Revisiting “Separation / Séparation”.

Ania Szremski* wrote about my 18 year old interactive poem for the New York based 4Columns website. During the spread of corona 4Columns continued to write on art and commissioned writing that addresses specifically works of culture that are still available in the public sphere, in one guise or another.

Revisiting the net artist’s Flash poem Separation / Séparation:

You must click repeatedly on the pale-yellow field of a pop-up window to get the narrative to unspool, word by word, its story of pain, the lament of one suffering body being taken over by another, demanding, unfeeling one. The suffering seems to be caused by the melding of human and computer, but it’s not totally clear who is suffering.

in Separation / Séparation, Abrahams anticipates our impatient behaviors and both goads us into them, so we become conscious of these automatic operations, and induces us to comport ourselves differently, to adopt a gentler attitude in front of the poor pounded-on computer.

That escape comes easiest through technology, but not here: Abrahams bars the door to fugitive, algorithmic reprieve.

Ania Szremski is the managing editor of 4Columns. From 2011–15, she was the chief curator of Townhouse, a nonprofit contemporary art space in Cairo, Egypt; she was also a founding editor of Mada Masr, Egypt’s premiere platform for independent, progressive journalism. She is a recipient of a 2016 Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.

ps I found the Italian translation in a powerpoint version + plus the article that relates the difficulties of recreating a flash piece without sources.

Filed under: Articles / Texts, Net art, 4Columns, Ania Szremski, Séparation, separation

The art of online affecting: a crash course

Suddenly, cultural life takes place entirely on the internet, which until now was mainly used for marketing. How should you play the online stage, how to emote your audience there too? “Don’t get eaten by the screen.”

Alex Burghoorn, art critic of one of the biggest Dutch newspapers, De Volkskrant, interviewed me a few days ago and in his article he states that it is worthwhile to dwell on my work, now that not only a period of great financial worries for the arts, but also of digital experiments has begun. It feels as this is my moment of glory :).

I hope some readers got inspired and now start weaving moments of Distant Feeling(s) in their online meetings.
Fork Distant Feeling(s)!, it could be good for your health!

You can find the article (in Dutch) here online: https://www.volkskrant.nl/cultuur-media/de-kunst-van-het-online-ontroeren-een-spoedcursus~b8355ab1

“My work can be difficult, some find it scary to participate,” says the pioneer of net art. “It can also fail, that there is no special feeling. I don’t mind, that emphasizes the vulnerable side of people.“

ps The article also touches upon other digital art experiences.

Filed under: Articles / Texts, Alex Burghoorn, de Volkskrant, Distant Feelings, distant movements, health, separation

Italian “translation” of Separation / Séparation

Mauro Carassai and Renata Morresi made an Italian powerpoint and javascript translation (2012) of Separation/Séparation (2002). They didn’t have the flash source codes and so imagined how translation of this piece of E-lit could be done from its experience alone.

Translation, Mutation, Decay.

The powerpoint version is hilarious (after clicking through 184 slides it stops – the poem can’t be read completely).
The javascript version doesn’t work in all browsers and lacks some features, but does give an impression. ( view-source:https://bram.org/separation/Javascript_Translation.html )

That’s what time can, will do with a piece of electronic art, I thought.
E-lit also is like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall.

Carassi and Morresi wrote an article about their adventure which appreared as Verbal Disengagements: Translating Language Games in Annie Abrahams’s Separation/Séparation in Translating E-Literature (2015). Eds. Regnauld, Arnaud and Abrioux, Yves. Bibliothèque de l’Université Paris 8 (Saint-Denis, France).

Filed under: Articles / Texts, e-literature, Net art, decay, e-literature, flash, Mauro Carassai, Renata Morresi, Séparation, separation, translation