Digital poetics or On the evolution of experimental media poetry.

Author: Block, Friedrich W.
Published: Kassel, 2004
Source: http://www.brueckner-kuehner.de [25.06.04]

Abstract

Friedrich W. Block discusses digital literature in the context of experimental art. Consequently, he does not define new media- or digital poetics by its technical conditions (computer, internet, programming languages) but by its aesthetic program. This adds a new twist to the self-referential quality of the experimental program in general (which originated in the late 1950s). If digital poetry treats the question of technology not only thematically but "technically", i.e. self-referential, this implies an ideology criticism of the technical age which has not been formulated with such clarity elsewhere.

Block, Friedrich W.

Friedrich W. Block studied German language and literature und Art/Visual Communication at the University of Kassel and graduated with a PhD in 1998 (thesis about the relationship of subjectivity and media as exemplified in experimental poetry). He lectured at the universities of Kassel, Bremen und Munich. At the time he is managing curator of the Brückner-Kühner foundation and honorary chair of the Temple of the Arts in Kassel. In addition to his scholarly employments he works as an artist and mediator in the area of experimental poetry.

Publications: "p0es1s. The Aesthetics of Digital Poetry" (2004), "Großstadt - Technik - Industrie in der Literatur der Moderne" (2000), "Beobachtung des 'ICH'. Zum Zusammenhang von Subjektivität und Medien am Beispiel experimenteller Poesie" (1999)