View source for MATTERS, Electromagnetic poems

When materials that support texts change, the content have to change. Matters is a physical reflection on how the materiality could affect the text. From ceramic tiles to displays, each new supporting material has opened new possibilities for writing. The support does more than sustain the text, it limits and potentiates it at the same time. The rules of the text are established thanks to these materials, which are implemented as a medium for the text. The physical, the chemical, the sociology, and the politics of these mediums definitively influence the literary use of the ideas. The change in supporting materials allow us to tap into new possibilities that poetry has the pleasure of exploring and amplifying. Similarly, the poetic endeavour is obligated to question the physical, chemical, social, and political limitations of either medium as a support for the text. The expressive reflection allows the revision of rules established by the use of either format and, perhaps, generates new uses of a medium; or in an extreme case, generates a new medium for the diffusion of the text. In this case, a combination of nonconventional materials has been used in the text, which are manipulated thanks to the use of simple electronics that creates magnetic fields either through audio to generate vibrations or through a sequential movement.

Drawer 1 – “Paper alive”: we use speakers to create a surface in constant vibration on which we will place a mixing of non-newtonian fluid. The system respond by a proximity sensor: The closer the viewer to the drawer, the greater vibration intensity of the surface. The vibration excite the non-Newtonian fluid allowing the viewer to read some parts of the text that lies beneath the surface.

Drawer 2 – “Blot alive”: This work requires a slow reading. This installation use a iron fillings, which will be manipulated with magnets to travel over a fixed text that never will be totally displayed. The blot moves very slowly and will cover parts of the text which meaning will be constantly changing through the movement of the magnetic filaments.