User:Alessia/Draft project proposal

this draft is fuelled by my summer research about poetry and games

୭ What do you want to make? ୭

I want to study and work at the intersections of poetry and videogames.
These two types of mediums, each with their own depth and complexities, have a lot more in common than it might seem. Both these mediums are intense, complex, political, personal, proud and constantly shapeshifting.
But still they seems, in many ways, far from each other. Indeed it is not true, and I'll prove it!

⟡ How do you plan to make it? ⟡

Completely immerse myself into both, enjoying both, being overwhelmed by both.
I would like to work with my poems and other people poems, trying to grasp what poetry at all is for me and others, how it can be useful and in which context, how to publish poetry traditionally and not, how interactivity within poetry shape the experience for the user.

I plan to investigate the nuances between small, poetic, experimental video game projects and massive industry AAA titles. One of the main focuses will be narrative structures, exploring how storytelling is crafted through art and video game development. I will examine linear and nonlinear narrative structures, poetic language, and the creation of purpose within games and interactive.

I am tracing parallel lines here to connect contemporary art and the videogame industry, to explore the difference between the interactive art pieces placed in museum and videogames played by people on their personal screens. At the same time examine why art galleries often contribute to the perception of art as elitist, while the accessibility of video games might lead to them being perceived as “less” artistic worthy.

Gaming to me offers moments of detachment, but not a total disconnection from self or reality. My research could then go into the concept of play itself and how it changed during human history, considering the roles of rituality, ritual spaces, liminality and gamification of reality in it. What does it mean to play now compared to the past, and what could it become in the future?

What's interesting is that I would say the same thing about any artistic medium. For me, the best part of art lies in its ability to explore reality along a parallel line, capturing details in unique ways while simultaneously reflecting society and reality. Whether or not we consciously recognise it, art serves as a mirror to our world, offering insights into what reality and society truly are.


Random key points:

• The concept of Play
• Ritualisation of reality, gamification and mental health
• Art mirroring society, obsession with interactivity
• Little games, indie industry, faking the small aiming for the big
• Narration and storytelling, game poems

⊹ What is your timetable? ⊹

I don't believe in time

the rough timeline:

• Getting to know more about how poetry is generally published, in the mainstream publishing and in the independent one
• Make zines, for poetry slams, friends, to send/enjoy/hide/sell, for zinecamps and more
• Writing
• Exploring tools used by indie developers to make their games, platforms and deep dive into Godot
• Writing
• Getting back to Blender, working with Godot and Blender
• Writing
• Talking with poets and artists, interviews and zines

★ Why do you want to make it? ★

I love poetry, in a much bittersweet way. Poetry, can be lot of things. Poetry can be helpful, it is wonderfully helpful for many, within moment of despair is surely known to be a good soul balm. Still it is a language, a way of exploring hidden corners of reality, this liminal aspect of poetry is what intrigues me and it is what right away brought me to connect it to videogames. Both Poetry and Videogames are liminal forms of expressions, portals. Poetry dances between words and meanings, this intangible land between known and unknown, videogames invite players to live worlds that exist at edges of realities, blending the tactile with the imaginative. They are both blurred lines. Both involves transformation, and are mirrors of the human experience.

Exploring the liminal world to me is fundamental as a personal step for my own growth.

✧ Who can help you and how? ✧

Xpub peers and tutors.
Lot of people I'll meet along the way.
Poets and creative people. I would love to have some conversations with poets I met in Rotterdam, as Victoria Chang and 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, but I am not really sure my personal research would resonate with their ideas of what poetry should be (but I would love to have my prejudices destroyed).
There are lot of games and web developers I know and met that I am sure would give me help, tips and good vibe.

If my research will change its route to go a little bit more toward folklore I am sure Cristian Cuna, my previous university tutor, would be able to help me a lot. In any case I am sure he would like to help me with the publication.

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

Random people walking on the street, I swear.

✶ Relation to previous practice ✶

Working in publishing is still one of my little nice dreams, then working in poetry publishing is one of my even nicer little dream.
I like writing poetry, I like working with poetry. I think my favourite experience in Rotterdam is still Poetry International, the poetry festival in the city that really boosted my energy level so high that I still feel drunk from it. 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

My little secret poems are around zines, published online and not.

About games, I always loved videogames, I didn't have much opportunity to play a lot, I was watching lot of gameplays, that's why maybe I am much more interested in the narrative aspect of the medium than the techniques of it.

While living around Venice, and working in different galleries and museums, I really started asking myself the difference between all that video interactive art and the videogames, or game poem, or conceptual videogames, that I could have played at home in front of my computer. What was, and is still, the difference?

♡ Relation to a larger context ♡

In a larger cultural and artistic space the interaction between poetry and videogames reflects a neverending conversation about the merging of "high" and "low" forms of art, accessibility, the evolution of storytelling. Poetry and Games while costantly evolving contribute to the reshaping of the ways as humans we engage with narrative, interactivity, emotions, both in contemporary art and everyday life.

The democratisation of interactive content is challenging the exclusivity that thrive into environments such us literary and fine arts. The accessibility of videogames compared to the elitism of art spaces has started a re-evaluation of what artistic and literary means. Independent, as a concept, "indie", with its emphasis on personal expression and experimenting as a core, mirrors a philosophy that prioritise unconventional narratives over commercial ones.

The intersection between poetry and games sparks a discussion about mental health and digital spaces too, on many levels. Both poetry and videogames provides ways of exploring and process emotions, trauma, identity, society. This might show an interesting insight into the role of art as a therapeutic and reflective practice in a increasingly digital world.

✦ References/Bibliography/Key Texts ✦

👾 Game Poems: Videogame Design as Lyric Practice, Jordan Magnuson
https://www.gamepoemsbook.com/
An unusual perspective on the convergence between game making and lyric poetry, can game operate as a kind of poetry?

👾 A Long History of Generated Poetics: cutups from Dickinson to Melitzah, Everest Pipkin
https://everestpipkin.medium.com/a-long-history-of-generated-poetics-cutups-from-dickinson-to-melitzah-fce498083233
This article explored the historical tradition of generative poetics have existed for much more than we think about, even before the blooming of AI, before generative became a central term.

👾 Relational Aesthetics, Nicolas Bourriaud
Where does the obsession for interactivity in our contemporary art, and society, comes from?

👾 My own damn wiki about liminality, and all the books, researches and inspirations I quoted there that I love
https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/User:Alessia/liminal#Place-specific_art

👾 itch.io as a whole world, bitsy and its jams https://ledoux.itch.io/bitsy