One Breath

With all honesty, I must say that planning on what to write for this week’s blog took me a while… just like coming up with a short poem during the in-class exercise with Xtine Burrough to only say it in one breath. First thing my group thought about is creating a haiku. Easy 3 lines. 5 7 5 syllabi lines respectively. Easy enough to be read in one breath. But, I am not a poet. Haiku writers compose their haikus and focus on expressing “emotionally suggestive moment of insight into natural phenomena,” since the 17th century. So, the purpose of this short poem is to share a brief moment or event so readers can experience it without having to go through it personally. Thus, this can justify the complexity of coming up with one on the spot without being “mentally” prepared for it, like what happened with me during class. Creating a strong, engaging, and memorable can be in fact very difficult.

Reiterating Xtine Burrough’s work, she creates “participatory projects for networked publics and using digital tools to translate common experiences into personal arenas for discovery”. She uses the intersection of art and technology to engage the audiences. To be more specific, she uses media art and digital poetry. As the name entails, digital poetry is an electronic literature that take advantage and uses computers or electronics to display and interact with the work. It comes in different types and forms. It can be visual, hypertext, kinetic, computer generated animated, holographic, interactive, etc.. For instance, Xtine Burrough shared with the class a phone number where callers can listen to multiple one breath poems or be involved in this type of art and share one to be included. This kind of art is novel to me and it is quite interesting.

Lastly, another concept that stood out to me from class was the Coven Intelligence Program, which was presented by Margaretha Haughwout. The Coven Intelligence Program is a science-fiction techno-botanical coven whose mission is to encourage emerging revolutionary ecologies of work between witches, plants and machines through centuries. The collective uses their magic to try to understand more deeply the ‘nature’ of intelligence, and how the differences between communication and resource exchange are collapsing. This Program is a collaboration between Efren Cruz Cortes and Margaretha Haughwout and many carbon and silicon allies. Margarteha Haughwout mentioned that they track connections “between the persecution of witched burned at the stake, the destruction of multispecies commons, the rise of racial capitalism, and surveillance”. And their goal is to open up alternative futurities, where precision agriculture, and the ongoing Capitalocene are grown over. This makes me think of the symbiotic relationship that fungi have with plants as they also create subterranean networks of communication.

Overall, art and technology have a complex but meaningful history of working together and influencing one another. Using technology is an important strategy and influence to drive, shape, and relay the messages of contemporary art work.

 

Works Cited

Abbagnano, About the Author: Anthony, and Danielle DeWilde November 4. “Haiku – One Breath Poetry.” Alchemy of Breath: Breathwork Training and Events, 5 June 2019, https://alchemyofbreath.com/haiku-one-breath-poetry/#:~:text=Haiku%20is%20sometimes%20referred%20to,snapshot%20of%20the%20natural%20world.

“Discover and Buy Art Online.” Artland, https://www.artland.com/artists/coven-intelligence-program.

“Haiku.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/art/haiku.

Heick, Terry. “Digital Poetry.” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, 2 Apr. 2012, https://www.edutopia.org/blog/digital-poetry-terry-heick#:~:text=%22In%20the%20simplest%20terms%20Digital,new%20poetic%20forms%20and%20experiences.%22.

“Xtine Burrough: Professor: Faculty.” ATEC at UT Dallas, 25 Oct. 2021, https://atec.utdallas.edu/content/burrough-xtine/.