21/10/2009

"The self that results is actively defined in terms of its connections and associations, in varying degrees of intimacy and intensity. The emphasis is not on person but persona: as Mez Breeze has suggested, this self is an assembly generated through clusters of distributed identity markers, which does not add up to stable meanings or ground level actualities because it also coalesces in terms of the volume, degree and intensity of its connections. Less a reductive experientiality than a connective extensibility."

-Jordan Crandall, Artivistic 2009 Lecture.

19/08/2009

"...The poetics of electronic poetry are found in works such as Alan Sondheim’s “Lip,” Mez’s “pro][tean][.lapsing.txts” and Jake Chapman’s Meatphysics. More generally, these poetics can be described as emissions and spews of ASCII and plaintext messages in the network as the degree zero of electronic poetry. These and similar works – which may be included in typical discussions of electronic poetry under the rubric of “codework” but are never seen as the leading edge – are the best and perhaps only examples of electronic poetry."

-Sandy Baldwin (West Virginia University)
In "Against Digital Poetics" presented at E-poetry 2009.

13/07/2009

"...The women working within this network demonstrate how the feminine approach to technology presents a very sophisticated critical capacity, aiming to deconstruct the social, cultural and gender categories. The feminine reflection on the use of technology aims at overcoming labels, subverting cultural prejudices and common sense convictions through irony and parody. The power structures and the hierarchies, which are perpetuated even in the so-called "free networks" of net culture, are bought to light and overturned. Examples of this include...the poetry in programming code written by the Australian artists Mez with her unique poetic language called mezangelle."

- Tatiana Bazzichelli in: "Networking: The Net as Artwork"
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand, 2009
ISBN: 8791810086, 9788791810084

06/06/2009

"...the writing of Mez, an Australian (nee Mary Ann Breeze) who is probably the most prolific -- if that's a word one can use to her peculiar brand of listserv logorrhea -- digital poet out there, plays a large role. Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle fame made a basic play for singularity and collapsing the art/life divide by tacking an extra "e" on the end of the word "the" in all of his written communications - his latest band is called Thee Majesty. Like androgyny, making basic changes to ones way of writing puts one at odds with much of the normal functioning of the world - imagine filling out a job description using "thee" - but also re-places one, existentially, in the premise of one's decision: counter-cultural agency is thereby systematically refreshed. Mez elaborates on this principle exponentially, creating a carnival of artificial modifications out of the "restraint" of working in the ASCII set sans italics, justification or anything you won't see in a low-level terminal:

> [for instance, 1 email I have employed comes with the
> identifier|meznoma of _app][lick.ation][end.age_ which
> unpacks/translates in2 the tag|labels of _appendage_, app
> [abbreviation for application] end, _app.lick.ation_ etc - all
> avataresque names indicating segmented expressive allusions -

Mez's project is engaging partly because of the rich surfaces -- part freed-signifier and part charismatic tsunami - that she creates, but also her choice of venues: she has chosen to produce her work primarily in listservs, hence elevating the mundane commercial avenues of internet communication into an overstuffed, somewhat kitchy commune. She becomes the architect of the public square just by her propensity to embellish every dark corner."

- Brian Kim Stefans reviewing "p0es1s: The Aesthetics of Digital Poetry".

19/05/2009

"›Broken code‹-Autoren wie mez (Pseudonym von Mary-Anne Breeze) stellen zumeist klassische Originalgenies dar, die sich als starke Autoren inszenieren und über ihr Werk absolute Kontrolle ausüben. Im Zusammenhang mit der vorliegenden Untersuchung sind aber die ›Algorithmen‹ am interessantesten, also lauffähige Programme, die von einer marginalisierten Autorschaft gekennzeichnet sind und bei denen der Programmierer deutlich in den Hintergrund tritt...

ASCII-Kunst reflektiert schon umfänglich die Bedeutung des Codes in der digitalen Literatur und setzt sich damit mit einem zentralen Charakteristikum netzbasierter Texte auseinander.
Somit können die entsprechenden, elaborierten Arbeiten sehr wohl als Netzliteratur angesehen werden, auch wenn sie die Vernetzung nicht notwendigerweise voraussetzen. Eine der bekanntesten Vertreter der broken codes ist die australische Netzwerk-Künstlerin mez.31 In ihrer Kunst entwickelte sie eine eigene Sprache namens »mezangelle«. Diese vermischt natürliche Sprachen wie Englisch, Slang, Netz-Jargon und phonetische Wortspiele mit der Sprache von Codes, also technischen Protokoll-Codes und Programmiersprachen...[]

...Mez’ Projekte kommen auf den ersten Blick scheinbar als Computerprogramme daher, auf den zweiten Blick entpuppt sich die Poesie aber als funktionsunfähig (›broken‹) und damit als virtuoses Spiel mit Elementen von Codes (vgl. Cayley 2004: 296-300). Florian Cramer hat oft diskutiert, wie solche Texte gelesen und verstanden werden sollten. Dies kann etwa anhand seiner Deutung der Arbeit »_Viro.Logic Condition][ing][ 1.1_« von mez aus dem Jahr 2001 nachvollzogen werden (vgl. Cramer 2009)."

- Dr Florian Hartling in: "Der digitale Autor. Autorschaft im Zeitalter des Internets"
Bielefeld: Transcript 2009.
382 Seiten, ISBN 978-3-8376-1090-1
"netwurker makes me wonder if Derrida predicted text msging and twitter-speak. The post above is so delightfully double (multiply?) coded and self-deconstructing."

-Jonny Gray

12/05/2009

"My initial inspiration, despite my overweening obsession with etymology and a rank fascination with the history of words, was in being introduced to the code poetry of Mezangelle and the intrepid explorations of those like Vuk Cosic and Alan Sondheim. As is my habit, I long pondered the very word "code" and explored its variations in language, thus coming to a notion (pirated from Deleuze and Guattari) that I dubbed de/re-coding."

- Dr. Kane X. Faucher
The University of Western Ontario.

25/04/2009

"...The Guide is intended to compliment excellent existing Guides like Digital Livings: The Report by Chris Meade for De Montfort University, read:write (PDF) by the Institute for the Future of the Book, The Writing Game by the Writer’s Guild of Britain, and the IGDA Guide to Writing for Games (PDF). There are some excellent Australian talents in this guide too, like Jason Nelson and Mez."

- Christy Dena, _The Writer’s Guide to Making a Digital Living_

23/02/2009

"Art on Twitter: yes, but is it twart?
Twitter has invaded every corner of society – even Yoko Ono's at it.

Cynics will chirp that Twitter is just another in a long line of fads providing new ways to market, promote and generally whore oneself to the world. The rest of us might ask whether artists who Twitter are grinding away at some of those elitist notions about the way art is created (in private studios) and for who (the very few who can afford to buy it).

Can following an artist as they create a new work democratise art or simply demystify the creative process behind it – or both? One week and a lot of tweets later, I've compiled a who's who of the twart world....

New Media Scotland is dedicated to engaging artists and audiences through (you guessed it) new media. Its programme of Twart residencies has seen code poetry from @Netwurker, micro-fiction from Hannu Rajaniemi and a micro-serialised story from writer Charlotte Allan."

Ruth Jamieson investigates the rise of the twartists