Friday, December 14, 2007

Monday, December 3, 2007

Facade/frontment

Hypertext poetry is a young form, and means different things to different people. These links show a variety of approaches. The quality of the poetry is variable. Some exponents dislike the term 'hypertext'. The links here have some connection with the written word, though.

MANEFESTO CHAOTICUM V.0

In today's society, context succums to content, and intertwingularity is taken as its given. We have grown so accustomed to absurd synchronity that we no longer acknowledge all that is asynchronous in our lives, and chaos seems just another kind of order; equivalent to the routine of a foriegner. Years ago, dada was invented, if such a word as "invention" can be allowed to exist -- an "anti-art" determined to destroy millenia of culture and promote peace through dissonance; yet, today dada is taken for granted, accepted as a postmodern remnant of the past, detritus from your history class. If, as is assumed, everything is going according to plan, everything is ordered, and nothing is revolutionary, then why are we capable of happiness? We take joy in the unexpected, the unplanned, the learning and the learned; we take pride in sponanaety and applaud the risk-takers, the dancers and the clowns, while we tie ourselves in cast iron semiotic straightjackets of sanity and order -- whatever that is. Let me tell you this: the greatest age of man is the child, said Nietzsche, and it is well known that the one thing that great men and children always have in common is insanity. Throw off the binds of order and bureaucracy -- everyone hates them anyway -- and exclaim from the rooftops, from the skyscrapers, from the blagospheres and the hot-air balloons, from the airplanes and the airport customs lines , even from your place, standing atop your employer's desk while he stares at you in horror and apprehension: THERE IS BUT ONE LAW, AND THAT IS THIS; THERE SHALL BE NO ORDER, ONLY CHAOS, AND ONLY SUCH A LAW AS THIS REQUIRES NO EXPLANATION.