We Build That

Tonight, Jim Andrews—a Canadian digital artist of many complementary persuasions, a man I cannot pin down to one noun (poet, artist, musician), fellow Seattle visual poet alumnus, and one of the most generous people I know—sent me a note that the Vispo Guests & Collaborators page at his long-running site, Vispo ~ Langu(im)age, has been redesigned and released into the world.

Looking over this tonight, I see much work I’ve spent a good time with—Jim’s own “On Lionel Kearns,” a kind of homage to and collaboration with the work of Lionel Kearns; Dan Waber’s charming “Strings”; the late Ana María Uribe’s simple digital “Typoems and Anipoems”; Marko J. Niemi’s examinations of letterness, “Concrete Stir Fry Poems”; and Jim Andrews’ videopoetrygame “Arteroids.” But there is so much more here to be surprised by.

I enjoyed Jim’s, as usual, humble introduction to these works:

This [webpage] links to works housed on vispo.com done by the below artists or, in some cases, in collaboration or translation with Jim Andrews. These works write strongly through their media. Many thanks to the artists and scholars. I feel privileged to walk with you.

But even more appealing was his little note to me. A simple poetics—and a poetics of “we”:

I'm quite proud of the work this page links to on vispo.com and the ongoing project this page represents. Vispo.com is my 'book', but it is more than my 'book'. I started on the Web because I could publish my own work as I see fit, could try to combine my interests in programming, writing, audio, the visual, correspondence, etc, and could find the work of others from the avant garde there often more easily than through other avenues. The Web is my main publishing medium. It's great to be able to publish some work that I like by other people, also. A big part of what I feel I'm doing is helping construct the avant Web; work by work; link by link. We build that.

Take some time to sift through this small and growing gallery of digital art. It’s worth your time.

ecr. l’inf.