Making Phenomena

Phenomena began, like most creative things I do, with my favorite obsession/puzzle, the film Last Year at Marienbad. I was reading articles from BAMPFA’s CineFiles database, and came across this passage from an analysis by Freddy Sweet: "The key to understanding Marienbad is the realization that the very structure of the film is consciously designed… Continue reading Making Phenomena

Cement is the flour, concrete is the bread: making So Are the Days

By the time the SNES came out, I had pretty much stopped playing videogames. This is why So Are the Days’s overall conceit is based on games from 30+ years ago: besides Twine games, those games (e.g., StarTropics, Bubble Bobble, Super Contra, Duke Nukem, DOOM, Wolfenstein 3D, Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?) are… Continue reading Cement is the flour, concrete is the bread: making So Are the Days

A made place: Interactive fiction and “location-based poetry”

The “space” inhabited by a poem has been conceptualized in terms of music or sound (e.g., Tracie Morris, John Cage), in terms of painting (e.g., Gertrude Stein, John Yau, John Ashbery), in terms of ritual (e.g., Bhanu Kapil, CAConrad). But what about in terms of, well, space?  I was at the No Fair/Fair at AWP… Continue reading A made place: Interactive fiction and “location-based poetry”

Favorite necropastoral games

I have spent much of this October making a silverfish costume out of duct tape and re-reading Joyelle McSweeney’s The Necropastoral: Poetry, Media, Occults. In the book (and on the now-inactive blog Montevidayo), McSweeney explores a variety of texts that  employ necropastoral strategies: Sylvia Plath's Ariel, CAConrad's The Book of Frank, Jack Smith's Normal Love,… Continue reading Favorite necropastoral games

Afraid of money: 5 (mostly) procedurally generated poems

I've been curious about procedural content generation, so I spent the weekend experimenting with this Markov chain generator and tutorial. I have no Python experience, but it was easy for me to set up and use. I think you'll recognize some of the source text, which I intentionally kept brief. I'm happy with the results,… Continue reading Afraid of money: 5 (mostly) procedurally generated poems