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 explore poetry as a multifaceted form of thinking, creating, and publishing, while demonstrating its relevance in the contemporary artistic and technological context. This will take the shape of a collection of creative projects across different media, from algorithmic AI poetry, interactive poetry games, to diy experimental publishing and digital archiving. Through these projects I aim to answer a main question: How can poetry exist and persist in today’s artistic and technological landscape? How can poetry help and foster communication between people, culture and mediums?

⟡ How do you plan to make it? ⟡

The thesis will be divided into four chapters, each contributing to get the viewer a deeper understanding on poetry’s adaptability across media and spaces, 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

꩜ Muses, listening to the Poets
I will create a digital archive of interviews to poets, in Rotterdam mainly, to investigate their voice and practices. This archive will include conversations on themes such as social justice, poetic languages, resilience and love

⟡ A timetable ⟡

September

• Exploring

October (confusion month)

• Being confused and anxious
• 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 https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/User:Alessia/Draft_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 showcase month, I start with interviewing)

• 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 and zine tutorial

January (little games month)

• 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
• 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

February (AI poem generator month)

• 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!
• continue interviewing, gathering materials
• continue going around events, market, zine fests and open mic

March

• continue interviewing, gathering materials
• continue going around events, market, zine fests and open mic

April

• continue interviewing, gathering materials
• continue going around events, market, zine fests and open mic

May
June
July

★ 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 reflects my own xpub path, as all projects include inglobe different aspects of my first year of xpub (AI love poems generator - arduino sessions from third trimester, digital poetry archive -archiving practices and interviews - first trimester…) and of my previous studies and practices (traditional printmaking and book binding - zine holder kit).

✧ 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)

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 engage in different way with poetry, but always in a much more different way I would like to engage it in the future. In my own university poetry was considered in an artificial way an higher art form, grand, refined, aulica. This thesis of mine will be a way to critique a bit that closed and fabricated vision of poetry.
My little secret poems are around zines, published online and not.

Here some photos:

♡ 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

⊹ Public moment I ⊹

During the public moment I'll present three prototypes:

• I dreamed, a little game made in itch.io https://aleevadh.itch.io/i-dreamed
• Coffee poem. a little zine-poem, focused on the uneasiness of returning home, and the beauty of small ritual, like the one of coffee making in the face of challenging times and silence
• Kado (corner in japanese, and present, cadeau in french and dutch). A little zine-poem about losing myself in the city, searching for wonder in filth and dust, searching for beauty or creating the illusion myself?

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I'll set up few prompts, some questions for the public too

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