Temporal Irritations of Code in Ben Lerner’s  Mean Free Path  poems

In this paper, I explore the unconscious effects of computer code, by reading how it is rendered — or ‘negatively figured’ — in the work of the contemporary lyric poet Ben Lerner. Lerner’s book of poems Mean Free Path (2010) provides clear indications of a relatively rare post-digital tendency in contemporary poetry: it is a literature that emphasises the instabilities and problems of digital age communication, even as it admits to the absolute saturation of contemporary experience in digital processes, and therefore the impossibility of writing (reading) outside of them. The presence and pervasiveness of computer code, I suggest, forces the heightened, personalised language of the lyric poet into a new awareness of their role as storing and yielding a expressive intent. What I call ‘Glitch Poetics’ is a form of reading and writing with error that is sensitive to contemporary language as a system. In this case, I observe that language is infected, perhaps compromised, by the temporalities and structures of computer code. This short paper is an example of the way that Glitch Poetics readings of traditional forms of literature can help explore what the digital means to us at this historical juncture.

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Nathan Jones

Conference

Publication date: May 2018

Publication date (Print): May 2018

Pages: 1-4

Affiliations

[1 ] Lancaster University

UK

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/EVAC18.21

SO-VID: d29d8758-83ba-41af-b6e1-9b3d8eac048d

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Politics of the Machines - Art and After

Conference acronym: EVA Copenhagen

Conference number: 7

Conference location: Aalborg University, Copenhagen, Denmark

Conference date: 15 - 17 May 2018

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Digital arts and culture

History

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1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/EVAC18.21

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

References

F Cramer 2005 Words Made Flesh Piet Zwart Institute Rotterdam
W Ernst 2017 Contemporary Condition - The Delayed Present Media-Induced Tempor(e) alities & Techno-traumatic Irritations of “the Contemporary” Sternberg Press Berlin
NK Hayles 2006 Traumas of Code Critical Inquiry 33 1 136 157
A Kunin 2010 Dialog on Love: Ben Lerner and Aaron Kunin in Conversation Jacket2 http://jacketmagazine.com/40/lerner-kunin.shtml 02 06 2018
B Lerner 2010 Mean Free Path Cooper Canyon Press New York
T Lin 2010 Ben Lerner [poet, novelist] The Believer https://www.believermag.com/exclusives/?read=interview_lerner_2 02 06 2018
R Menkman 2010 A Vernacular of File Formats https://www.slideshare.net/r00s/rosa-menkman-a-vernacular-of-file-formats-4923967 02 06 2018
S Miyazaki 2012 Algorhythmics: Understanding Micro-Temporality in Computational Cultures Computational Culture, 2

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[1] F Cramer 2005 Words Made Flesh Piet Zwart Institute Rotterdam

[2] W Ernst 2017 Contemporary Condition - The Delayed Present Media-Induced Tempor(e) alities & Techno-traumatic Irritations of “the Contemporary” Sternberg Press Berlin

[3] NK Hayles 2006 Traumas of Code Critical Inquiry 33 1 136 157

[4] A Kunin 2010 Dialog on Love: Ben Lerner and Aaron Kunin in Conversation Jacket2 http://jacketmagazine.com/40/lerner-kunin.shtml 02 06 2018

[5] B Lerner 2010 Mean Free Path Cooper Canyon Press New York

[6] T Lin 2010 Ben Lerner [poet, novelist] The Believer https://www.believermag.com/exclusives/?read=interview_lerner_2 02 06 2018

[7] R Menkman 2010 A Vernacular of File Formats https://www.slideshare.net/r00s/rosa-menkman-a-vernacular-of-file-formats-4923967 02 06 2018

[8] S Miyazaki 2012 Algorhythmics: Understanding Micro-Temporality in Computational Cultures Computational Culture, 2

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Temporal Irritations of Code in Ben Lerner’s Mean Free Path poems