Nokturno’s first release of 2017 presents poetry and poetry related projects from alltogether seven authors and artists. In this selection poetry meets data network, classical singing and mathematics, among others. There’s video poetry, visual poetry, works combining installation and conceptual art and the first poetry essay of the new Nokturno!

Engineer and poet SS Prasad’s essay on bpNichol’s Sixteen Lilypads Was bpNichol a cowboy and not a poet? combines mathematics, computer science and literary analysis. Born as a response to a mathematical analysis of bpNichol’s work published in Rampike, the essay dives into the world of Hamiltonian patterns, Boolean variables and molecules. Nokturno has previously released nanopoems by SS Prasad.

Another engineer in our February’s set is the multimedia artist Saurabh Datta currently living in China. His works Ears After All and Poetic Router combine technical devices, coding and poetry. What happens when a machine tries to understand poetry? What kind of poetry is born in the internet of things or in data networks of a home?

Nokturno also presents three pieces of video poetry. The Catafalque with it’s surreal and romantic horror imagery is based on Leena Sainio’s text and Before Present’s improvisational music. Taina Valkonen, known both as visual artist and performance artist addresses feelings related to departure and sense of an end in her video You Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone. Jukka Aulavuori’s video Ennen aaltoja is a collaborational piece with his brother Janne’s music and Jukka’s text. Black and white, text and music join in the melancholic yet humorous piece.
Nokturno 1-2017 also presents a series of four poems by Garry McDougall from Australia and a series of aquarelle poems by Anna Mari Räsänen. In McDougall’s poems text meets photos and languages merge. Anna Mari Räsänen’s works combine strong colors with typewriter text.

Thank you to all of you who send their proposals and contributed to Nokturno 1-2017! Please continue to send us your digital and experimental poems, or anything poetry related that finds it home in the digital world. The next release is in April.

(photo: screen cap from Taina Valkonen’s video When I’m gone)