Black lines on white background with words 'Rimay Raiz'

White text 'Ana Somnia' on white background

Dark audio waveforms against a white background

A man wearing a golden headless, holding a staff, sitting on a rock; a sword is stuck into his chest and he is bleeding, yet looks proud

Whoopi Goldberg as her character Guinan from Star Trek: The Next Generation with a caption "There'll be others. But every time you feel love, it'll be different. Every time it's different."

It is shortly after the celebration of Thanksgiving holiday here in the United States. It's a holiday that was founded on a false idea of togetherness that sought to erase some really bad things in US history, but what's been so reassuring is that I see a lot of friends are able to see some good come out of the holiday: a goal of merriment with friends of all beliefs and backgrounds in the coldest part of Winter. Perhaps, for many of my cosmopolitan friends in New York City especially, we've remixed Thanksgiving into our own holiday to represent the values of camaraderie that we so desperately need in these times, just as we are surfacing our understanding the new Omicron variant of COVID as we go into December.

I had some thoughts I wanted to visit for some time, and have only gotten the time to settle them down into some recognizable shape. Like you say, it feels like we're in times where thoughts and ideas and revelations seem to pour out of every conversation and interaction, digital and in-person, but for the sake of posterity, I want to capture at least some of the ones I've had over the past month before I write my next letter to you.

My first set of thoughts center around young people. My next set of thoughts center around Asian American-ness. My last set of thoughts center around doing good.

(Be warned, we're going to have quotes being thrown left and right.)

"Best Day Ever!" image from Nickelodeon's Spongebob Squarepants, which echoes my cousin once-removed's declaration during Thanksgiving

This last month marks my shift in working life to education. As someone who admired the work of people like Mr. Rogers and Jim Henson, who placed such an emphasis on reaching and influencing young people, it seemed only proper for me to actually work with young people firsthand to see what they're like rather than read books about it.

And simply being around young people for a few weeks, I've already felt stirring in my soul to the memories, sounds, and textures of the mental landscape of being a young person again. What a wonder it is to view the world as so fresh and new! During Thanksgiving, my 5 year old cousin once-removed (my cousin's daughter) kept saying "This is the best day ever!" I can't be certain if it's something that kids just say because it's fun to say, or they saw it on a TV show like Spongebob. But part of me tries to remember what it was like to form memories as a 5 year old, and there were probably days where in maybe 2-3 years of conscious living, a simple Thanksgiving can truly be one of the best days of one's short life.

Another thought I've been delighting in pondering: are they 'young people'? Are they 'children'? Are they 'adults of the future'? 'Future thinkers and creators and doers' feels like it's already creating pressure. What vocabulary should we be using to describe people who are so new to this world? I see that young people themselves are whole people in their own right, even if adults can instinctively view them as lesser. But often, while they lack in developmental milestones and life experiences, they can often exhibit whole personalities that are unique and whole in their own right from a young age. We've often internalized the right for a person or entity to exist based on their utility to society, but I think maybe to reclaim young people's rights to exist for their own sake, I like to refer to them as 'young people.'

On another note, young people simultaneously give us hope, yet we are also the ones who must model for them and give them hope that there can be a better future. I hope I learn something new every day to be a good model for young people in the future, and create practices and expectations that encourage them to be clever, emotionally intelligent, and brave.

I like the quote "We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, but we borrow it from our children." I had first seen the quote in an exercise at an old job where we had to choose a quote from a selection of quotes set up on a vast array of tables, almost like how the Dalai Lama is said to be found when as a child, choosing his favorite toys from a vast selection of toys, presumably able to because he has memories from his past life. Apparently this particular quote is unclear in origin, as per Quote Investigator, but I still appreciate the elegance and sentiment of it, especially in times where we as a collection of generations are so consciously thinking about the future state we are leaving the planet in.

Another thing I've noticed, which might sound like it goes without saying, is that young people are all completely different each time. I believe I heard a marine biologist on a podcast once say she couldn't eat meat after she saw that the face of every fish was individual and different, just like the face of every human was unique and personal.

Likewise, each child is born to a different family, and you can't reduce them to simplistic terms. And when I look at them, I can't help but be in amazement that every one of them is singular, individual, and special. There's also a meme I saw of Star Trek: The Next Generation that said love with someone is different every time.

And of course, there's the Mr. Rogers quote,

"You make each day a special day by just your being you. Everything you do is just a little bit different from everybody else. In that way, you've already won."

And of course, that's true for adults too, because every adult was once a child. There's no need to be perfect or some platonic ideal of human accomplishment, because there's no one way to be, each person is already perfect, like every fish, every animal, every plant, every leaf, every snowflake, and every blade of grass.

Additionally, on the topic of young people, as hopeful and kindhearted I try to be, I wrestle with all these cynical feelings around the world, how there's many days where it seems very difficult to have high hopes. But I see the students bright faces and think of their futures, and I can't face them with cynicism. I think of this quote by Hayao Miyazaki:

“Personally I am very pessimistic. But when, for instance, one of my staff has a baby you can't help but bless them for a good future. Because I can't tell that child, 'Oh, you shouldn't have come into this life.' And yet I know the world is heading in a bad direction. So with those conflicting thoughts in mind, I think about what kind of films I should be making.”

Another feeling that I'm unsure of how to address, but I feel I must talk about is a feeling of unmoored-ness around my Asian American identity. I've been wrestling with it quite a bit in the past several years, having an awakening moment in grad school, but I also am able to find myself forgetting what that means to me. And in my letters with you, Art, when I see you embrace your Andean heritage, I stand in admiration. You seem to embrace your cultural identity so warmly, whereas I am confronted with my own touch starvation from my Asian American identity. Do I know it's there? Is it set aside unless I pick it up? When I call to it, will it say it loves me back? Where is it situated in my body? (If I were to place a bet, I think it'd probably be in my stomach.)

As a result, my ambivalent feelings towards my cultural identity has confounded my efforts to feel comfortable in any artistic expression of these feelings. Whatever efforts would be made in the immediate future would be messy, and lack full awareness, and I worry might be insulting to myself and others for reasons I can't articulate easily. So if you're wondering why I couldn't participate more in your Alt Salt celebration of Andean and Asian American heritage, that apprehension is a large part of that answer.

One thing that gives me comfort in my apprehension, is that I understand a lot of my feelings of my Asian American identity are relatable to others in the diaspora as well. And I think through living through this foggy haze of unknown territory, I will gradually live my way into the answers I seek, and I hope that will guide others in their journeys as well. I suppose what I want to say is, where I walk, I know I do not walk alone.

For Asian Americans, it feels as if we each exist as separate islands, unmoored to a continent or culture, either of Asia or America... We don't know what we look like. We see ourselves as we are seen by others in media. Sometimes we can spend most of our lives not even seeing ourselves as Asian. (My cousin's daughter told her that she thought they spoke Spanish at home... Oof.) Asian Americans float around, half blending into our assimilated identities in our new world, half losing our place in a homeland, lost in a foggy mirror. We can seem like foreigners to each other or even ourselves.

And it's strange, even though I feel it's more pronounced in Asian Americans in some ways, I think that's the state of affairs for all Americans to some degree. To note, not Asian Americans, but Americans. Part of the process of coming to America, as a nation of immigrants, is that one has to lose that attachment to a homeland and become unmoored in one's identity, to fit in with the others in our new collective homeland. We each must strike out a new place for ourselves, and carve ourselves a home out of whatever shelter we can, with our own bare hands if necessary. Through coming here, we all have gone through the trauma of losing part of our ancestry and cultural identity, whether in our immediate families or our ancestors. And that's true whether we're people of color, or if we're white. On some level, we're all a bunch of kids with insecure identities trying to fit in at a lunch table which wants to displace us.

We think of the United States as a large country on a single body of land, but really, America is an archipelago nation of 300 million islands. A nation of nations. A collection of people who look at themselves with foggy mirrors.

And now, I sense it in the air, there are cultural forces are at work tectonically shifting underneath Asian Americans, and we find ourselves looking to see where our feet are rooted.

But I think the richness of American identity can be found in our collective understanding that we can all share a place at the table. Like my friends who shared their Thanksgiving tables with other friends in New York City. America is a nation that can gain something from each of us and share it with each other and the rest of the world. That's one of the places I see a wealth of hope in America. I already quoted it last letter, but I realize it's resonating once again, that these words by the poet Maya Angelou speak to a deeper understanding that all people have in America:

“You only are free when you realize you belong no place — you belong every place — no place at all.” - Maya Angelou

Lastly, I have recently been mulling over doing good after some prompts this month.

The definition of what good is is not a concern to me. I spent a lot of time in undergrad learning about ethics and moral philosophy (and being in my professors' office hours!) and my general conclusions were straightforward: We all must encourage each other's pleasure, limit each other's pain, and do so as sustainably as possible. So that's easy. But when I think about how to do good, I get discouraged since it's felt recently that live in a world where hope, truth, and justice have been in recession for some time.

My therapist gave me an assignment to mull over what I enjoyed in life that was something I enjoyed for its own sake rather than something I am doing for explicit or implicit external validation. A huge assignment! We acquire so many layers of rationality and ego and societal expectation to protect ourselves that I think any adult barely understands why they do half the things they do. Understanding why we act the way we act is a challenge for maybe two or more lifetimes!

That being said, I still took the assignment seriously and have been mulling over the idea of being good and being perfect. In 15.15 of the Analects, Confucius says "If a person is not in the habit of asking, 'What is this? What is this?' then I cannot do anything for him."

Basically, Confucius can't teach anyone who isn't willing to ask questions, so it's kind of a good place to be. You can't expect yourself to improve if you aren't always asking yourself how you can do better. There's definitely insufferable people we all meet who instantly know the answer to all questions without thinking things through! And oftentimes, the most learned people in a field are much less certain about the validity of truth than people who have a rudimentary understanding of the field. That's the Dunning Kruger Effect at work, after all. If anything, believing you know 100% what the right thing to do is as an individual, is the voice of one's inner tyrant, who demands to be listened to. That is all to say, that short of thinking ourselves into a dangerous maddening loop, asking ourselves how to do better and better is part of a healthy orientation towards good and just living. And it often gets better in concert with our peers and their own guidance and stories.

There is also the saying "Perfect is the enemy of the good". This has served me well to quell the anxious paralyzing part of my mind that tries to anticipate every single possible future and try to prepare for all the catastrophic events that seem to be right around every corner. It cuts through and reassures me that, "hey, just do something good, not perfect, and leave the rest up to fate."

However, maybe there is one most resonant take on doing good that does the best job cutting through all the rational mind and practical aspects of creating solutions that's been helping me recently. It comes from the poem Wild Geese by Mary Oliver, which goes:

“You do not have to be good...You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves."

I've also been exploring a lot of vocabulary around being an artist, and I think that doing good in the world seems to have a lot of similar vocabulary.

As an artist, you need to let your work live and breathe and be released from you. I will be one of the first people to tell you, in games I've made, spending one, two, or three years, there's a half life in which the game will eat at your insides, telling you to get it made. Reflections at Sunset demanded I get released by one October and after two years of development, it was released. 'Released' is a great word for that sensation. It wasn't perfect, after being 'released' from the weight of the game, my spirit felt lighter, and the game probably felt relieved as well. A similar thing happened for Confessions of an NPC. Art will be like that. And as Elizabeth Gilbert says in Big Magic, if you don't answer the call, then the art will stop knocking at your door, and perhaps fly to someone else in the world.

Ultimately, I've been working to attune myself to the quiet voice inside me that knows what it wants after I'm able to settle down all the other noise in my spirit. Improving one's life is being able to constantly peel away all the factors that create noise in our spirit, like feeding our stomach when it distracts us, feeding our mind when we need thoughts, feeding our social animal when we feel lonely, being in a peaceful environment when things have been noisy, and hopefully eventually being able to ask ourselves the questions that have been rapping at our soul for years and answering the call. Part of the work of being an artist and being a human being is knowing how to listen to when the quiet parts of your spirit are pulling at you to go one way in life, to see what lies on the horizon, and not stop walking til you get where you know you were meant to be getting to, tending to the restless inner fire. If we are unable to do so, then there will be dire consequences in our internal worlds and eventually our physical being.

However, if we are able to consistently answer the call from within, attune ourselves to its needs more and more over time, like soothing a frustrated fearful child, eventually we might be able to practice our way into a state of being where our actions are mostly in line with our desires. One of my Eastern Philosophy professor's favorite lines from the Analects (that he probably told me during his office hours) goes:

"At fifteen, I had my mind bent on learning. "At thirty, I stood firm. "At forty, I had no doubts. "At fifty, I knew the decrees of Heaven. "At sixty, my ear was an obedient organ for the reception of truth. "At seventy, I could follow what my heart desired, without transgressing what was right."

I do feel I'm starting to see that progress in my life now. And I hope that I can help others in their journey, no matter their age or race or background. We are all valid and special and I hope to continue my work in reminding myself and others of essential truths like these.

I hope to hear from you soon during this winter season. Stay warm and many blessings.

Letter to Art #3 - Young People, Unmoored Asian Americans, and Doing Good

Envisioning the Future

A piece about the conflicting experience of being disconnected from cultures that have faced so much adversity and colonization. It is about feeling intrinsically connected to these cultures and yet being so displaced from them.

i am a temple forged from sun
an army of iron shimmers from its
golden rays off a white cross
lodged into the beating heart of an empire

i am a dying kingdom
the bleeding sun’s old toy
its bloated bodies born from rotten pride
cast shadows on its land of pawns
like a mushroom cloud travelling by plane

i am of oceans apart
a dead culture, a dying language
a history clinging to its threads
starved of its power, forever writhing

i am empty water bottles
squeezed of worth and tossed aside
white plastic creases
curled over and aching

i am dust in rays of the sun
forever going and gone
yearning a time of no questions
kissing the relics of childhood

i am a temple forged from sun
an army of iron shimmers from its
golden rays off a white cross
lodged into the beating heart of an empire

displacement.

On "Different Folks" and Andean musical fusion

Heritage, music, and creative freedom

Rima(y) Raíz is a community collective created by and for the Andean/Andinx1 diaspora community of the United States. Launched in 2018 in New York City and New Jersey, our collective now has members in California and Illinois. We are: <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/jamie_sa">Jamie San Andres</a>, <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/claudia.urd">Claudia Urdanivia</a>, <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/sandycha">Sandy Enriquez</a>, Ben Kruse-Calla, <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/layqakuna">Layqa Nuna Yawar</a>, and <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/sbarretolastra">Stephanie Barreto-Lastra</a>, among others that come and go.

Rimay Raiz was created given the erasure and racist portrayals of Andean and Andean-descendant communities among both Latinx and white communities in the United States. Thus, our collective seeks to confront this discrimination and sense of dual exclusion by uplifting and sharing the stories and experiencies of our communities on our own terms, as a way of exposing and resisting the insidious ways that colonialism and imperialism continue to impose their binary and Western epistemologies on our bodies, minds, spirits, and communities, across time and across borders. This resistance is also represented in our name, which connects two sides of our cultural heritage by using the Quechua/Kichwa word ‘rimay’ (to speak) and the Spanish word ‘raíz’ (roots). We are speaking from our roots. Quechua/Kichwa is an ancestral Indigenous language of the Andes and remains one of the most widely spoken Native American languages in the Americas today.

Our goal is to (1) interview three generations across the US-Andean diaspora, from youth, adults, and elders, and include community leaders that have been carving spaces for our community for decades, be that cultural or political (2) archive the oral histories in a public website, (3) share and discuss our stories through multimedia, via a podcast, zine, public space installations, and Raymikuna or virtual parties in this pandemic era, and (4) organize gatherings to celebrate and unite Andean cultural advocacy efforts. Through these initiatives, we aim to reclaim a sense of identity, alter dominant narratives about our communities, preserve experiences and knowledge of our elders, and create a sense of solidarity across borders within the Andean diaspora.

Porque las historias nos llaman, las historias nos limpian y sanan, como el agua y neblina bendita de la montaña.

The last three years we have recorded 14 oral histories and published two zines, some of which are featured here.

 

Issue #1: Choclo y Chicha, self titled

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/listing/10/cover-10/Screen_Shot_2021-01-07_at_5.25.08_PM-original-489444.png"/>

In March 2020, Rimay Raiz launched <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/listing/choclo-y-chicha-vol-1/10">Choclo y Chicha</a>, a zine that shares the contributions of the Andinx diaspora through poetry, art, and storytelling. Both choclo and chicha are Quechua words for our ancestral foods of fresh corn and maize drinks, we chose them to reflect our cultural connections and create a space for a uniquely Andean zine. Chicha is also a type of music, Peruvian cumbia, that musicologists and sociologists claim emerged in the Amazon of Peru out of a sentiment of exclusion and otherness by dominant white, criollo elites.

We chose to include zines as part of our core mission because they would allow us to showcase creative, multimedia works from our communities on our own terms, without the need to compromise our vision through mainstream publishing. We also want to acknowledge the diverse ways that our communities express their thoughts, feelings, and experiences, some orally, while others visually or through text. We hope to distribute the zines widely and inspire others in our community to value and share their own stories and experiences through this, and other mediums.

Our first zine featured profound stories such as “Camino hacia la Boca del Lobo-Simiatug” by Jimena Vega, powerful poems such as “Mama Negra, Mama Tierra” by Mónica Carrillo Zegarra, and art by colectivo member Layqa Nuna Yawar, Lenny Correa.

Initially, our zine launch was scheduled to be an intimate event with members of the collective and fellow contributors for the zine, with music, food, and dance. Once the pandemic swept the globe, we made the decision to transition to a virtual event that could replicate this celebration while holding space for our community during this immensely difficult time. You can watch our first two Raymikuna, virtual parties on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RimayRaiz" target="_blank">RR page</a> on Facebook.

 

Issue #2: Family Portraits

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/listing/9/cover-9/Screen_Shot_2021-01-07_at_4.33.36_PM-original-483649.png"/>

Our <a href="https://frontend.altsalt.com/listing/choclo-y-chicha-vol-2/9">second zine</a> focuses on the intersection of stories and memory through family photos. In this section we feature excerpts from the incredible oral history of Analisa Freitas and the beautiful poem by Marisol Silva, “when I make chicha morada and play your huaynos full blast, and I carry a backpack on the 7 train from Queens to Brooklyn brimming with jars of aji panca, aji amarillos, rocotos, I hold onto Ayni when I can’t remember words in any language, I hold onto Ayni, when I remember that who we are as a people is much too strong to ever be forgotten,” she writes.
 
Additionally, inspired by our colectivo member Jamie San Andres’ call to action, we are excited to also introduce a new section to our zine entitled Andean Political Reflections, that speaks to the issues and uprisings the Andean region has experienced in the last two years. It is impossible to do cultural work without addressing the political.

We invite you to join our Choclo y Chicha Zine Vol. 2 Raymikuna, virtual zine parties, this Sunday, January 10th from 4-6pm, to hear from contributors of the Family Portraits section, and Sunday February, 28th from 4-6pm, to hear from contributors of the Andean Political Reflection section.

 

Conclusion

To learn more about our work and stay in touch, please follow us @RimayRaiz on <a href="https://instagram.com/rimayraiz/" target="_blank">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://facebook.com/rimayraiz">Facebook</a>. We will also be launching our website in Summer 2021 which will feature our oral history archive, zines, and other projects. If you would like to get in touch about potential collaborations or have questions, reach out to us at <a href="mailto:rimayraiz@gmail.com">rimayraiz@gmail.com</a>. We would love to hear from you.

Until then, tupananchiskama!

 

<hr/>

 

1&nbsp;The Andean diasporic community includes people with South American heritage from Andean countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. Hence, Rimay Raiz utilizes the term Andean to refer to this region of South America, as opposed to folks that are strictly from the highlands. 
We remain inclusive of the many nationalities in the Andean region, and recognize that people that may identify with diverse backgrounds, such as that of the coast and the Amazon, Black Indigenous, and mestizo. We welcome all people who identify with our mission and background, whether they are recent immigrants, second generation, or have not connected to their ancestral countries for generations.

Rima(y) Raíz is a community collective created by and for the Andean/Andinx diaspora community of the United States.

Choclo y Chicha: a zine for (and from) the Andean Diaspora

<a href="https://anasomnia.com">Ana Somnia</a> is a meditation on what it’s like to dream. It’s also a piece that uses a single interactive element to draw us into an animated world, a clever decision that is minimalism at its best.

On the title screen, atmospheric sounds introduce us to Ana Somnia’s creepy Tim Burton-esque world. We promptly find ourselves inside a little girl’s bedroom. The girl, sitting up in bed, tells us to turn off the lights and goes to sleep. The piece then waits for our interaction, and we hear a music box playing in the background.



<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/article/3/anasomnia-2-1024x652.jpg">



It’s here that the clever trick comes out. To “turn off the lights,” you can spoil the fun and cover up your webcam with your hand; or, if willing to play along for a moment, you can turn off the lights in the room you’re physically in (yes, that involves getting up and turning the lights off in real life), to trigger the webcam into opening the rest of the story.

After doing so, Ana’s dream world comes alive, and we progress through a series of animated images, including strange creatures, tentacles, and assorted objects, as well as music and sound effects to match.



<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/article/3/anasomnia-3-1024x695.jpg">



For me, it’s the subtleties that really make this piece come alive. The world is nicely fleshed out, from the sound design and music down to the seemingly trivial details (in the opening scene, for example, hovering over the teddy bear will cause it to cover its eyes).

Also interesting is how much the webcam adds to the experience. It’s a great example of creating new kinds of artistic meaning with technology. This animation could’ve been a simple video… but isn’t it cooler when there’s interactivity involved?



<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/article/3/anasomnia-4-1024x648.jpg">



I always love to see artists doing interesting things with the technology at their disposal. Now this is just an idea, but it’d be great to see, for example, an e-book that uses the same webcam principle to add some extra immersion in telling its story.

Ana Somnia was created by German artist <a target="_blank" href="http://www.kimkoester.com">Kim Köster</a>. You can support him by purchasing Ana Somnia posters and other merchandise <a target="_blank" href="https://rostlaub.com">here</a>.

Ana Somnia is a meditation on what it’s like to dream. It’s also a piece that uses a single interactive element to draw us into an animated world, a clever decision that is minimalism at its best.

Get Lost Dark Ana Somnia

Turn out the lights and explore a dream world in Ana Somnia

Poetry, in the popular imagination, is usually seen as a solo act. The lone poet bares their soul to the world, writes beautiful tortured lines, etc.

When it comes to electric literature, though, what happens a computer algorithm is thrown into the creative process? Does the computer get copyright? And, most importantly, does it get royalties?

Joking aside, some poets these days are embracing the digital and don’t necessarily write poems the old-fashioned way. Here are some innovative poems that turn the idea of poetry – and the solo poet – on its head.

 

1.) Taroko Gorge, by Nick Montfort, et al

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/article/5/taroko1-edited.png" width="723" height="571"/>

Taroko Gorge uses a computer algorithm to generate lines of poetry. The sidebar shows versions by writers who have hacked the code to make spinoffs.

 

At Taroko Gorge in Taiwan, Nick Montfort wrote a poem to celebrate the national park’s awesome beauty. Or, rather, in 21st century style, he wrote a computer program to make such poems for him.

The resulting work, <a href="http://nickm.com/taroko_gorge/" target="_blank">Taroko Gorge</a>, randomly chooses words from a list and endlessly assembles them into stanzas.


But Taroko Gorge is more than a single poem: it’s a platform that digital authors use to experiment, collaborate, and build new works. The code can be easily hacked to write any kind of poem imaginable. For example, in writer Flourish Klink's spinoff, <a href="http://nickm.com/taroko_gorge/fred_and_george/" target="_blank">Fred &amp; George</a>, Taroko Gorge transforms into a Harry Potter fanfic about an encounter between the twins and their… um, “wands.”

The poem’s sidebar lists many authors who have taken up the challenge of hacking Montfort’s original JavaScript code. (My own version, <a href="http://nickm.com/taroko_gorge/54_61_72_6f_6b_6f/" target="_blank">54_61_72_6F_6B_6F</a>, can be found on the page as well.)

 

2.) Pentametron, by Ranjit Bhatnagar, et al

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/article/5/pentametron1.png" width="750" height="746"/>

Move aside, Shakespeare! Make room for... a Twitter bot!

 

"I’m just a squirrel looking for a nut 
You are a wizard harry i’m a what 
Glad to believe in #Jesus, He’s the best… 
From Fresno to Pomona fuck the rest" 
-A couple of random retweets, by Pentametron

Though these couplets have the right rhythm and the rhyme, no, they aren't authentic Elizabethan prose – they were actually strung together by a computer program.

Along with thousands more, these couplets  are the product of <a href="https://twitter.com/pentametron?lang=en" target="_blank">Pentametron</a>, a Twitter bot by <a href="http://moonmilk.com/" target="_blank">Ranjit Bhatnagar</a> that automatically retweets rhyming lines that users have written, consciously or otherwise, in iambic pentameter.

This raises the question, who “wrote” this endless epic poem?

Was it the Twitter users whose fragments were appropriated and put in a different context? Was the “author” the program itself? Or is Ranjit Bhatnagar the author of the work, even though he wrote none of the prose by himself?


 

3.) The Last Performance, by Judd Morrissey, et al

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/article/5/last-performance-1.png" width="1226" height="970"/>

The Last Performance is a poem whose structure is based on a cathedral. Here, we see a zoomed-out view of the "dome" and just a few of the "lenses" that constitute it.

 

<a href="http://thelastperformance.org/cupola_triads.php" target="_blank">The Last Performance</a>, by <a href="http://www.judisdaid.org/" target="_blank">Judd Morrissey</a>, is a digital poem based on architecture. (Note: If using a mobile device inside the piece, tap each link twice to proceed.)

Specifically, The Last Performance is about the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia" target="_blank">Hagia Sophia</a>, a Byzantine cathedral that was converted to a mosque and eventually to a museum. In Morrissey’s textual cathedral, though, words don’t only provide meaning – they also define space.

In the mainstay of the piece, the reader encounters the “dome” of the poem, which consists of thousands of “lenses,” or texts, that were contributed by readers, writers, and collaborators.

Each word in a lens is a hyperlink that leads to another lens. The result is a labyrinthine structure that can be traversed in any number of ways, allowing the visitor to encounter any number of poems written by any number of authors.


 

4.) Bicycle Built for 2000, by Aaron Koblin and Daniel Massey, et al

<img src="https://altsalt.s3.amazonaws.com/catalog/article/5/cover-5/bicycle-888413.png" width="1041" height="720"/>

Bicycle Built for 2000, a performative digital piece, was created by more than 2000 anonymous workers from around the world.

 


	<a href="http://www.bicyclebuiltfortwothousand.com/" target="_blank">Bicycle Built for 2000</a> is the product of 2000 people around the globe working together, albeit without knowing it. (Note: It requires Flash.)


Through Amazon’s <a href="https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome" target="_blank">Mechanical Turk service</a>, hired workers were given a short audio clip and tasked with recreating it with his or her own voice. Put together, these thousands of samples recreate Daisy Bell, a popular song from late 1800s.

Interestingly, Daisy Bell was previously used in 1962 to demonstrate the invention of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_synthesis" target="_blank">computer speech synthesis</a>. Part of the project of Bicycle Built for 2000, then, is to reverse that formula, using countless human voices to create something digital.


 

So there you have it!

Four digital poems that play with the idea of poetry, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Bookmark us or follow us on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thisisaltsalt/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/thisisaltsalt?lang=en" target="_blank">Twitter</a> to learn more about exciting developments happening in digital literature!

When it comes to electric literature, though, what happens a computer algorithm is thrown into the creative process? Does the computer get copyright? And, most importantly, does it get royalties?

4 Digital Poems That Will Make You Rethink What Poetry Is

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ALTERNATIVE

WORLDS

ASIAN AMERICA

THE ANDES

Everyone

United States

Bolivia

Peru

Ecuador

Philippines

Poetry

Visual Art

Andinx

Huancavilca

Kichwa

Aymara

Second Generation Immigrant

Welsh

Andean

Quechua

Latinx

Andes

Asian American

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Choclo y Chicha Vol. 1

Choclo y Chicha Vol. 2

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Envision a future in which your culture, history, and values have guided the world to an alternative reality — and harnessing that energy, create a piece to resonate with our times...

Our first community project on AltSalt, Alternative Worlds comprises two collections of original and previously published work by more than twenty Andean and Asian American creators, as well as a shared collection (contained within each) showcasing collaborations and works that span across both communities.

We hope this can be the first of many projects to build resources and knowledge, celebrate our diversity across these and other communities, and recognize our shared humanity as we create with one another, bringing into being an alternative world.

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I'm a software developer, director of Artmayu Studios, and founder of AltSalt.I love the digital and literary worlds, especially exploring new kinds of digital literature, from experimental multimedia books to narrative adventure games.Currently, I'm in the process of learning more about my Andean background, and thinking through how to bridge that heritage with the world of technology.

The Andean diaspora* community in the United States is confronted with discrimination and a sense of dual exclusion from both Latinx and white US heritages due to histories of colonialism and imperialism that continue to impose Western epistemologies across time and borders. Rima(y) Raíz, an Andean diaspora collective based in NYC, NJ, IL and CA, confronts these issues by documenting and sharing inter-generational oral hxstories of the Andean diaspora in efforts to reclaim a sense of identity, alter dominant narratives about their communities, preserve experiences and knowledge of their elders for the next generation, and create a sense of solidarity. &nbsp;We are inspired by Andean notions of time, space, and community such as pachakutik and the ayllu and we choose oral hxstory as a medium due to its inter-disciplinary, borderless nature. Oral hxstory also acts as a way to decolonize the production of knowledge. The main components of the project are (1) interview three generations across the US-Andean diaspora, including community leaders (2) archive the oral histories in a public website, (3) share and discuss the stories via a podcast, zine, public space installations, and virtual Raymi or parties, and (4) organize gatherings of Andean organizations and leaders to celebrate and unite cultural advocacy efforts.Coloniality may have traversed time and space, but so has our resistance.*The Andean diasporic community includes people with South American heritage from Andean countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru. Hence, Rimay Raiz utilizes the term Andean to refer to this region of South America, as opposed to folks that are strictly from the highlands. We remain inclusive of the many nationalities in the Andean region, and recognize that people that may identify with diverse backgrounds, such as that of the coast and the Amazon, Black, Indigenous, mestizo, and we welcome all people who identify with our mission and background, whether they are recent immigrants, second generation, or have not connected to their ancestral countries for generations.

I am gardener and composter passionate about equity in the food system. Quinoa scholar and oral history and community archive enthusiast. Runasimita yachapakuq. Member of the Rimay Raiz colectivo.&nbsp;

Ecuadorian-American sociologist, of Huancavilca and Kichwa descent. Bi-coastal, born in Queens, NY and raised in both NY and CA. Musician, community activist, project coordinator at an immigrant and workers rights org, and co-founder of Rimay Raiz.&nbsp;

I am a triple fire sign, Catholic and a feminista. My family is Peruana, my parents immigrated to the U.S. and I was raised in Central Florida. I write poetry on Mami_soy_emo on Instagram about growing up in the between of Peruvian and American culture, therapy , sisterhood, empath struggles, and my ongoing haphazarduous love life. I am inspired by my Mamá, sunsets, pollo a la brasa con papas, and humanity's ability to heal. I am also an immigration attorney who works with survivors of gender-based violence, a plant mom to 17 plants, and a mediocre ukelele player. I am currently working on a zine about my therapy journey.&nbsp;

I am an Indigenous Adoptee from Peru. I've grown up in Brooklyn, NY and I've gone back to Peru several times to reconnect with my biological family.&nbsp;

Editorial content by the AltSalt team.

Shirley identifies as a queer, asian-american woman of color. She works as a community organizer in Northern Colorado and as a yoga teacher. When not being self-referential in a bio, you can find her painting watercolors, biking around town, dancing, or reading a book.

Imanalla! I'm Sandy, a zinester librarian in sunny southern California. I started making zines as a way to practice and maintain Quechua, my ancestral language and one of the most widely spoken Indigenous languages of the Americas. I now feel like I have too many zine ideas and too little time, but I try to make it work!&nbsp;I participate in several Andinx community projects like the annual May Sumak Quichwa Film Showcase and oral history collective Rimay Raíz. I love creating spaces for our community to share our cultures, languages, and experiences in the diaspora.&nbsp;In my spare time, I enjoy reading/watching things in the realms of sci-fi, fantasy, or horror. I also like to weave and garden (especially with, you guessed it, Andean potatoes!).&nbsp;

Writing, scriptwriting, andean ethnofuturism, nueva trova, improvised music, folk music, non white centric SciFi, decolonization and decolonising art

I'm a writer and cartographer. I mostly write scif/fantasy and have worked on some table top rpg projects such as the in*die zine and unbreakable rpg. I manage the integral states project, where I draw US states and territories as fantasy maps and pair them with pre-colonial histories.&nbsp;

Envisioning an alternative world

Elena Soledad

@elenasoledad

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