autonomous motion or systemic beauty. This aesthetic-ontological act entails a cyclical reciprocity emergent between perceiver and perceived instead of a uni-plex reception/projection. In simpler words, consider how humans perceive the ecosystem (grass, flowers, trees) almost without any thought, moving through fields often immune to any contemplation of the field’s livingness, because they know it is alive, accept it as such. Humans engage with living things emotively and complexly; we expect reactivity and responsiveness in creatures but when the reactivity does not activate instincts we ignore it. Our knowledge of the world (our epistemology) arises from relational acts, experiences, physical systems, and the tactile presence of other organisms. Language is the abstract systemic filter of these epistemic experiences; it is also the means by which experiences think within us. As life changes over time (through birth, growth, and death), so does understanding and the language used to express understanding. Digital media introduces a very dynamic change into language’s structure and capacities. What will happen when language is visual, auditory, and intelligently reactive? What does this future entail for literature? If language is perceived as alive will we even notice? Does not a fondness for a certain word or sound, the worship of a cadenced phrase, already constitute a form of relation with an entity? Will digital tech amplify that relation? Thinking through questions involves accepting aesthetic animist language as credible. I introduce four arguments for (or ways of thinking toward) aesthetic animism. In the case-study chapters I link each of these arguments to specific software. Poetry roots its visual origins in inscription and a quest for meaning. It has often been an ontological act that disrupts norms and asserts the incredible; the following arguments belong to that category of discourse. The four arguments for aesthetic animism are:
autonomous motion or systemic beauty. This aesthetic-ontological act entails a cyclical reciprocity emergent between perceiver and perceived instead of a uni-plex reception/projection. In simpler words, consider how humans perceive the ecosystem (grass, flowers, trees) almost without any thought, moving through fields often immune to any contemplation of the field’s livingness, because they know it is alive, accept it as such. Humans engage with living things emotively and complexly; we expect reactivity and responsiveness in creatures but when the reactivity does not activate instincts we ignore it. Our knowledge of the world (our epistemology) arises from relational acts, experiences, physical systems, and the tactile presence of other organisms. Language is the abstract systemic filter of these epistemic experiences; it is also the means by which experiences think within us. As life changes over time (through birth, growth, and death), so does understanding and the language used to express understanding. Digital media introduces a very dynamic change into language’s structure and capacities. What will happen when language is visual, auditory, and intelligently reactive? What does this future entail for literature? If language is perceived as alive will we even notice? Does not a fondness for a certain word or sound, the worship of a cadenced phrase, already constitute a form of relation with an entity? Will digital tech amplify that relation? Thinking through questions involves accepting aesthetic animist language as credible. I introduce four arguments for (or ways of thinking toward) aesthetic animism. In the case-study chapters I link each of these arguments to specific software. Poetry roots its visual origins in inscription and a quest for meaning. It has often been an ontological act that disrupts norms and asserts the incredible; the following arguments belong to that category of discourse. The four arguments for aesthetic animism are:
Digital%20Poetry%20as%20Aesthetic%20Animism_SEPT21.docx