Our second issue of 2018 brings you video poetry, conceptual and procedural poetry, among others. The doors of our Digital Residence, a virtual work and gallery space, are also open for the audience. English version of our current residence artist Olli Aarni´s project will be availabe next month.
Asetelmia_makulointi is a procedural poetry project by Tuomas Timonen. Since February Timonen has published in Instagram visual works of art based on unsold copies of his previously released book Asetelmia. Makulointi refers to the process of destroying unsold copies – which Timonen, occasionally in collaboration with other artists does in various, rather imaginative ways. Nokturno is now glad to present a new black metal inspired series made especially for Nokturno.
In Nokturno poetry comes in different forms, sometimes reader turns into a viewer. Berlin-based Federico Federici has created two visual studies on reading poetry. In Caged Alphabets the text is surrounded by audiovisual noise challenging the reading process. In Asemic Force Microscopy – In vivo text scanning the text is, as the name suggests, placed under microscope. If a poem is read really close, can we find the exact line where the poem ends and the world around the poem begins?
Our continuing series of essays on pioneer in Finnish digital poetry Arto Kytöhonka has come to the the second last part. In Kuntokynäilyä Liisa Enwald, a long time friend and once a pupil of Kytöhonka´s writes about him as teacher. The essay tells a story of Kytöhonka´s significance in the field, his exceptional and productive teaching methods and also his untimely passing.
Karri Kokko, whose latest book was presented in our last issue has, among other forms, been working with video in the last years. Nokturno now presents two video series from him. Käsitteellisiä videorunoja is an English conceptual poetry video series addressing with it´s dry humor our different ways to understand the concept of reference. Ensimmäiset kuusi heittoa is a selection of Kokko´s ongoing Instagram video series using dice-playing to deconstruct and reconstruct words together with the viewer.
Brad Liening´s (USA) The Shape of Social Media to Come gives a chilling view on our future with social media. Conceptual approach meets lo-fi aesthetics as Liening´s work combines two discourses into a series of visual poetry.
Our last poem this month is a video poem by video artist Maija Saksman. Finnish Pilvet kulkevat ohitseni consists of kinetic text and hypnotic, almost otherworldly song by Saksman. In the poem the clouds passing by inspire thoughts no less than eventually spiritual ones.
Next month we´ll have a yet another perspective on contemporary poetry: in Curator´s Corner we give room for professionals in the field to give their recommendations on new and interesting poetry.
Please continue to send us your poems or anything poetry related that finds its home in the digital world! Deadline for next issue is 25th of May and the email is .
(Image: screen capture from Federico Federici´s video Caged Alphabets)