Thursday, April 26, 2012

first paragraphs

Iannis Xenakis: Bridging the Gap between Music and Architecture


The possibility that there is a connection between music and architecture is a topic that has been widely debated throughout history.  The topic has no concrete answer, for it is an area that is still being constructed, defined and questioned.  Because architecture and music function on two different planes it is an interesting opportunity for thinkers to discover the potential links between the two art forms based on similarities in their basic structure and principles.  This desire for the connection of two very different mediums is in essence poetic.  the great musician and architect Iannis Xenakis set out to try and bridge this gap, and in the way created some amazing examples of visual poetry in the form of architecture.  This essay is an attempt to understand how there could be a link between music and architecture, and why acknowledging a potential connection could be of great importance to the world of material poetics. 


The Movement of Medium and Meaning: An Eye on the Migrations of Fascicle 16

How often do we consider the visual stimulation of the written word?  We read words; we hear in our heads how each word sounds, but how conscious are we of the connections between the way a word looks and how we perceive it?  A handwritten word has more character and emotion than a printed word, and in turn, the digital word has a nature entirely of its own.  The way we perceive and digest written language is directly connected to how it is presented to our eyes.
The progression of Emily Dickinson's Fascicle 16 exemplifies the linkage between the character of a poem and the way in which it is displayed.  Each of Dickinson's fascicles is made up of individual handwritten poems, which she grouped and bound.  These primary sources are scripted gems, personally marked with intention and emotion.  In time the fascicles have been published in many different forms, on paper and on the web.  Taken out of their original context, the poms lose the gestural qualities they once possessed, and the sense of meaning given by the author's penmanship.  However, sometimes what is lost can be regained.  In attempt to revisit handwritten qualities, Jen Bervin, an artist of both text and textile, made a series of embroideries based on the marks made in Dickinson's original poems.  These embroideries bring us back to the attributes of their source, but offer something entirely new.  the shifts between the hand-bound fascicles to print, to the web, and then to Bervin's interpretation, demonstrate a system of filtration.  The original qualities and meanings shift and distill from medium to medium.

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