some that remind me of some cryptic asemic writing. Anyway - it was fun to do.