Þessi eining kannar tækni sem bæði takmarkandi þátt og verkfæri í ljóðrænni sköpun. Tæknileg val – uppbygging, endurtekning, rödd, stafræn verkfæri og tónsmíðaaðferðir – eru langt frá því að vera hlutlaus, heldur móta þau merkingu og skynjun. Við munum rannsaka hvernig formlegar ákvarðanir skapa efni og hvernig hægt er að nota mismunandi aðferðir til að takmarka ekki tjáningu heldur til að víkka hana út.
Inngangur
We are witnessing enormous changes in the composition and dissemination of music and audiovisual productions over the last few decades. There are already studies and assessments regarding the influence of these changes on the content and aesthetics of such productions. A similar transformation is taking place in other fields of culture and thought, yet we have not paid the same level of attention to it.
However, this did not begin with technological development. Artistic expression is constantly changing. The essence of creation lies in innovation, in the reinterpretation of parameters, and therefore also in the continuous exploration and redefinition of our work as artists.
Theoretical Foundations
If we rely on a conception of literary creation grounded in the body, we must understand the human body of the twenty-first century as a body permeated by and completed in its actions through technology.
As early as the 1970s, Marshall McLuhan proposed understanding technology as extensions of the human being, using examples as simple as the bicycle or electric light. There is no need to emphasize what has happened with technology from McLuhan’s death in 1980 to the present day.
Today, maintaining that “the medium is the message” necessarily implies including technology as part of, or even the essence of, the message. The nearly extinct image of the 1980s poet who preferred to recite without a microphone while awkwardly holding several books in one hand can no longer be understood as a natural or direct relationship with the textual object. Rather, it is a deliberate aesthetic choice that produces a specific effect, whatever that effect may be, but one that must necessarily pass through the interpretive format.
The reader’s or spectator’s own experience, which the text appeals to in order to communicate a particular sensation or idea, is a technological experience.
When McLuhan argues that “the medium is the message,” he does not do so in a metaphorical or symbolic sense. Instead, he positions the medium as the formal cause of society and as a determining factor in human action and thought. In our case, there would not be a formal cause of which the text is the result; rather, the poem itself becomes the causal element.
Human activity today is technological activity. From this perspective, it is unnecessary and almost obsolete to separate expressive fields such as the visual, the sonic, the textual, or even form and content. The everyday tools with which we interact intrinsically combine sensory stimuli and generate an almost indistinguishable effect. The text is no longer linear, as it is in a book; it is fragmentary and multimedia because that is how it is perceived by the receiver’s senses.
Therefore, the discussion is not whether we need to integrate technology into literary creation, but how we integrate technology into literary creation. The proposal is play.
References
McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, 1964.
Trujillo Liñán, Laura. Formal Cause in Marshall McLuhan’s Thinking: An Aristotelian Perspective, 2022.
Expanded Poetry
In Latin America, and particularly in Mexico, the term poesía expandida has become widespread as a definition of poetic arts that incorporate non-textual expressive tools. Its use in the English-speaking world (expanded poetry) predates this trend but is less widely accepted. Although not exclusive, the technological factor has been decisive in establishing the idea of a specific and classifiable form of expression.
The term digital poetry is also used for creative work in which technological support serves as the primary tool, although the term remains debated among many of its practitioners.
Some Examples of Digital or Expanded Poetry
Benjamin Moreno, Concretoons, 2018
https://archivocartografia.cl/fichas/Concretoons/
Rocío Cerón, Miuni, 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XErENvfrcMY&t=29s
Daniel Malpica and Sergio Castrillón, Written with an X, 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl7bHmOVuDo
Our Most Common Tools
The Microphone
It is easy to understand the microphone as an amplifier of the volume of a sound source. However, it can also be understood as a duplication of the sound source, a distortion of it, or a displacement of the source within space.
Understanding these elements allows us to play with sonic and performative alternatives. We can alternate the use of the microphone with the natural voice, or use two or more microphones with different characteristics. It is also possible to regulate low and high frequencies, create or control feedback, adjust volume levels, and modify tonal configurations. Additionally, one can move physically away from the center of the stage without losing the voice as the main sonic element.
Recording
The voice can be recorded either before a live presentation or simultaneously through the use of a looper, assistance from the soundboard, or even a mobile phone. In other words, the voice can be retransmitted live during the very act of its emission.
From there, we gain the possibility of different choral effects, repetitions, or alternations between different forms of the text. More than one text, more than one language, or more than one version can be layered or interwoven.
Image
As we saw in Module 1, text is also design; it is also image. In fact, the poem itself can be projected as a form of presentation. This allows us to understand the stage through more than one dimension of the text; that is, it can be shown and spoken simultaneously.
The aesthetic use of this dual dimension offers infinite possibilities for play. First, as noted in the case of recording, it allows the superimposition of different works or versions of the same work, translations, and so on. It also enables fragmentation, the emphasis of specific fragments, visual structuring, combinations with other images, and the use of color, shape, and light.
Light
Lighting plays a highly significant role in any performing art. It is an effective stimulus for concentration and audience attention, and it allows environmental changes to occur alongside the action.
Some poets and writers use memory or improvisation as the textual basis of performance, but most rely on a written text as a reference for reading. Using an electronic source for the text—whether a tablet, phone, or projection—provides access to the written support independently of external lighting conditions. At the same time, it functions as a light source in itself and should therefore be considered as such.