019

Authors:

 Block, Friedrich W; Vallias, André.

Title:

 Discurso do metodo - The convergence of constructivist poetics in science, art, and digital media

Keywords:

 cognition, methodical solipsism, reality, existence, truth

Abstract:

 Our presentation takes as its starting-point the observation of amazing parallels between three contemporary discourses, which have spontaneously developed next to each another:
1. The constructivist science of the mind explains cognition and understanding as the staging of the world, dependent on a self-organizing observer (e.g. Heinz von Foerster, Francisco Varela).
2. Programs of aesthetic experimentation pursue the artificial subjectivity of self-obeservation as a 'methodical solipsism' (e.g. Oswald Wiener).
3. Culture theories describe the digital media as means and metaphor of an universal 'ars simulatoria' in comparison with the functioning of the brain (e.g. Vilem Flusser).
These discourses have in common that they do not any more counter the poetic with the individual, social, or technological 'reality'. Mediating what is supposed to be separate, the basic principle of self-referential creation comes into focus: the principle of poiésis. From this perspective, 'truth' turns out to be a state of possibility, and 'existence' appears as dependent emergence in the oikos of poetry: What we can actually observe even in the 'hardest' and most rational fields of our culture is a return of the Romantic.
This development suggests an intermediate and essayistic thought and action in our present and future time: dicplacement or transgression of hardened borders, condensation of what is only loosely related, experience as a self-conscious and ethically responsable experiment.
In this sense, our presentation will perform a fusion of verbal argument and hypermedial poem.
Block, Friedrich W. fwblock@hrz.uni-kassel.de Stiftung Brueckner - Kuehner born in Berlin in 1960, is a scientist of literature and media studies and an artist of intermedial poetry. He is director of the literary foundation Brueckner-Kuehner and teaches at the universities of Kassel and Bremen. He passed his Ph.D. with a dissertation on the relation between subjectivity and media with sprecial consideration of experimental poetry since the 70ies. He organized several exhibitions and published various books and catalogues on visual and experimental poetry and on the relation between art and science. Books among others: "Beobachtung des Ich. Zum Zusammenhang von Subjektivitaet und Medien am Beispiel experimenteller Poesie." Kassel 1997, "Neue Poesie und - als Tradition." Passau 1997 (ed.), "Verstehen wir uns? Zur gegenseitigen Einschätzung von Literatur und Wissenschaft." Frankfurt/M. 1996 (ed.), in English the following essays: "The form of the media: the intermediality of visual poetry", in W. Noeth (ed.): "Semiotics of the media", Berlin, New York 1997, 713-730, (with K. Wenz:) "The construal of a city: Amsterdam, the imagined and simulated city", in Hess-Luettich/Mueller (eds.): "Signs and Space", Tuebingen 1998, 117-131. Since 1988 he participated in exhibitions of visual poetry in Germany, Austria, The Netherlands, Russia. His poetry was published in anthologies and catalogues and recently in his book "IO. poesis digitalis" (Linz 1997).

Vallias, André refazenda@ibm.net born in São Paulo in 1963, is a grafic designer and producer in the field of web and multimedia. Since 1988, he uses the computer to create 'diagrammatic' and interactive poems. 1992 he organized one of the first international exhibition of digital poetry ("Digitale Dichtkunst", Annaberg Buchholz, Germany, together with F. W. Block). He participated in various exhibitions in Brazil and Germaniy, where he lived between 1987 and 1994, among others: "Palavra Imágica" , MAC, São Paulo 1987; "Seripoemas", Galeria Macunaíma, Rio de Janeiro 1987; "Transfutur", Kunstetage, Kassel 1990 / Berlin 1992; "p0es1e - digitale Dichtkunst" , Annaberg-Buchholz 1992; "Wortstatt", Bea Voigt Galerie, Munique 1993, "No Limiar da Tecnologia", Paço das Artes, São Paulo 1995. His works were published in several anthologies and catalogues, such as: "New Media Poetry: Poetic Innovation and New Technologies" - Visible Language 30.2, Providence 1996; "World Media Interactive CD-ROM", Hamburg 1994; "Anthologie Gegenwärtiger Visueller Poesie", Viena 1993;. His name is include in the "Artist's Database" of the InterCommunication Center of Tokio. Together with Flora Gil, he recently founded Refazenda in Rio de Janeiro to produce web sites.