Text negotiating with the computer medium leads to a different point of view
on language, thus seen under another light, on top of the codes allowing it
to exist, letter after letter, word after word. Somes works are atomizing
language in order to account for such a context, one that brings attention
to language and transforms our relationship to writing. The means offered by
computers and Internet are allowing for such a reconsideration and such a
reconquest of language.
Indeed, language transposition onto the computer medium requires the sharing
of space with other programming languages, implying an effort, a
translation. Similar to the learning of a new language, such an experience
demands that an unusual attention be given to signs, to their aural and
visual values, to their organization resulting in the production of a
meaning. Words being HTML encoded, for example, and ending up to be read on
the resulting page, imply a work, sometimes even a fight, and from such an
adventure springs a certain fascination in front of what ends up appearing.
For example, Tim McLaughlin's site includes many visual poems where letters,
words, and statements become themselves objects in a dialogue with their own
meaning. Richard Barbeau also created an important body of works paying
special attention to language and its visual and aural caracteristics in
projects like Avatar, Pangrammes, Perec and Miroir.
Here letters, words, short sentences are once again being used as visual
objects, as departing points, for an exploration of language in the context
of this new medium.
Works discussed more at length in the Magazine:
Tim McLaughlin, Threw the Read Window
Richard Barbeau, Perec