Conclusion

Pop art, Fluxus, Conceptual art & literature, Concrete poetry, Cybernetic art, Appropriation art, Net art & literature, the Lettrists, Glitch art, Code poetry, Dadaist poetry, Experimental literature, Code art & literature, don’t know where to start and where to end…. All of these isms, genres and avantgarde movements in art and literature have one thing in common: they propose that the central element in cultural work and practices like art and in literature can be the conceptual, or the algorithmic work. That means, working with instructions for action that come close to the performative element of the code (cf. [Bajohr and Bauer, 2016]). They all start from the idea that rules can specify processes for the production of art, or as the conceptual artist and minimalist Sol LeWitt put it: “The idea becomes a machine that makes the art”1. (quote)

“If one wants to understand how art and technology relate to each other in our European tradition, one has to go far afield. Today we are used to see intuition and rationality as opposites. The common origin of poetics (poietike - the creative, poetic art) and technology (techné) in Greek poiesis, on the other hand, has been largely forgotten.”2

Today, the way we make art and literature goes closer and closer back to its roots. It has changed fundamentally in the last two centuries. Especially in the last two decades of this new millennium, our handling of text, our reading and writing behaviour has moved significantly closer to that of the machine. Some of us perceive this consciously, for others this kind of writing is already part of the new normality.

Interfaces like Flickr, Instagram, Facebook are forcing us to a pre-defined use of language, for example in Twitter a very condensed language (<140 char). The use of hashtags makes it easier for us to get lost in #-tag clicks like a lettrist derivé (cf. [Goldsmith, 2011]). We dig and search through text material, through clicks and search functions, trying not to get lost in jungles of web pages reading hypertext, and writing new cryptic passwords and passphrases every week. Most of these texts are not being read in a linear fashion. Most of them are not even meant for linear reading, or even being read by humans at all! Most of the time we regard them as visual patterns and then in turn consciously use this experience in our work and daily lives.

We continue to experiment with yet undisclosed spaces in order to assemble the fragmentary into poetic arrangements, to replace the outdated systems of the 20th century, stepping towards a new understanding of language, … somehow like Gertrude Stein did a hundred years ago.

References

BB16

Hannes Bajohr and René Sebastian Bauer. Code und Konzept: Literatur und das Digitale. Reihe Generator. Frohmann, Berlin, 2016. ISBN 978-3-944195-51-3 978-3-944195-86-5. OCLC: ocn979404716.

Gol11

Kenneth Goldsmith. Uncreative writing: managing language in the digital age. Columbia University Press, New York, 2011. ISBN 978-0-231-14990-7 978-0-231-14991-4. OCLC: ocn693812272.

1

URL: https://theoria.art-zoo.com/paragraphs-on-conceptual-art-sol-lewitt/ (Accessed 24.08.2021)

2

URL: https://georgtrogemann.de/2016/07/comment-on-ralf-baecker-the-paradox-of-knowing-universals/ (Accessed 24.08.2021)