Technologies In The Internet Poetry: Expectations And Reality

Abstract

The study is devoted to the Internet poetry, the structure and composition of which are based on the creative use of Internet technologies. Based on the “Discussions about electronic literature” (1997-1998), the study gives analysis of opinions of researchers, poets and critics about the prospects for application of various technologies in the Internet poetry. The optimistic predictions made in the late 1990s are compared with examples of the actual implementation of technology-based intermediality in the modern Internet poetry. Some poetic phenomena such as a collection of poems written on the Google Map (“Marshrut 91” by Alexander Samoilov) as well as experimental hypertext works, including those created on the basis of the “paper” poems are analyzed in the study. At the same time, the authors give serious consideration to ideas of researchers about the modern communicative situation in the Internet poetry. The conclusion is made that despite many expectations associated with the possible creative use of technologies in the Internet poetry, the latter is currently taking a different path. This path is mainly associated with a new type of communication in the “poet – audience” system, while the use of creative Internet environments, online games, hypertexts and expressive means of other media is becoming quite a rare phenomenon: the modern audience expects sincerity, emotions and interactivity from an Internet poet rather than a game or an original technological solution.

Keywords: Communication, intermediality, Internet poetry, Internet technologies

Introduction

In the late 1990s and the early 2000s, researchers, poets and critics wrote with enthusiasm about the prospects for the synthesis of poetry and technologies provided by the Internet. They also created a large number of interesting experimental texts using animation effects, hypertext links and various combinations of the reader's and author's navigation. However, at present, online poets use only a small amount of the Internet technologies for aesthetic purposes. Meanwhile, one of the most important tendencies of the modern poetry is the use of intermediality: poets are inventing new ways of going beyond the verbal component and use a variety of sign systems in their works. For example, poems can be written on postcards, blotting paper, a guidebook to an art gallery, a fortune-telling calendar, etc. Also, some incredibly creative experiments with the visual forms of poetry are known. At the same time, most of these intermediality-based works are created on the paper in the traditional book form and not on the Internet, although the Internet provides almost unlimited possibilities for experiments with various sign systems. Nevertheless, the Internet is becoming a platform for creative work of authors, whose poems may well be transitioned to a book format. This paradoxical situation is in the focus of our study.

Problem Statement

One of the most important features of the modern culture is communication of meanings with the help of other sign systems (Kim, 2019; Nilsson, 2020; Strehovec, 2017; Terskikh, 2017; Viires & Laak, 2021; Voss, 2019). Technological progress has led to a new look at the process of intermediality which is the interaction of various media and semiotic systems. “Today, intermediality is not so much a technique or a concept (as it was before), but an inevitable consequence of the technological media turn, and its very essence is fundamentally different from “Intermediality 1.0”, when the synthesis of arts, the search for syncretism and complex impact on the recipient were the artistic task of the author-creator” (Zagidullina 2017, p. 60). In this regard, the problem of the influence of the Internet environment and Internet technologies on poetic discourse is the issue of the day (Aranha & Borborema, 2016; Bootz, 2021; Demchenkov et al., 2018; Sanz, 2017; Senis, 2019; Valero, 2019; Xin, 2017). The Internet poetry concept includes many different aspects: these are both “traditional” works transitioned to the digital space and various generators of poems (“Yandex-Autopoet”), and small poetic forms widespread on the Internet (for example, the so-called “pirozhki”, which, in fact, became an element of electronic folklore). We share R. Simanovsky’s ideas about the classification of Internet literature on the basis of the main author’s strategy. He suggests the following groups of works: 1) originally created for paper format, 2) based on digital / multimedia technologies “as the main shaping aesthetic principle in order to achieve new forms and methods of artistic expression”, 3) using “specific communication technologies and Internet strategies (interactivity) as the main genre and aesthetic principle” (as cited in Shmidt, 2005). The materials of our study are mainly the works belonging to the second group: the term of the electronic poetry / Internet poetry is used in its narrow meaning. They are original author’s works that are created or processed on the Internet and cannot be transitioned to the paper media, since their structural and compositional features are based on Internet technologies. At the same time, at present, poetic texts from the third group are the most studied and popular with readers. These are Internet poems made by poets who use the Internet as a kind of platform for publication and communication with the audience. This sort of Internet poetry forms a special type of communication in the systems “author-text-addressee”, “author-text-critic”, which in many cases allows us to oppose Internet poetry to “conventional”, “paper” poetry. In this way, poetic communities oriented towards tradition, “the written-book mode of existence of literature and such institutions of literary legitimation, which ... are connected precisely with the “diachronic” dimension of literature through the concept of taste as a specific “distinctive ability” (Vorobyeva Vezhlyan, 2020, p. 47), form a kind of opposition to the new Internet poetry, in which “the status of a poet is established by the very fact of public approval, and all “entities of approval” are equal in rights, regardless the status including a “professional“ poet or a critic, or an ordinary VK user” (Vorobyeva Vezhlyan , 2020, p. 57). In addition, this creative branch of literature forms certain typical features of electronic poetics, for example, an increased concentration of precedent names (Yelistratova & Minets, 2013), “optativity”/“imperativeness”, when the author encourages a potential reader to take a number of actions in order to recreate the mood/environment/feelings that prompted the Internet poet to write a poem” (Bartosh, 2018, p. 117). On the other hand, the Internet provides the broadest technological possibilities for realizing a creative idea. Internet poets create their works having free access to a variety of media: video, audio clips, websites, images that are used as expressive means (Abrosimova, 2020; Abrosimova & Kulamikhina, 2021; Kuchina, 2017; Rosario, 2011). At the same time, the Internet poetry is in the focus of research due to the fact that it is a new form of communication between the poet and readers (Aranha & Borborema, 2016; Bartosh, 2018; Kozak, 2018; Vorobyeva Vezhlyan, 2020; Yelistratova & Minets, 2013).

Research Questions

The study sets the following research tasks:

1) to identify the main hypotheses and expectations regarding the technological aspect of the Internet poetry on the basis of analysis of the materials of the “Discussion about the electronic literature”;

2) to describe some of the technological principles underlying the structure and composition of the Internet poetry.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study is to identify trends in the development of the digital/multimedia technology-based poetry on the Russian Internet (Runet) on the basis of analysis of critics’ reviews, research works and poetry.

Research Methods

Methods of descriptive, structural and compositional, intermedial and thematic analysis were used in the study.

Findings

In the late 1990s and the early 2000s, critics, scientists, journalists and poets widely discussed possibilities and trends in the development of electronic literature, and among the most probable trends were named the ones associated with various technological solutions (Zherdev, 2000). For example, the following trends were mentioned: making connections between poems and their parts using hyperlinks; combining verbal texts with graphic, color, sound effects; developing game-like poetic forms with the possibility of joint authorship. Theoretical considerations and assumptions were accompanied by creation of a large range of works with the use of technologies. Among the existing poetic experiments of that time (unfortunately, most of them are no longer available or have been deleted) is Yuri Nesterenko's “Bundle of Sonnets” (Komok sonetov) under the title “Airport” (Nesterenko, 2000), organized as a hypertext. At first glance, the poem looks like a classic sonnet: it has 14 lines, consisting of two quatrains and two tercets with the rhyme “abba abba ccd eed”. Each of the lines of the both quatrains is a hyperlink, which is connected with a new sonnet, starting with this line. Thus, eight more sonnets emerge from the main one by means of hyperlinks. The first line () is linked to a poem written in a deliberately sublime style that imitates Shakespeare's one. The resulting sonnet becomes a kind of introduction to the whole “Bundle of Sonnets”: passengers - human lives are opposed to the fate, the symbol of which is the plane. The other lines are linked with sonnets which tell us about the life of specific passengers: There are some interesting technological solutions of A. Saraev and R. Karapetyan regarding the translation of a number of famous poems (“The House That Jack Built” in S. Marshak's translation, “The Princess and the Cannibal” by G. Sapgir) into the language of hyperpoem signs (HPML). Originally, these poems have a specific composition. “The House That Jack Built” is written according to the principle of a chain story, consisting of story parts, each of which has the sequentially increased repetition. The poem “The Princess and the Cannibal” is based on the contrast and structural reverse (perevertysh). A. Saraev and R. Karapetyan, with the help of a technological solution, made these techniques visual: the build-up of plot parts and the reverse is happening literally in front of the reader's eyes.

During the discussions about the electronic literature, there were opinions that the use of technologies in the poetry required a special sense of harmony and a literary taste, which should be even more acute than when creating ordinary works (Andreyev, 2000). Apparently, the authors of the new trend shared this point of view: in spite of the poetic simplicity, the experimental poems of the late 1990s and the early 2000s demonstrated authors' desire to create a complete coherent text in which a technology was an integral part of the composition.

However, the initial impulse given by artistic experiments at the turn of the millennium has not received the expected implementation, though there were big expectations and apparent prospects for the development of the Internet poetry. On the other hand, there are few works that use Internet technologies. For example, Samoilov (2015) created a collection of poetic works under the title “Marshrut 91”, consisting of 49 poems. Each poem is dedicated to one of the bus stops on the route of the minibus number 91 in Chelyabinsk. All of the poems were uploaded on a Google map. Each of the bus stops is circled on the map with a red color and accompanied by a poetic text. The titles of the poems correspond to the names of the bus stops (Plodovoyagodnaya, DK TETS, etc.). Applications are marked with green squares on the map. They are video poetic clips with audio and video accompaniments of the texts. Through the use of media, which are Google maps, the traditional literary metaphor “Life is the way” is literally expressed. Mazo (2019), a Moscow poet and musician, creates a synthetic genre that he calls digital opera: a multimedia project that combines a book of poetry, a film, moving illustrations, a music album, and a computer game. The poems are a kind of libretto on which other components of the project are based. They enhance and reproduce the image of the urban winter and the loneliness from various angles.

At present, there are examples of hypertext poetry as a developing trend in the works of several authors. The authors combine a verbal poetic text with various types of media: video/audio clips, images, website pages, etc. Hyperlinks allow poets to constantly refer to an unlimited number of works belonging to different eras, styles and genres (Abrosimova & Kulamikhina, 2021).

However, the majority of Internet poems created by modern poets have no structural connection with technologies. The Internet is used as a way of communication with the audience (readers) and a platform for uploading poems. Surprisingly, the texts of such authors can easily be transitioned to the paper form.

Conclusion

We came to the conclusion that the assumptions about the rapid development of the technological trend in the Internet poetry, which was predicted at the turn of the century, did not quite come true: the Internet poetry was developed in another way. Experiments with the use of hyperlinks for aesthetic purposes, navigation and animation are continued by only a small group of contemporary authors, which is probably due to the fact that most of the audience are not ready to perceive such works. Internet authors, for whom the Internet becomes a way of communication with the audience and a platform for uploading poems, are developing a completely different trend of the modern poetry in comparison with technology-based poetry. However, digital poetic creativity occupies its own niche, but it is far from the mass art.

The discussion about the electronic literature demonstrated the enormous creative potential of the synthesis of Internet technologies and the poetic text. Authors using Internet technologies in the poetry initially strove for a laconic and thoughtful form of a poem or a collection of poems. Their genre and composition speak about that: a certain organization of the collection of sonnets, poems based on a structural reverse, etc. Internet technologies emphasized and visualized the structure and composition of the poem. In the modern digital works, the possibilities of hyperlinks, navigation and game elements are often directed at the formation of associative links and subtext rather than at the genre and stylistic peculiarities of the poem. However, technology-based intermediality continues to be the author's conceptual idea of a digital work, its main artistic device. At the same time, Internet poets who use the Internet as a platform for communication (uploading poems on social networks, commenting on them, voice acting, uploading videos with the poet’s performance, etc.) are focused on a different type of intermediality. Internet technologies are becoming a medium for delivering the poetic text to the addressee rather that an object of aesthetic development.

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30 December 2021

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Cite this article as:

Abrosimova, E. A., & Kulamikhina, I. V. (2021). Technologies In The Internet Poetry: Expectations And Reality. In D. Y. Krapchunov, S. A. Malenko, V. O. Shipulin, E. F. Zhukova, A. G. Nekita, & O. A. Fikhtner (Eds.), Perishable And Eternal: Mythologies and Social Technologies of Digital Civilization, vol 120. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 342-348). European Publisher. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2021.12.03.46