Mercy are working with Re-Dock's John O'Shea on a new workshop series, bringing poets and coders together on world domination.
The central premise of the project is this brief:
"A dynamic piece of writing which changes as you experience it, in response to data/linguistic information in the real world or online"
Perhaps a poem whose words change as the temperature in North Wales rises and falls, a kind of fluctuating mass that reflects the 'experience of experiencing' more than a simple reading experience.
It's a simple enough starting point, but as soon as you start talking about it you realise the entire system of the internet is made up of languages interacting - and different levels and speeds of interaction with the 'real world'. It begs the question where does the poem end and the code begin? So were hoping that along with solving this initial 'brief', we'll be getting together a network of artist-coders and writer-artists who can explore the outer limits of their collaborative tendencies.
We've started a separate blog here. Please do contribute to the conversation if you have anything to add.
If you'd like to attend you can sign-up here, and if you have a piece of work that you'd like to make and present as a solution to this initial brief you can apply for a small development fee - just drop a comment in the box below.
The workshop will take place at Madlab, which is a really brilliant new place in central Manchester for digital-based arts practice, workshops and networks. Here's the details:
SYNTAX
A speculative 1-day workshop, looking to explore how poet/writers and coder/artists can bring their skills together to make new experimental work.
When: Thursday 28th July - 10am-5pm
The brief:
"A dynamic piece of writing which changes as you experience it, in response to data/linguistic information in the real world or online"
The day will run as follows:
10am - 12pm: Presenting solutions
Lunch
1pm - 5pm: Developing new work / Play-time
This project is led by Nathan Jones and John O'Shea
Partners:
http://www.mercyonline.co.uk/
http://www.re-dock.org