Individual Work
Faith

In this work of kinetic concrete poetry, the interface serves as a stage for words directed by poet Robert Kendall. Each of the expressions perform Kendall's interpretation of words that mean "Faith" and resemble specific characters, which differ in color, typescript, movement, and sound.

The "expanding multi-verse" is a poem in five "movements" that consists of four differently colored layers of text that are revealed, one after the other, by mouse clicks. Each of the successive layers of text is overlaid on the previous one(s), incorporating the "old" text into the new. The new words glide into the text from various directions replacing the "old." Semantically, each new state engages in an argument with the previous one(s). On the level of content, the poem thematizes the relationship of "logic," "theory," and "doubt." To each of these expressions, a certain color (red, orange, brown, black) and behavior is assigned. Additionally, the five "movements" are accompanied by music: xylophone-like sounds, melodies of a harp, and spheric synthesizer vibrations, which merge with the harp in the fourth movement; in the final instance, the xylophone tones prevail. The orchestrated words performed on the screen reinforce the poem's meaning visually, auditorily, and semantically. Special to this work of concrete poetry is the dynamic use of space that make the words move: some of the words glide out of the text space, other words bend down to the right or, like the word "leap," jump into the foreground. In the end, all words fall to the ground except one: "faith."

Parts of this description are cited from "The Virtual Muse. Forms and Theory of Digital Poetry" by Norbert Bachleitner published in: Theory into Poetry: New Approaches to the Lyric by Eva Mueller-Zettelmann and Margarete Rubik.

Screenshots: