User:Alessia/Draft project proposal

୭ What do you want to make? ୭

I want to explore poetry as a multifaceted form of thinking, creating, and publishing, while demonstrating its relevance in the contemporary artistic and technological context.
This will give me the opportunity to focus on three different fields: AI poetry, poetry games and DIY experimental publishing, which I'll explore through multiple projects.
Through these projects I aim to answer one main question:
How can poetry exist and persist in today’s artistic and technological landscape?

⟡ How do you plan to make it? ⟡

I will work on three main chapters, each contributing to get the viewer a deeper understanding on poetry’s adaptability across media and spaces. Alongside focusing on these three main areas I will continue to conversate with artists and poets that will help me in getting deeper into the poetic discourse, their interviews will be fragments, these conversations will be dispersed, scattered, around the chapters enriching the research. Each chapter will be connected to a unique project:

꩜ Algorithmic verses: the AI poetic machine
In this chapter I will develop and AI love poem generator, arduino based. This device will be a way to investigate the generative AI phenomenon while exploring these such as authorship and the intersection of technology with poetic language

꩜ Playing, interactive poetic experiences
Using open source tools (bitsy, pico8…) I will get into creating interactive game poems that will be experiments of narrative structured and mechanics, translatic the poetic form into playful experiences

꩜ The poetic of diy experimental publishing
This chapter will focus on the tangible, handmade, publishing experience, by creating a zine holder kit that will be presented in multiple independent publishing events and fests. I will experiment with materials that are easily accessible

⟡ Timetable ⟡

September

• Exploring

October (confusion month)

• Being confused
• Reading a lot around, getting inspiration from everybody practices
• Trying to understand how to work between tangible and intangible
• Create a first draft of project proposal
• Prepare zines for event and first public moment

November (public moment and first prototypes month, then more clarity!)

• 1 Nov INC_Amsterdam, zine market, present zines made for the public moment
• 5 Nov First public moment
• Getting feedback about games, interactivity, zines reception, everything that could be helpful
• Writing down a clear thesis outline, connecting dots, deciding on an instable thesis structure
• 27 Nov open mic WDKA, Out loud, doing the open mic and asking for interviews to people invested in Poetry
• Writing down a list of Poets I would like to interview and start to contact them
• making the zine holder kit + zine

December (zine holder kit month #1)

• 2 Dec Brutus winter market, getting feedback on the zine holder kit and zine
• 14 Dec Open Mic Dox, getting to know more about the Spraakuhloos community, asking for interviews to the head of the project, and other great artist there
• 27-28 Dec Manine di Lucertola fest, Bari, getting feedback on the zine holder kit

January (zine holder kit month #2)

• Presenting the zine holder kit to multiple events
• Continue going around events, market, zine fests and open mic
• Starting working on the AI poem generator

February (Ai poem generator month #1)

• Working on some pen plotting party workshop, the first draft of our idea is to have as a theme “love letters to the machine”, this might be a great interesting point in my thesis too, on how to create poetry through pen plotters
• Working on the AI poem generator, publish the work in progress or first prototype of the generator to some valentine's day event
• Continue going around events, market, zine fests and open mic

March (AI poem generator month #2)

• Working on the AI poem generator
• Continue interviewing, gathering materials
• Continue going around events, market, zine fests and open mic
• Love is in the air! Finish the AI poem generator and present it to some public moment out there, which one? Too soon to know!
• Returning to Godot

April (little games month #1)

• Continue interviewing, gathering materials
• Continue going around events, market, zine fests and open mic
• Continue creating little games on itch.io, exploring all the other tools I might use, like pico8
• Getting more into Godot, create the first little game made all in Godot

June (little games month #2)

• Continue interviewing, gathering materials
• Continue going around events, market, zine fests and open mic
• Publish a possible Godot little game

May

• Continue going around events, market, zine fests and open mic
• Debugging, finetuning, cleaning

June

• Debugging, finetuning, publishing :)

★ Why do you want to make it? ★

I want to challenge what is the conventional understanding of poetry, moving from the static and niche literary page and environment to a much more interactive, technological, contemporary space. By applying poetic thinking and forms to different disciplines I will show its potential as a tool for connection, critique and investigation of today’s creative world.

This project will be deeply personal too, poetry is not just a medium to me, but a way of experiencing the world, in the last few years it was the way I found to survive much, that’s why I want poetry to be the main thread of my research, even if I feel still as a beginner into the poetry world I want this to be a tribute to poetry in a much more broader sense, not focusing on my own experience with it, but to show the public how much poetry can be embedded in anything, and can be something more that you would expect.

All the projects will reflect my own Xpub path, as all projects will include different aspects of my first year of Xpub.
For example the archiving practices and possible interviews and conversations I'll work on will be inspired by the radio show making and interviews I organised during the first trimester, called Destroy the Protocols (for special issue 22, part of the interview I made was included in this publication by INC) and the Piet Magazine production I was involved from last year. The AI love poems generator will be created inspired from the project I worked on during the the second trimester, called Loading... Feminist server, here for the documentation (for special issue 23) and thanks to the arduino sessions we had during the last trimester of our first year (for special issue 24). The little games I will work on will be hosted on our server, that I learned to collaborate with during our second trimester.
While I tried my best during my Xpub experience to create a distance from my previous practice, I now understand how important it is for me to return back to that more traditional approach to printmaking and publishing from my previous study, that's what will mainly influence the zine holder kit project and the handmade aesthetic I would like to apply on the making of zines and probably, the final publication of the whole thesis.

✧ Who can help you and how? ✧

Xpub peers and tutors.
Lot of people I'll meet along the way.
Poets and creative people (Victoria Chang, Samira Negrouche, as well as my previous creative writing professor Isabella Leardini, with whom I worked with during my bachelor...) The school of poetry in Bologna (Centro di Poesia Contemporanea dell'Università di Bologna) might have some interesting poets that would love to engage in discussion about the medium.
There are lot of games and web developers I know and met that I am sure would give me help, tips and good vibe.

Cristian Cuna, my previous university tutor.

The Rib team too, and some other people I met through Rib.

bookhandels, independent publishing bookhandels around the country (and outside the country), zines with poetry as their core (such as Mug zine)

numerous people I'll meet during events like zinefests and such

✶ Relation to previous practice ✶

I like writing poetry, I like working with poetry. I think my favourite experience in Rotterdam is still Poetry International. In that occasion I met many artists and poets that I am collaborating with and will, hopefully, collaborate in the future.

I worked at a book publication for a book by Isabella Leardini in collaboration with Scuola Grafica d'Arte di Venezia, by Vallecchi, https://www.vallecchi-firenze.it/poesia/costellazione-parallela-poetesse-italiane-del-novecento/ a collection of poems by italian women poets forgotten or almost by history.
During my bachelor I engaged in different ways with poetry. At my university, poetry was often believed to be an "higher" art form, grand, "aulic." This project of mine aims to critique that narrow and constructed vision of poetry.
My little secret poems are around zines, published online and not.

Here some photos:

♡ Relation to a larger context ♡

With this project I want to situate poetry within the broad context of contemporary art, technology and social matters. It engages with questions about authorship, creativity, interactivity in a world shaped by generative AI, digital media and a world where the reflective acts of pausing, exploring emotions, as poetry invites us to do, often feel impossible.

By exploring poetry through diverse disciplines the project will connect to conversation about the role of ai in the creative industry, how it is reshaping our creative practices and how authorship is questions, the accessibility to tools, with diy publishing and open source tools, and the evolving role of play in art, interactivity in every day life.

By addressing all these points my thesis will contributes to the constant redefinition of poetry as a adaptable form that speak of the complexities of our world.

References:

• Pacholik, D. (2015). We Went to a Death Metal Poetry Reading. [online] VICE. Available at: https://www.vice.com/sv/article/we-went-to-a-death-metal-poetry-reading/
• Hughes, M. (2022). Meet Soul Glo: Hardcore Poets Confronting Trauma, White Supremacy and ‘Hard Conversations’. [online] Revolver. Available at: https://www.revolvermag.com/music/meet-soul-glo-hardcore-poets-confronting-trauma-white-supremacy-and-hard-conversations/
• The Hindu. (2014). Poetry helped me heal, says former Naxalite. [online] Available at: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhra-pradesh/poetry-helped-me-heal-says-former-naxalite/article5856060.ece
• Bedford, E. (2024). Interview: Dan Power // AI Literary Review : The Indiependent. [online] The Indiependent. Available at: https://www.indiependent.co.uk/interview-dan-power-ai-literary-review/ [Accessed 19 Nov. 2024]
• Bedford, E. (2024). Poetry Review: AI Literary Review : The Indiependent. [online] The Indiependent. Available at: https://www.indiependent.co.uk/poetry-review-ai-literary-review/
• User:Alessia/liminal - XPUB & Lens-Based wiki. [online] Available at: https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/User:Alessia/liminal
• Amanita-design.net. (2024). Litte Buddy Move. [online] Available at: https://littlebuddymove.amanita-design.net/
• Floex Zorya album by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT-nqKwq3eo
• Dvořák, T. Floex - Zorya (Full Album / Álbum Completo). [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT-nqKwq3eo
• Triennale.org. (2024). Game Collection Vol. 1. [online] Available at: https://triennale.org/en/events/game-collection-1