A guest lecturer named Jason Nelson came to university to show off his 'Digital Art and Poetry' website called Secret Technology. The computer had to be muted since a distorted tune kept playing over and over again as he was on the site. There are countless images on his website which all link to separate individual sites where he has developed his so called artwork.
Looking over his site I recognized the This is how you will die link as Jason demonstrated that in class. I've decided to try it out for myself so that I'll be able to get a better idea of his work. To play the game I had to click on a grave which was displayed on a separate site. The site was filled with red ink circling words and pointing around the whole page, which I thought looked extremely messy. However when I eventually got to the right page I spun the wheel of death and it came to a stop with the following explanation:
Searching for your breakthrough poetry manuscript thrown out "accidentally", --- Instead of exploding, you are rammed repeatedly by a backing supply truck --- infection is a home on the coast, and you are a garage band filled with smoke --- Your death is used in a lawsuit against manufacturers of hard and fast objects. --- All of our secret ideas are recorded by angels who mischievously erase the vowels.
I decided to spin the wheel several more times just to see what the outcome was. While using this site I tried to tell myself that (according to Jason) this is meant to be 'art' and 'poetry'. The constantly changing border of the game and the fact that you can read sections of other outcomes on the site might be what amazes the creator... But to be honest I could only see it as a pointless time-wasting site which is anything but any sort of art nor poetry.
However as I mentioned before Jason's website has A LOT of 'creations' so before jumping to any conclusions, I decided to try out a couple more. One of his newest creations is called Wittenoom and is explained to be an 'interactive poem centered on an asbestos mining town in Western Australia and its resulting downfall'. On the site is a flickering image of a single house on the corner of the street. There are no other houses around except a stop sign and several electrical power lines. Suddenly lots of little letters fall down the page and when you click on one it shows an extract of a poem. As the computer mouse moves around the site, a thin line appears behind it and floats around the page.
I then decided to view a different image as there are several images in total on this site. The illustration was accompanied with music and when you click the mouse anywhere on the site a section of poetry appears and is stamped across the page on different angles. Comparing this 'creation' with This is how you will die, I admit this site has a more artistic feel to it and I would consider it suitable to be referred to as 'Digital Art and Poetry'.
The third 'creation' I explored is called Play 7: Genetic Code. The site had colourful blocks with words written on them. As you click your mouse and move it around, the blocks and letters move along in a 3D circle; suddenly changing colour and wobbling into place. In my opinion this is entertaining for about a maximum of 5 seconds and then I got bored. Personally I do not consider this amazing Digital Art.
To sum up Jason Nelson's work, he successfully achieved to create digital art and poetry for one out of three of his attempted 'creations'. Not bad, not bad at all!
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