interpoesia-english

Menezes and Azevedo's Interpoetry
By :Jorge Luiz Antonio (1)
(doctoring in Communication and Semiotics at Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo)

ABSTRACT - This article treats about the hypertextuality and interactivity of Philadelpho Menezes and Wilton Azevedo's cd-rom Interpoesia.

MENEZES, Philadelpho and AZEVEDO, Wilton (1997-1998). Interpoesia: poesia hipermídia interativa. São Paulo, Brazil, cd-rom, edited by Presbyterian University Mackenzie, Experimental Poetry Studio of Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, and FAPESP (The State of São Paulo Research Foundation), creation of 1997/1998. Poems by Philadelpho Menezes and Wilton Azevedo. Art direction of Wilton Azevedo. Translation into English by David Scott. Poem by Philadelpho Menezes by means of Ana Aly's final art. Sound edition by Alessandra Vilela and Sérgio Bairon. Programming / animation by Alessandra Vilela. Compact Disc 065.462 produced in Industrial Pole of Manaus by Sonopress-Rimo da Amazônia Ind. Com. Fonográfica Ltda.

A interpoetry cd-rom, instead of a poetry book, which is elaborated by many authors. The prefix inter that works as Shklowsky's strangeness. A cultural and technological product that intends to replace the book. A need of another machine, beyond imagination, to get into poetry. Opening pages by means of a mouse, menus and keys. The sound, verbal, visual and digital poetry brought together in a innovative project, also in the title. Hyper - inter - textuality. A new media poetry.

That is the way we can introduce Interpoesia: Poesia Hipermídia Interativa (Interpoetry: interactive hypermedia poetry), by Philadelpho Menezes and Wilton Azevedo, specially for knowing the work is created by professors and that it participated of electronic art exhibitions.

But knowing it is not enough to say the cd-rom is an innovative project. It is necessary to emphasize that Philadelpho Menezes and Wilton Azevedo has created a new term and concept for a special type of digital poetry: interpoetry, or interactive hypermedia poetry: "poems in which sounds, images and words coalesce, in a complex intersemiotic process, in a technological environment which precisely facilitated the simultaneous presence of verbal, visual and acoustic signs: hypermedia programs", that is, an intersign exercise which makes clear the significance of the sign traffic of digital media, bringing about what could be called a new era of reading". The poetic synthesis proposed by the authors intends to bring together the verbal, sound and visual poetry in a context in which the interactivity overreaches the concept of intertextuality, once the dialogue with other works of art and authors realizes in the electronic and digital environment, totally suitable to it, neither transposed, nor adapted. It is a work of digital interpoetry that makes a dialogue with other types of texts, for the "fusion of genre is, furthermore, natural to interpoetry: visual poetry, sound poetry, theoretical text, encyclopedic information, fiction, lies, games, all are possible paths within the interpoem, including the possibility of entering into commerce (or dialogue) with non-technological media".

The group of artists who participate of the cd-rom elaboration deserves a special reference. They make part of the best professors of the best Brazilian universities and, also, are artists recognized by the specialized critics: Philadelpho Menezes Neto (1960-2000), who died recently in a car accident, was professor of Post Graduation Program in Communication and Semiotics at the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo, a very brilliant and dedicated searcher and sound poet and coordinator of Studio of Experimental Poetry; Wilton Luís de Azevedo, professor of the Postgraduate Program in Education, Arts and Culture History at the Mackenzie Presbyterian University, is a designer and a painter; David Scott is professor and chief of the French Department at Trinity College, in Dublin, Ireland, and president of International Association of the Studies on Word and Image; and Sergio Bairon, also professor at PUC and Mackenzie, treats about educational and cultural material for the hypermedia.

Interpoetry is the result of a project integrated with digital supports, and realized by Estúdio de Poesia Experimental (Experimental Poetry Studio) of the Post-Graduation Program in Communication and Semiotics in PUC-SP (Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo) and by Post-Graduation Program in Education, Art and Culture History of the Mackenzie Presbyterian University (São Paulo). The cd-rom was exhibited in the Cultural Space João Calvino, at the Mackenzie Presbyterian University, in São Paulo, from May 29th to June 96th, 2000, and it also makes part of especial exhibition Art and Technology (section of Cyberart: zones of interactions, Hypermedia: CD-ROMs) in II Biennial of Visual Arts of Mercosur in 1999/2000, in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, and in 13th Brazilian Symposium on Computer Graphics and Image Processing, in October 2000, in Gramado, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

The first access(2) to the work gives us a sound poem by three voices (two male voices and a female one) which repeats the title of the cd-rom: Interpoesia (Interpoetry), while images of the cover and first "pages" is appearing slowly. The sound is related to the image of the cover. To get in touch with the author's introductions-manifestos - that is, Interpoesia: a digital manifesto (Wilton Azevedo) and Interactive poems: intersign perspective for experimental poetry (Philadelpho Menezes) - in Portuguese or in English (translation into English by David Scott), is also to access the authors's former individual works Idensidade(3) and Clic (4), by Wilton, and Clichetes (5) and Poema não Música (6), by Philadelpho. Saying former individual works means a kind of bricolage effect of all the authors created during certain time of their lifes. It is what we can call as intertextuality or hypertextuality, one of the most important characteristics the cyberculture art shows clearly in many artistic expressions, according to Pierre Lévy (1997).

The cd-rom is divided in two parts: one is called "i" and the other is "p". Clicking on "i" or "p" takes the reader-operator to a group of poems. These poems are written in Portuguese, but we have the choice to translate into English:

"i" - O Lance Secreto (The Secret Move), Reviver (Re-live), O Inimigo (The Enemy), Máquina (Machine); and

"p"- Missa (Mass), Lábios (Lips), Atol (The Atol), Somatória (The sum), O Tigre (The Tiger), Vírus (Virus).

In "i", words, images and sounds brings references from another texts from different times and countries, like the ideogrammatic scripture of Lewis Carroll , the Pound's ideogram, the Baudelairian poetry revisited, re-written and re-declaimed, and a revisitation / re-reading of Menezes's own visual poetry "Machine", all conditioned in a electronic-digital context. It is a perfect fusion between poetic word, digital image and electronic sound, which creates an hyper-inter-textuality. However, other verbal, visual and sound poems intermingle the cd-rom, including the access is possible to have to the credits, with the introduction, by three voices, of a sound poem.

The same is meant to say of the part "p": with different predominance, or the word, or the image, with static or dynamic elements, with or without the direct authors' interference or of the other indirect participants (parts of a music, sound techniques, digital reproduction of paintings, book illustrations, magazines and newspapers, and so on), the final result is the presence of the intersign that establishes syntactic and semantic interconnections related only with digital language (hypertextuality, interactivity).

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(1) Postgraduate Student (doctorate) in the Communication and Semiotics Program at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, Brazil.
(2) The freedom to access is an important factor in a digital work of art. Thus, the access "guide" (first, second, third, and so on) is something needless, for, almost always, the free choice is the most important and differential thing. So, saying first, second, third, etc. was the way the author found to introduce the cd-rom, but it doesn't represent the only possible alternative of accessing the cd-rom.
(3) Idensidade is a Portuguese word composed by identidade (identity) and densidade (density) and it could be translated into the density of identity.
(4) Click is a re-reading of Philadelpho's Clichetes, by brightening the three first words (Clic) of Menezes's visual poem.
(5) Clichetes is a parodic poem of the chewing gum called Chicletes. Menezes transforms the word Chicletes into Clichetes, and the slogan chewing gum into gum to mask, that is, the words in Portuguese goma de mascar (chewing gum) transforms into goma de mascarar (masking gum).
(6) Poema não Música (Poem not Music) is a sound poetry created by Philadelpho Menezes that joins a classical music with an African canto and produces a different meaning but without intelligible words and/or sounds.

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		Vol. 1, August, 2001