Thursday, April 22, 2010

Poemic Inquiry: Mechanisms of Vision


First, sorry for being away for so long.  The last month has been one long exercise in overcommitment on my part, with much in the way of travels and other obligations on my time.  The graphics pad is gathering dust, and that makes me really really sad.

But enough about me.  On to another Poemics Inquiry for us to consider.  In my effort to oscillate between the poetic end of the hybrid form and the visual/comics end of poemics, I thought it was time to play with the visual.  And in this case, I'd like to "go meta."  By meta, I mean some sort of reflection on our own artistic practice by means of our art.  Principally, how might poemics deal with mechanisms of vision.  Several ways to take this, I think.  How might poemic image-work incorporate visual technologies, from cameras to eyeglasses?  How might poemics address the mechanism of their own artistic production, from graphics pads to paintbrushes? And perhaps more abstractly, how might poemics reflect on their own use of the visual as trope, as device, or as thematic? 

I haven't done a round-up for the last few Poemic Inquiries.  I have a plan, though (does that make me a Cylon?).  So please, contribute here and mark your work if it is playing with the PI theme.  If you are not a contributor here, but you are inspired by the PI prompt, please post a link to your work in the comments section below.  

Let's let this PI take us through the end of April and then I will (a) post another PI and (b) follow through on my mystery idea for a round up.  And seriously, I am back.  My travels are done for a while and, except for the usual end-of-semester obligations, I think I get my arty, Internet-ty life back.  Whew!  About time!

3 comments:

  1. ??? hmmm. am I dense and/ or could you rephrase this?

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  2. First, No...based on your work, you are definitely NOT dense! :-)

    Second, it's a wide open "prompt" -- so I don't think you can get it "wrong." Go with what comes to you about it.

    Third, here's another way to put it: Make poemics that work with images about visual mechanisms. A "visual mechanism" can be tools that assist vision (cameras, glasses, telescopes, etc.), tools that assist with producing visual art (paintbrushes, digital graphics pads, picture frames, etc.), and/or more abstractly (and poetically) literary "devices" that emphasize vision (narrative point of view, visual descriptions, shifting perspectives, etc.). And of course, I suspect with you lot that you'll come up with some take on "visual mechanism" that I hadn't considered in these suggestions.

    I, for example, am working on a poemic that works with images of cameras and words in various relationships to each other, the cameras "capturing" the words and vice versa.

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