Mezangelle
Encyclopedia
mezangelle is a poetic-artistic language
developed in the 1990s by Australia
n-based Internet art
ist Mez Breeze
(Mary-Anne Breeze). It is widely recognized as a central contribution to Codework http://www.hotkey.net.au/%7enetwurker/e_rupture.pdf and Internet Art
.
s. Like the portmanteau word
s invented by Lewis Carroll
or used in James Joyce
's novel Finnegans Wake
, it dissects and recombines language and stacks multiple layers of meanings into single phrases. Beyond that, it is an Internet-cultural poetic language deriving much of its tension from incorporating formal code
and informal speech at once http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics/net.writing. Its base construction qualifies it as hypertext
on a morphological
and grammatical level. It is not syntactically
fixed and is in continuous artistic development.
mezangelle mixes English
, ASCII art
, fragments from programming language
source code
, markup language
s, regular expression
s and wildcard patterns
, protocol code
, IRC
shorthands, emoticon
s, phonetic spelling
and slang
. It is a polysemic
multi-layered language that remixes the basic structure of English and computer code through the manipulation of syllable
s and morpheme
s. Like the related Codework
of jodi
, Netochka Nezvanova
, Ted Warnell, Alan Sondheim
and lo_y, it bears some resemblance to hacker cultural 1337 / leet speak
and Perl poetry http://beehive.temporalimage.com/content_apps43/cramer/ooooo.html.
Through its semantic and syntactical layering, mezangelle achieves an aesthetic effect of altering words and letters from discrete, digital units into fluid, quasi-analog information. This fluidity and flow corresponds to its artistic use in E-Mail
postings.
s. These avatars are presented throughout the Internet as authors of electronic writing. Examples of these include: mez breeze, netwurker, data.h!.bleeder, ms post modemism, mezflesque.exe, Purrsonal Areah Netwurker and cortical_h[b]acker. mez is best known for her Codework
based on her self-invented language mezangelle which she publishes on mailing lists like
_arc.hive_, Nettime, and netbehaviour. These work, or "wurks" as she calls them, have language play and identity swapping as a central element. Because of their dense poetical language, they are also acclaimed and influential in Digital Poetry
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.pid9999.0004.107.
based y-talk http://www.fineartforum.org/Backissues/Vol_15/faf_v15_n05/text/feature.html. These instances involved re-mixing random chat responses, y-talk and IRC conventions back to the participants. Chat members communicated with each other through text based dialogue using avatars to interact. Notable avatars from this time included Viking, Jester and mez's screen names
aeon and ms post modemism.
The Wollongong World Women Online exhibition (1995, University of Wollongong
Online Gallery) was the first traditionally presented exhibition to showcase a web-based text version of the mezangelle work _Through Ah Strainer_. Other online exhibitions that included mezangelled works during this period:
forums as a distributive medium with an emphasis on peer collaboration. The works evolved into two sub-genres: net.wurks and code.wurks. Both forms employed code and chat convention mash-ups, HTML code and scripting languages to manipulate poetic structures. Code.wurks included text emulations of broken source code whereas net.wurks present in multimedia web interfaces that incorporate several code.works. An example of a code.wurk is _Viro.Logic Condition][ing][1.1_ http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70/essays/textviren_-_mez/textviren_mez.pdf and an example of a net.wurk is_The data [h!][bleeding tex][e][ts_].
In this period mezangelle shifted from a reliance on script kiddy/hacker influences to a refined interactive practice that explored aspects of fusing biological/physical and online
living. Recurring themes from 1996 onward include: gamer dynamics, social engineering, questioning conceptions of print-based and electronic literature
, ASCII art
, play theory, teledildonics
, viral
imagery, and examinations of post-modern, feminist, neural net, social change and technofetistic theories.
by list moderators Julianne Pierce from Recode http://eprints.infodiv.unimelb.edu.au/archive/00000768/01/phd.pdf, Ted Byfield/Geert Lovink from Nettime and Chris Chesher from the ::fibreculture:: list http://www.hotkey.net.au/%7Enetwurker/couriermailarticle.html.
The livejournal_cross.ova.ing [4rm.blog.2.log][_] created on July 2003 is the first recorded procedural net art blog http://web.archive.org/web/20050920225820/http://www.metamute.com/look/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=1&NrIssue=28&NrSection=10&NrArticle=1389. There are at least two other known mezangelled blogs currently authored by mez. One is _dis[ap posable_] which uses reappropriation
of the blog
format and snapshot software to create clustered poetic
meanings. These nodal poems are examples of a type of digital readymade and are to be read via a grid-like text and image composite structure http://jilltxt.net/?p=1848. For example, the tag
, title, and link sections are all reworked with poetic loadings and not constructed according to conventional weblog standards.
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
developed in the 1990s by Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n-based Internet art
Internet art
Internet art is a form of digital artwork distributed via the Internet. This form of art has circumvented the traditional dominance of the gallery and museum system, delivering aesthetic experiences via the Internet. In many cases, the viewer is drawn into some kind of interaction with the work...
ist Mez Breeze
Mez Breeze
Mez Breeze is an Australian-based artist who works with net.art. Born Mary-Anne Breeze she uses a number of avatar nicknames. She received degrees in both Applied Social Science [Psychology] at the Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, Australia in 1991 and Creative Arts at the Wollongong...
(Mary-Anne Breeze). It is widely recognized as a central contribution to Codework http://www.hotkey.net.au/%7enetwurker/e_rupture.pdf and Internet Art
Internet art
Internet art is a form of digital artwork distributed via the Internet. This form of art has circumvented the traditional dominance of the gallery and museum system, delivering aesthetic experiences via the Internet. In many cases, the viewer is drawn into some kind of interaction with the work...
.
Definition and Characteristics
mezangelle is primarily based on hybrid wordHybrid word
A hybrid word is a word which etymologically has one part derived from one language and another part derived from a different language.-Common hybrids:The most common form of hybrid word in English is one which combines etymologically Latin and Greek parts...
s. Like the portmanteau word
Portmanteau word
A portmanteau or portmanteau word is a blend of two words or morphemes into one new word. A portmanteau word typically combines both sounds and meanings, as in smog, coined by blending smoke and fog. More generally, it may refer to any term or phrase that combines two or more meanings...
s invented by Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
or used in James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's novel Finnegans Wake
Finnegans Wake
Finnegans Wake is a novel by Irish author James Joyce, significant for its experimental style and resulting reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the English language. Written in Paris over a period of seventeen years, and published in 1939, two years before the author's...
, it dissects and recombines language and stacks multiple layers of meanings into single phrases. Beyond that, it is an Internet-cultural poetic language deriving much of its tension from incorporating formal code
Code
A code is a rule for converting a piece of information into another form or representation , not necessarily of the same type....
and informal speech at once http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics/net.writing. Its base construction qualifies it as hypertext
Hypertext
Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the...
on a morphological
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
and grammatical level. It is not syntactically
Syntax
In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
fixed and is in continuous artistic development.
mezangelle mixes English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, ASCII art
ASCII art
ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant character sets with proprietary extended characters...
, fragments from programming language
Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
, markup language
Markup language
A markup language is a modern system for annotating a text in a way that is syntactically distinguishable from that text. The idea and terminology evolved from the "marking up" of manuscripts, i.e. the revision instructions by editors, traditionally written with a blue pencil on authors' manuscripts...
s, regular expression
Regular expression
In computing, a regular expression provides a concise and flexible means for "matching" strings of text, such as particular characters, words, or patterns of characters. Abbreviations for "regular expression" include "regex" and "regexp"...
s and wildcard patterns
Wildcard character
-Telecommunication:In telecommunications, a wildcard character is a character that may be substituted for any of a defined subset of all possible characters....
, protocol code
Communications protocol
A communications protocol is a system of digital message formats and rules for exchanging those messages in or between computing systems and in telecommunications...
, IRC
Internet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat is a protocol for real-time Internet text messaging or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfer, including file...
shorthands, emoticon
Emoticon
An emoticon is a facial expression pictorially represented by punctuation and letters, usually to express a writer’s mood. Emoticons are often used to alert a responder to the tenor or temper of a statement, and can change and improve interpretation of plain text. The word is a portmanteau word...
s, phonetic spelling
Phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs : their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory...
and slang
Slang
Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...
. It is a polysemic
Polysemy
Polysemy is the capacity for a sign or signs to have multiple meanings , i.e., a large semantic field.Charles Fillmore and Beryl Atkins’ definition stipulates three elements: the various senses of a polysemous word have a central origin, the links between these senses form a network, and ...
multi-layered language that remixes the basic structure of English and computer code through the manipulation of syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
s and morpheme
Morpheme
In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest semantically meaningful unit in a language. The field of study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand alone, whereas a word,...
s. Like the related Codework
Codework
Codework is the mixing of Sondheim's writing with the code of various computer languages. The word 'codework' was originally created and given its name by Alan Sondheim. It is also sometimes referred to as net.writing. It is said to have been inspired by the eclectic poetry of e.e.cummings.Codework...
of jodi
Jodi
Jodi, or jodi.org, is a collective of two internet artists: Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans . Their background is in photography and video art; since the mid-1990s they started to create original artworks for the World Wide Web...
, Netochka Nezvanova
Netochka Nezvanova
Netochka Nezvanova is the pseudonym used by the author of nato.0+55+3d, a real-time, modular, video and multi-media processing environment. Alternate aliases include "=cw4t7abs", "punktprotokol", "0f0003", "maschinenkunst" , "integer", and "antiorp"...
, Ted Warnell, Alan Sondheim
Alan Sondheim
Alan Sondheim is an American poet, critic, musician, artist, and theorist of cyberspace.-Biography:Alan Sondheim was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in English from Brown University...
and lo_y, it bears some resemblance to hacker cultural 1337 / leet speak
Leet
Leet , also known as eleet or leetspeak, is an alternative alphabet for the English language that is used primarily on the Internet. It uses various combinations of ASCII characters to replace Latinate letters...
and Perl poetry http://beehive.temporalimage.com/content_apps43/cramer/ooooo.html.
Through its semantic and syntactical layering, mezangelle achieves an aesthetic effect of altering words and letters from discrete, digital units into fluid, quasi-analog information. This fluidity and flow corresponds to its artistic use in E-Mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
postings.
Author
mez (Mary-Anne Breeze) works under a multitude of assumed virtual identities or avatarAvatar (computing)
In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities. It can also refer to a text...
s. These avatars are presented throughout the Internet as authors of electronic writing. Examples of these include: mez breeze, netwurker, data.h!.bleeder, ms post modemism, mezflesque.exe, Purrsonal Areah Netwurker and cortical_h[b]acker. mez is best known for her Codework
Codework
Codework is the mixing of Sondheim's writing with the code of various computer languages. The word 'codework' was originally created and given its name by Alan Sondheim. It is also sometimes referred to as net.writing. It is said to have been inspired by the eclectic poetry of e.e.cummings.Codework...
based on her self-invented language mezangelle which she publishes on mailing lists like
_arc.hive_, Nettime, and netbehaviour. These work, or "wurks" as she calls them, have language play and identity swapping as a central element. Because of their dense poetical language, they are also acclaimed and influential in Digital Poetry
Digital poetry
Digital poetry is a form of electronic literature, displaying a wide range of approaches to poetry, with a prominent and crucial use of computers...
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.pid9999.0004.107.
1994 - 1996
mezangelle first appeared in late 1994 - early 1995 on MUDs, the web chat channels Kajplats 305, Cybersite and unixUnix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
based y-talk http://www.fineartforum.org/Backissues/Vol_15/faf_v15_n05/text/feature.html. These instances involved re-mixing random chat responses, y-talk and IRC conventions back to the participants. Chat members communicated with each other through text based dialogue using avatars to interact. Notable avatars from this time included Viking, Jester and mez's screen names
User (computing)
A user is an agent, either a human agent or software agent, who uses a computer or network service. A user often has a user account and is identified by a username , screen name , nickname , or handle, which is derived from the identical Citizen's Band radio term.Users are...
aeon and ms post modemism.
The Wollongong World Women Online exhibition (1995, University of Wollongong
University of Wollongong
The University of Wollongong is a public university located in the coastal city of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia, approximately 80 kilometres south of Sydney...
Online Gallery) was the first traditionally presented exhibition to showcase a web-based text version of the mezangelle work _Through Ah Strainer_. Other online exhibitions that included mezangelled works during this period:
- Disgruntled Book of Wizzdumb: a collaborative work between mez and the BrisbaneBrisbaneBrisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
organization digitarts (1996). - Cutting Spaces: web based mezangelle in the The Undercover Girl Project Norway (1996).
1997 - 2003
During 1997 - 2003 mezangelle utilized mailing listMailing list
A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is referred to as "the mailing list", or simply "the...
forums as a distributive medium with an emphasis on peer collaboration. The works evolved into two sub-genres: net.wurks and code.wurks. Both forms employed code and chat convention mash-ups, HTML code and scripting languages to manipulate poetic structures. Code.wurks included text emulations of broken source code whereas net.wurks present in multimedia web interfaces that incorporate several code.works. An example of a code.wurk is _Viro.Logic Condition][ing][1.1_ http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70/essays/textviren_-_mez/textviren_mez.pdf and an example of a net.wurk is
In this period mezangelle shifted from a reliance on script kiddy/hacker influences to a refined interactive practice that explored aspects of fusing biological/physical and online
ONLINE
ONLINE is a magazine for information systems first published in 1977. The publisher Online, Inc. was founded the year before. In May 2002, Information Today, Inc. acquired the assets of Online Inc....
living. Recurring themes from 1996 onward include: gamer dynamics, social engineering, questioning conceptions of print-based and electronic literature
Electronic literature
Electronic literature is a literary genre consisting of works of literature that originate within digital environments.-Definitions:N. Katherine Hayles discusses the topic in the online article...
, ASCII art
ASCII art
ASCII art is a graphic design technique that uses computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant character sets with proprietary extended characters...
, play theory, teledildonics
Teledildonics
Teledildonics are electronic sex toys that can be controlled by a computer to reach orgasm. Promoters of these devices have claimed since the 1980s they are the "next big thing" in cybersex technology...
, viral
Viral marketing
Viral marketing, viral advertising, or marketing buzz are buzzwords referring to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses...
imagery, and examinations of post-modern, feminist, neural net, social change and technofetistic theories.
2003 - 2007
In this timeframe mezangelle distribution altered from dispersal via mailing lists to social networking formats. The change occurred due to the growing repressive nature of the mailing list forums used, including extensive censorshipCensorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
by list moderators Julianne Pierce from Recode http://eprints.infodiv.unimelb.edu.au/archive/00000768/01/phd.pdf, Ted Byfield/Geert Lovink from Nettime and Chris Chesher from the ::fibreculture:: list http://www.hotkey.net.au/%7Enetwurker/couriermailarticle.html.
The livejournal
Reappropriation
Reappropriation is the cultural process by which a group reclaims—re-appropriates—terms or artifacts that were previously used in a way disparaging of that group. For example, since the early 1970s, much terminology referring to homosexuality—such as gay, queer, and faggot—has been reappropriated...
of the blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
format and snapshot software to create clustered poetic
Poetic
Poetic may refer to:* Poetry, or a relation thereof.* Too Poetic, a deceased rapper and hip hop producer....
meanings. These nodal poems are examples of a type of digital readymade and are to be read via a grid-like text and image composite structure http://jilltxt.net/?p=1848. For example, the tag
Tag (metadata)
In online computer systems terminology, a tag is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information . This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching...
, title, and link sections are all reworked with poetic loadings and not constructed according to conventional weblog standards.
Sources
- http://www.souzaesilva.com/database/Hayles.pdf
- http://www.yorku.ca/livlit/part3.pdf
- http://www.dvara.net/hk/digital_code_and_literary_text.pdf
- http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~cantsin/homepage/writings/net_literature/general/karlsruhe_2000/karlsruher_thesen.pdf
- http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/dac/papers/Strehovec.pdf (Code Poetry)
External links
- mo(ve.men)tion, mez' website with mezangelle work that often originated in E-mailE-mailElectronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
/Internet Relay ChatInternet Relay ChatInternet Relay Chat is a protocol for real-time Internet text messaging or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat and data transfer, including file...
exchanges - Twitterwurk Set, mez' completed a Twitter residency in July 2008 with New Media Scotland utilising mezangelle