"For All Seasons" by Andreas Muller

Hi

Using macosx, I noticed a typo in the "summer" text. The word "catch"
is misspelt.

Liked it.

Geert
http://nznl.com


On 29-okt-2005, at 15:44, Jim Andrews wrote:

> ANDREAS MULLER (LONDON)
> http://hahakid.net/forallseasons/forallseasons.html
>
> "For All Seasons" is an unusual piece of digital poetry. It is 3D,
> programmed in C++, available for Windows and Mac, quite deluxe in its
> interface (see the Readme for details) and very responsive. Also, the
> environments are well-realized both in several literary senses and as
> literary machines. "For All Seasons" consists of four
> movements/worlds/cantos/whatever–one for each season.
>
> The poems are linked in various ways. They all are concerned with
> memories
> of youth. With memories of dandelions and fishing with a little net
> (as for
> butterflies), with the whirlwinds of autumn and snow in trees in
> winter.
> Very much poems of innocence and wonder. Poems of innocence and
> wonder can
> be very tiresome indeed–for their lack, really, of either. The
> digital
> aspects of these poems, however, are exceptionally strong in their
> wonderment, and somewhat brilliantly realized in contrast with the
> page that
> opens each poem.
>
> "Spring", like the rest, opens with a brief text. The white page/
> black type
> then transforms into a 3D space and textual dandelions begin to
> grow from
> the page. Letters that form words are attached to stalks like
> dandelion
> parachute seeds are attached to stems. You use the left and right
> mouse
> buttons and the scroll wheel to move through the 3D world and blow the
> lettristic seeds through the 'air'. It is wonderful to move into
> this space
> and look up at them as trees.
>
> "Summer" opens with a text of fishing with a net as a child. When
> you then
> click the text, the words are transformed in such a way that they
> behave
> very like fishes in their swimming. Again, you use the mouse
> buttons and
> wheel to swim through the schools of wordly fishes. The behaviors,
> once
> again, are eloquently realized. That is an odd word in this context,
> 'eloquently', but I think it is apt. Muller's work is, in part,
> expressive
> computation. He is a very fine programmer and is never so happy as
> when he
> can create art with it.
>
> "Fall"'s opening text is tranformed into the sort of whirlwind we
> see in the
> fall that sweeps fallen leaves into the air. This is a gentle
> whirlwind,
> gentle vortex, gentle whirlwind.
>
> "For All Seasons" is exceptionally expressive in highly unusual
> ways. In
> many ways it is also quite 'concrete' in its mimeticism. Some see the
> mimeticism of much concrete as a bit of a failure of imagination.
> Others
> point out the fundamental thrust of concrete, its universalist
> committment
> to understandable communication across language and educational
> barriers and
> say that the mimeticism of concrete is not a failure of the
> imagination but
> reflects a committment to grounded and universal communication.
> Certainly
> the texts of "For All Seasons" can communicate before they are
> understood.
>
> Altogether, I would have to say it's a remarkable piece of work in
> both its
> affective dimensions and as a literary machine.
>
> ja
> http://vispo.com/misc/links.htm
>
>
>
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