bpNichol
Translating Translating Apollinaire
"poem as a machine for generating line drawings"
1979
vs.
derek beaulieu
Flatland
2007
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A(T)U
- ¡ avant(terror)unit !
- avant(terror)unit was formed as hyperviolent compulsive taskforce against the axis of elite boredom: to bomb up the poemland security with a clusterfuck of entanglement; to smoke out the entrenchments false teeth & chatterbox a chewing of fake plastic fangs; to throttle the flayed corpses in hotrod hearses for the grave- digger gravel toss. » » »
7 comments:
Flattening Flatland I have recently completed a page-by-page response to E.A. Abbott’s Flatland, a Victorian science-fiction satirical novel which posits a two-dimensional universe inhabited by entirely by polygons.
For each page of Abbott’s novel I have traced, by hand, a representation of each letter’s occurrence across every page of text. The generated result is a series of superimposed seismographic images which reduce the text in question into a two-dimensional schematic reminiscent of EKG results or stock reports or bpNichol's poem as a machine.
This project builds upon my previous work in concrete poetry, and a theorizing of a briefly non-signifying poetic, where the graphic mark of text becomes fore-grounded both as a rhizomatic map of possibility, and as a record of authorial movement.
Much as the Victorian novel A Human Document gave rise to Tom Phillips’ ongoing graphic interpretation A Humument, Flatland has resulted in a book-length interpretation of the graphic possibilities of a text without text.
Derrida, writing on Blanchot, asked “How can one text, assuming its unity, give or present another to be read, without touching it, without saying anything about it, practically without referring to it?” Each page of my graphically-realized Flatland is a completely unique, diagrammatic representation of the occurrences of letters. By reducing reading and language into a paragrammatical statistical analysis, content is subsumed into graphical representation of how language covers a page.
Flatland attempts – much like Simon Morris’ Re-writing Freud (2006), Vito Acconci’s “Transference” (1969) and other texts of conceptual literature – to flatten the plane of text.
( featuring an Afterword by Marjorie Perloff )
" What do they say about Beaulieu’s Flatland? The publisher argues that Beaulieu’s book belongs to a current of art and literature that reworks previous sources rather than attempting to create something new – the world is already “full of objects.” Such projects “generate new meanings” by reusing/reducing/recycling existing material. Boutin argues that Beaulieu’s text actually exists somewhere between form and content; that he manages to recuperate ideas “embedded in writing as communication,” implying that the book exudes a kind of metadiscursive evocation of what it means to be a writing. Goldsmith argues that the book is a perfect reconciliation of mechanical writing (a la his own method of uncreative writing) and the tradition of experimental visual poetry. It is, he notes, a visual translation and creative transcription that is yet “non-illusionistic”: real without realism."" Perloff’s afterword describes Beaulieu’s system and explains it through its relation to his previous work in experimental writing, including his various campaigns against lyric poetry. Perloff reminds us of Wittgenstein’s distinction between the language of information (in which poetry participates) and the language-game of giving information (from which poetry (often) escapes). Beaulieu’s book, she argues is “an exercise in sameness and difference” that shares in the Oulippean spirit of violation and revelation. She offers nods to the pataphysical tradition, to Gertrude Stein, and even to an oblique quote by Wordsworth about obliqueness in quotable lines. Beaulieu, her short essay seems to imply, is at the centre of the literary tradition rather than blurred on the far horizons of radicalism."" Concrete and visual poetry has thoroughly deconstructed the icon, but here is a book that deconstructs the hegemony of the poetic line. Beaulieu explodes the mundane tyranny of striped poetry for the universal openness of constellated poetry."derek beaulieu writes:
if anyone out there is thinking abt picking up a copy of flatland, you might wanna let me know rather quick … there are 8 copies at Pages Books in Calgary, and i have 27 copies here available for sale, and then thats it - no more, and it wont be reprinted…
(available online at UBU as a full text PDF)
congrats on such a fast sell-out!!!
; )
well anyone with a half decent knowledge of visual poetry can see that pretty much all db's work is a rip off of visual work that has been done before and been done much much better.
his work isn't "even" pretty
Re-Writing Freud was published in 2005. It was first exhibited in An Art of Readers, curated by Yann Serandour in an exhibition in Rennes, France in March 2005.
Dear avant (terror) unit !
You seem so concerned with 'originality', stuck in a 'it's been done before' mentality. Have a look at this piece of 'quoted' text:
In a conversation between the Czech artist Pavel Büchler and the Jazz musician Rob Lavers, Büchler said the following:
“Oh, it doesn’t bother me if things have been done. I mean, it’s like one of my…this is what I always tell my students, you know, when they worry about these things. Not that they worry about it too much because in general they are students, in general…they are rather ignorant of history and so on but, uh, you know, you do come across these situations when you feel, should I tell him, should I not tell him? It’s a sort of…you know, and so…there is this amazing Peanuts cartoon where Charlie Brown and whatever is his name…this brainy one, this clever guy, I forgot now…
[off camera: Christine Morris] Linus…Linus.
Linus, that’s right. And Linus is sitting at the drawing board, drawing something and Charlie Brown comes up from behind and says:
“What are you doing, Linus?”
“I’m inventing.”
“What are you inventing, Linus.”
“I’m inventing a wheel.”
“But the wheel has already been invented, Linus.”
“It hasn’t been invented lately!”
[Laughing] Which is a pretty good thing. Look at how we live, how we speak. It’s not really…I don’t subscribe to this postmodernist idea that the only thing you can do is to quote, that the only book you can write is a book of references to other books or texts which reference other texts. But that’s how culture develops, you know, we do the same thing over and over again and we do it differently all the time. And this is also my point about the materials I use, or the things I use. The things I come across, I find. It’s not about showing them differently, it’s about showing them in such a way that they make a difference to somebody’s life, you know. And if doing the same thing over again makes a difference to somebody’s life, then let’s do it all over again.”
Derek Beaulieu uses, to great effect, in a book length work, bpNichol's methodology of flattening language, mapping the technique on to a very particular site of investigation, Edwin Abbott Abbott's Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. Surely you can't be suggesting that once a method of working has been established, it precludes all others from investigating its possibilities?
Simon Morris
editor for information as material
Dear avant (terror) unit !
You seem so concerned with 'originality', stuck in a 'it's been done before' mentality. Have a look at this piece of 'quoted' text:
In a conversation between the Czech artist Pavel Büchler and the Jazz musician Rob Lavers, Büchler said the following:
“Oh, it doesn’t bother me if things have been done. I mean, it’s like one of my…this is what I always tell my students, you know, when they worry about these things. Not that they worry about it too much because in general they are students, in general…they are rather ignorant of history and so on but, uh, you know, you do come across these situations when you feel, should I tell him, should I not tell him? It’s a sort of…you know, and so…there is this amazing Peanuts cartoon where Charlie Brown and whatever is his name…this brainy one, this clever guy, I forgot now…
[off camera: Christine Morris] Linus…Linus.
Linus, that’s right. And Linus is sitting at the drawing board, drawing something and Charlie Brown comes up from behind and says:
“What are you doing, Linus?”
“I’m inventing.”
“What are you inventing, Linus.”
“I’m inventing a wheel.”
“But the wheel has already been invented, Linus.”
“It hasn’t been invented lately!”
[Laughing] Which is a pretty good thing. Look at how we live, how we speak. It’s not really…I don’t subscribe to this postmodernist idea that the only thing you can do is to quote, that the only book you can write is a book of references to other books or texts which reference other texts. But that’s how culture develops, you know, we do the same thing over and over again and we do it differently all the time. And this is also my point about the materials I use, or the things I use. The things I come across, I find. It’s not about showing them differently, it’s about showing them in such a way that they make a difference to somebody’s life, you know. And if doing the same thing over again makes a difference to somebody’s life, then let’s do it all over again.”
Derek Beaulieu uses, to great effect, in a book length work, bpNichol's methodology of flattening language, mapping the technique on to a very particular site of investigation, Edwin Abbott Abbott's Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. Surely you can't be suggesting that once a method of working has been established, it precludes all others from investigating its possibilities?
troylloyd
non-editor for postinformation as immaterial
Re-Writing Copycat was published in 2009. It was first inhibited out with A Fart of Breaders, curated by Internet As A Tool For Dismantling Hierarchical Power Structures In Critical Poetic Powerstructures Via An Illiterate Interlude With A Blasphemous Bloody Blogger from an atrocity exhibition in my underpants, April 2009, Rudimentary Peni.
information as material is proud to present derek beaulieu's Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions with an afterword by Marjorie Perloff .
information as material is so different from other materials of production that the critique is not valid because it simply does not do anything.
Information as material is the heart of ubiquitous computing.
information as material is passed from one process to another.
information as material is developed and contacts as they are developed, but not agree to help with specific informations.
information as material is proud to present Deciphering Human Chromosome 16: We Report Here, and Deciphering Human.
information as material is removed from the workpiece.
information as material is passed from one process to another.
Information as Material is proud to present Jarrod Fowler’s ‘Percussion’ As Percussion.
information as material is that a piece of information can be in two places at once and you need to be able to refer to it as information.
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