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mezangelle is a poetic-artistic language developed in the 1990s by Australian-based Internet artist Mez Breeze (Mary-Anne Breeze). It is recognized as a central contribution to Codework, [1] Electronic literature, Internet Art and digital writing in general.
mezangelle is primarily based on hybrid words. Like the portmanteau words invented by Lewis Carroll or used in James Joyce's novel Finnegans Wake, it dissects and recombines language and stacks multiple layers of meanings into single phrases. It is an Internet-cultural poetic language deriving much of its tension from incorporating formal code and informal speech at once. [2] Its base construction qualifies it as hypertext on a morphological and grammatical level. It is not syntactically fixed and is in continuous artistic development.
mezangelle mixes English, ASCII art, fragments from programming language source code, markup languages, regular expressions and wildcard patterns, protocol code, IRC shorthands, emoticons, phonetic spelling and slang. It is a polysemic multi-layered language that remixes the basic structure of English and computer code through the manipulation of syllables and morphemes. Like the related Codework of Jodi, Netochka Nezvanova, Ted Warnell, Alan Sondheim and lo_y, it bears some resemblance to hacker cultural 1337 / leet speak and Perl poetry. [3]
Through its semantic and syntactical layering, mezangelle achieves an aesthetic effect of altering words and letters from discrete, digital units into fluid, quasi-analog information. This fluidity and flow corresponds to its artistic use in email postings.
Mez works under a multitude of assumed virtual identities or avatars. These avatars are presented throughout the Internet as authors of electronic writing. Examples of these include: mez breeze, netwurker, data.h!.bleeder, ms post modemism, mezflesque.exe, Purrsonal Areah Netwurker and cortical_h[b]acker. mez is best known for her Codework based on her self-invented language mezangelle which she publishes on mailing lists like _arc.hive_, [4] Nettime, and netbehaviour. [5] These work, or "wurks" as she calls them, have language play and identity swapping as a central element. Because of their dense poetical language, they are also acclaimed and influential in Digital Poetry. [6] As of May 2014, Mez is the only Digital Poet who's a non-USA citizen to have her comprehensive career archive (called "The Mez Breeze Papers") housed at Duke University, through their David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. [7]
mezangelle first appeared in late 1994 - early 1995 on MUDs, the web chat channels Kajplats 305, Cybersite and unix based y-talk. [8] [9] These instances involved re-mixing random chat responses, y-talk and IRC conventions back to the participants. Chat members communicated with each other through text based dialogue using avatars to interact. Notable avatars from this time included Viking, Jester and mez's screen names aeon and ms post modemism.
The Wollongong World Women Online exhibition (1995, University of Wollongong Online Gallery) was the first traditionally presented exhibition to showcase a web-based text version of the mezangelle work _Through Ah Strainer_. Other online exhibitions that included mezangelled works during this period:
During 1997–2003 mezangelle utilized mailing list forums as a distributive medium with an emphasis on peer collaboration. The works evolved into two subgenres: netwurks and codewurks/codeworks. Both forms employed code and chat convention mash-ups, HTML code and scripting languages to manipulate poetic structures. Codeworks included text emulations of broken source code whereas netwurks present in multimedia web interfaces that incorporate several codeworks. An example of a codework is _Viro. Logic Condition][ing][1.1_ [11] and an example of a netwurk is _The data][h!][bleeding tex][e][ts_. [12]
In this period mezangelle shifted from a reliance on script kiddy/hacker influences to a refined interactive practice that explored aspects of fusing biological/physical and online living. Recurring themes from 1996 onward include: gamer dynamics, social engineering, questioning conceptions of print-based and electronic literature, ASCII art, play theory, teledildonics, viral imagery, and examinations of post-modern, feminist, neural net, social change and technofetistic theories.
In this timeframe mezangelle distribution altered from dispersal via mailing lists to social networking formats. The change occurred due to the growing repressive nature of the mailing list forums used, including extensive censorship by list moderators Julianne Pierce from Recode, [13] Ted Byfield/Geert Lovink from Nettime and Chris Chesher from the ::fibreculture:: list. [14]
The livejournal _cross.ova.ing][4rm.blog.2.log][_ [15] created in July 2003 is the first recorded procedural net art blog. [16] There are at least two other known mezangelled blogs currently authored by mez. One is _dis[ap]posable_ [17] which uses reappropriation of the blog format and snapshot software to create clustered poetic meanings. These nodal poems are examples of a type of digital readymade and are to be read via a grid-like text and image composite structure. [18] For example, the tag, title, and link sections are all reworked with poetic loadings and not constructed according to conventional weblog standards.
As well as maintaining mezangelle works via the livejournal blog, this creative period again shifts Mez's artistic emphasis to the use of augmented reality, mixed reality, virtual reality and mobile platforms. In 2008, mezangelle works manifested in mainstream games such as World of Warcraft: "..."Twittermixed Litterature"...involves WoW characters ["toons"] on the Bloodscalp Server standing in Ironforge [an in-game location] + live remixing [in_game] chat that occurs between players and guild/character names that rotate past." . In 2009, mezangelle began appearing in more mainstream projects, including being utilised as a script device in New Media Scotland's alternate reality game "Alt-Winning: A game of Love, War and Telepathy" and as part of the WoW: Emergent Media Phenomenon Exhibition as part of the 3rd Faction's /hug Project at the Laguna Art Museum, California (sponsored by Blizzard Entertainment). [19]
From 2011 to 2014, Mezangelle featured in a set of virtual reality games and mobile apps such as The Dead Tower, [20] #PRISOM, [21] and #Carnivast. [22] #PRISOM premièred at The 2013 International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality [23] on an Augmented Reality Head-up display Unit.
Digital poetry is a form of electronic literature, displaying a wide range of approaches to poetry, with a prominent and crucial use of computers. Digital poetry can be available in form of CD-ROM, DVD, as installations in art galleries, in certain cases also recorded as digital video or films, as digital holograms, on the World Wide Web or Internet, and as mobile phone apps.
net.art refers to a group of artists who have worked in the medium of Internet art since 1994. Some of the early adopters and main members of this movement include Vuk Ćosić, Jodi.org, Alexei Shulgin, Olia Lialina, Heath Bunting, Daniel García Andújar, and Rachel Baker. Although this group was formed as a parody of avant garde movements by writers such as Tilman Baumgärtel, Josephine Bosma, Hans Dieter Huber and Pit Schultz, their individual works have little in common.
Neo-Dada was a movement with audio, visual and literary manifestations that had similarities in method or intent with earlier Dada artwork. It sought to close the gap between art and daily life, and was a combination of playfulness, iconoclasm, and appropriation. In the United States the term was popularized by Barbara Rose in the 1960s and refers primarily, although not exclusively, to work created in that and the preceding decade. There was also an international dimension to the movement, particularly in Japan and in Europe, serving as the foundation of Fluxus, Pop Art and Nouveau réalisme.
Electronic literature or digital literature is a genre of literature where digital capabilities such as interactivity, multimodality or algorithmic text generation are used aesthetically. Works of electronic literature are usually intended to be read on digital devices, such as computers, tablets, and mobile phones. They cannot be easily printed, or cannot be printed at all, because elements crucial to the work cannot be carried over onto a printed version.
Nick Montfort is a poet and professor of digital media at MIT, where he directs a lab called The Trope Tank. He also holds a part-time position at the University of Bergen where he leads a node on computational narrative systems at the Center for Digital Narrative. Among his publications are seven books of computer-generated literature and six books from the MIT Press, several of which are collaborations. His work also includes digital projects, many of them in the form of short programs. He lives in New York City.
Codework is "a type of creative writing which in some way references or incorporates formal computer languages within the text. The text itself is not necessarily code that will compile or run, though some have added that requirement as a form of constraint." The concept of and term 'codework' was originally developed by Alan Sondheim, but is also practiced by and used to refer to the work of other Internet artists such as Mez Breeze, Talan Memmott, Ted Warnell, Brian Lennon, and John Cayley. Scholar Rita Raley uses the term "[net.writing]," which she defines as "the use of the contemporary idiolect of the computer and computing processes in digital media experimental writing." Raley sees codework as part of a broader practice exploring "the art of code."
Alan Sondheim is a poet, critic, musician, artist, and theorist of cyberspace from the United States.
Melinda Rackham is an Australian writer, artist and curator.
Jason Nelson is a digital and hypermedia poet and artist. He is Associate Professor of Digital Culture and a PI at the Center for Digital Narrative at the University of Bergen, where he was also a Fulbright Fellow from 2016-17. Until 2020 he was a lecturer on Cyberstudies, digital writing and creative practice at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. He is best known for his artistic flash games/essays such as Game, game, game and again game and I made this. You play this. We are Enemies. He has worked on the Australia Council of the Arts Literature Board and the Board of the Electronic Literature Organization based at MIT.
Mez Breeze is an Australian-based artist and practitioner of net.art, working primarily with code poetry, electronic literature, mezangelle, and digital games. Born Mary-Anne Breeze, she uses a number of avatar nicknames, including Mez and Netwurker. She received degrees in both Applied Social Science [Psychology] at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, Australia in 1991 and Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong in Australia in 2001. In 1994, Breeze received a diploma in Fine Arts at the Illawarra Institute of Technology, Arts and Media Campus in Australia. As of May 2014, Mez is the only Interactive Writer and Artist who is a non-USA citizen to have her comprehensive career archive housed at Duke University, through their David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Cyberformance refers to live theatrical performances in which remote participants are enabled to work together in real time through the medium of the internet, employing technologies such as chat applications or purpose-built, multiuser, real-time collaborative software. Cyberformance is also known as online performance, networked performance, telematic performance, and digital theatre; there is as yet no consensus on which term should be preferred, but cyberformance has the advantage of compactness. For example, it is commonly employed by users of the UpStage platform to designate a special type of Performance art activity taking place in a cyber-artistic environment.
Micha Cárdenas, stylized as micha cárdenas, is an American visual and performance artist who is an assistant professor of art and design, specializing in game studies and playable media, at the University of California Santa Cruz. Cárdenas is an artist and theorist who works with the algorithms and poetics of trans people of color in digital media.
Deena Larsen is an American new media and hypertext fiction author involved in the creative electronic writing community since the 1980s. Her work has been published in online journals such as the Iowa Review Web, Cauldron and Net, frAme, inFLECT, and Blue Moon Review. Since May 2007, the Deena Larsen Collection of early electronic literature has been housed at the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities.
Stephanie Strickland is a poet living in New York City. She has published ten volumes of print poetry and co-authored twelve digital poems. Her files and papers are being collected by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book And Manuscript Library at Duke University.
Game, Game, Game, and again Game is a digital poem and game by Jason Nelson, published on the web in 2007. The poem is simultaneously played and read as it takes the form of a quirky, hand-drawn online platform game. It was translated into French by Amélie Paquet for Revue Blueorange in 2010. Its sequel is I made this. You play this. We are Enemies (2009).
María Mencía is a Spanish-born media artist and researcher working as a Senior Lecturer at Kingston University in London, United Kingdom. Her artistic work is widely recognized in the field of electronic literature, and her scholarship on digital textuality has been widely published. She holds a Ph.D. in Digital Poetics and Digital Art at the Chelsea College of Arts of the University of the Arts London and studied English Philology at the Complutense University of Madrid.
All the Delicate Duplicates is a single player first-person psychological/exploration game co-developed by Mez Breeze and Andy Campbell. Produced by The Space, One to One Development Trust - Dreaming Methods, and Mez Breeze Design, the game was published for Microsoft Windows in February 2017. It contains a non-linear story that's discovered through interactive elements and a text-based backstory.
John Howland Cayley is a Canadian pioneer of writing in digital media as well as a theorist of the practice, a poet, and a Professor of Literary Arts at Brown University.
Lexia to Perplexia is a poetic work of electronic literature published on the web by Talan Memmott in 2000. The work won the trAce/Alt-X New Media Writing Award that year.
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