cross.ova.ing][4rm.blog.2.log][ by Mez Breeze can be described as an ongoing writing project and, simultaneously, its own repository (as the author puts it) of posts that engage with various topics as well as different types of writing. The project has been developed in the Live Journal blog site starting in 2003 and the last post available (to date) was published on the 1st of march of 2017.
cross.ova.ing, as its title entails, is a crossover between a blog and a log or journal. This crossing and movement becomes apparent in its reading. We find parts of interviews (papazine n_terview ][1][ , papa.mag N_terview ][2][), descriptions of other digital and literary works, online dialogues, transcripts, statements, images, and an extensive production of codework using Mez Breeze’s mezangelle. Mezangelle is a distinctive feature of Mez’s work and is best described by her in mezangelle - “evolved/s from multifarious computer code>social_networked>imageboard>gamer>augmented reality flavoured language/x/changes. 2 _mezangelle_ means 2 take words>wordstrings>sentences + alter them in such a way as 2 /x/tend + /n/hance meaning beyond the predicted +/or /x/pected. _mezangelling_ @tempts 2 /x/pand traditional text parameters thru layered/alternative/code based meanings /m/bedded in2 meta-phonetic renderings of language. _cross.ova.ing ][4rm.blog.2.log][ /m/ploys a base standard of code>txt in order 2 evoke imaginative renderings rather than motion-based>flashy graphics”.
The use of mezangelle – a creoule language that resembles a mix/crossover/fragmentation/alternation between machine and human communication – is a point worth of reflection in this work. In the context of the use of digital media to produce literary work, it brings up questions related to the use and presence of code in the literary work. Transparency and translatability issues, the very notions of text and code and the relationship between the two come into question, as John Cayley elaborates on “The code is not the text (unless it is the text)” available at http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics/literal.
cross.ova.ing][4rm.blog.2.log][ is available in the ELC2 (Electronic Literature Collection 2) in a fairly different version from the ongoing version (http://netwurker.livejournal.com/). The former is composed only by a reduced number of extracts and its visual display is closer to a list than to the blog form we find in the original. Additionally, in this version the reader can post comments to each post.
