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Alan Maizey: Mez’ artworks are a nice combination of aesthetics and purposeful elements. One work that was interesting for me was the collection of horizontally scrolling pieces that collectively form a portfolio of her interpretations of the interaction between poetry and design.

Although these works appeal to the participant who has experience within the web coding field, they also appeal to an audience who are drawn in simply by the smooth, relaxing flow of the artworks. It is this multi level sense of interest that Mez has laced successfully into her work that gives the impression that she has the ability as an artist to attract audiences from starkly varying backgrounds.

As a collection of pieces, the portfolio that harbours the many scrolling works represents two contrasting perspectives. On one hand the jumbled letters mean nothing to the untrained eye, perhaps instilling a feeling of being lost in a world of technological confusion that has no visible end or completion. On the other hand, this perspective is enhanced from the viewpoint of a participant who has the ability to decipher the poems that have been entwined throughout the mix-up of letters and symbols. Although still representing a ‘lost in technology’ feel, this second perspective of Mez’ work combines the chaos of technology (which is dependant entirely on algorithms and codes) with the emotion of poetry.

I enjoyed becoming lost in Mez’ artworks, I felt that the entire time I was perusing through the pages that there was always going to be something that I had missed in some way. This feeling of nervous anticipation added to the experience of navigating through, at the end of the day, is a relatively standard website.

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Jason Jie: Week 9 – Interactive confusing coding

Wow, that was what I was thinking when reading this. I guess this kind of tries to use psychology and mixing it with technology? In a way, human brains created computer programming. Therefore, it would make sense that the coding we use for coding is a reflection of how we think that the human brain works..? That also might be the reason why it sometimes seems so similar to how we think and act. In certain culture theories, there are claims that culture is also a way of programming. Interactive coding may be seen as a certain coding too. Maybe even know some cultural influences too…

I am not sure how this technology is going to develop itself in the future. Maybe the future of androids and robocops isn’t that far at all…? If we can use interactive coding that can direct computers/humans to walk a certain pattern, then it shouldn’t take that long before we will be in the same dimension movies like ‘Bladerunner’ are portraying… Only time can tell…

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Rei Singsam: Hi Peepz,

“Exorcism” MEZ (Mary Anne Breeze)

The artwork reminded me of a movie I saw during my first year of university. The movie is entitled “Existenze” and features themes of biocybernetics. This piece features various body parts and organs displayed on what it seems like a conveyor belt and is displayed to be a type of interface where the user can custom make a human body with their selection of different body parts.

In saying that, it also features a “Matrix” style aesthetic, with a lot of alien type of text placed all around her art. Some of these text titles are links to other artworks, and other titles are in a different language deeming it incomprehensible.

Additionally, Breeze uses themes of ‘hieroglyphic’ type icons. Many of her diagrams featured in this piece, appear as it they were painted on ancient Egyptian walls. The combination of all these elements creates a degree of confusion to what actually she is trying to portray in her artwork and indeed evokes a dark and eerie mood. Very original to say the least.

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Chrissy Brown: MEZ – ‘mesangelle’

ur.blather.is.my.concept.meat is the first line I read within MEZ’s site and I can relate to it. Getting around over hearing conversations can really spark creative ideas. This idea of combing code and poetry is really interesting and adds another visual dynamic to text. An attempt to decipher the writings to create meaning is your first approach to MEZ’s work. I believe you engage more in the writings than you normally would with text, as they are ambiguous. This gives the viewer freedom of interpretation and is very beneficial if you are targeting an intelligent market.

Another favorite I found as it brings a smile to my face when reading is:

Woldram_Alpha input = "hi": "Assuming "hi" is a phrase - Input interpretation: Hello. Response: Hello, human." [luv it].

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Michael Blank: ...Being able to conceptualise a simple modern day task into another language but being able to make that language a digital one and turn it into art is a stroke of genius. Code and mathematics are very difficult languages to understand fully in all its complexities, but the use of simple commands as directions bring a new life to a simple task.

Already, many of you have begun conceptualising other simple tasks into algorithms that would make life easier. I to have done the same, but I’m going to bring another light onto the piece. Don’t we already do this subliminally? We all already have an algorithm in our heads that tell us to put our left foot in front followed by the right and rinse and repeat to walk until we have found where we want to go. We also have one that tells us where we want to go, and where I should turn to get there.

I love this notion that Mez has brought out the subliminal side of our conscious for all to view and understand in a language that all can interpret. This is Digital Art at its best.

-From the Discussion Forums of New Media Art - The Flash 8 Revival

"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.

"...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_

"I love writers like ee cummings and Emily Dickinson that push the norm and play with the accepted standards. I’m intrigued by Breeze’s style which appears to push the envelope even farther. The question that logically follows, though, is at what point do we loose the art itself in our attempts to break the mold? Is there some form required to keep within the parameters of art? What separates art from nonart?
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If nothing else, this challenges me to experiment with incorporating other mediums within my own writing. I also have a tendency to want to use the high vocabulary I work so hard to equip my students with, but this article has challenged me to consider using more vernacular wordings and phrases. Finally, I am challenged to consider poetry to be more than just words on a page."

-prematurely grey

In the Twitter Stream
by By Linda Carroli

"Mez knows no bounds as she skims the confluence of virtuality, technology and textuality. This morning her status declares that she is "twitter streaming new theory". She sidesteps the monumentality of theory's usual vehicle (the essay) and delivers intermittent compressed moments of sumptuous thoughts in her (in)famous word-wrangling style. This is the first Facebook writing/word experiment I have seen that explores engaging theory in this personalised and self-reflexive way.

"...during a period of time from approximately 1995 to 1997 interface as a concern was investigated in earnest, and in some cases brilliantly realized by a very few of the original net.artists (Bunting, JODI, MEZ, Lialina)...Mez is without doubt one of the most consistent, prolific, innovative artists working new media today. Mez's work with language has had a considerable effect on the language of many..."

-Ted Warnell, warnell.com

"How often have you expectantly visited a so called "innovative, new media" website with its tags of "highly interactive and engaging content" only to find that its creator's idea of interactivity is to force-feed the user a new page of information every time they click a "next page" button? This is definitely not the case with Australian net artist (net.artist) Mez's recent venture into the realm of the hypertextual with her _][ad][Dressed in a Skin C.ode_, a captivating anthology of non-linear literary works distributed through email lists.

In the creation of texts and poetic forms, Mez utilises her unique "mezangelle" language which appropriates features of code and programming syntax then combines these with plays on symbols and language to alter or enhance meanings. Upon initial contact with "mezangelle," many viewers may find it unsettling due to its ambiguous punctuation, abstract grammar, syllabic dissection and the subsequent slowed reading speed. However, once whatever original discomfort is overcome, the ingenuity of the "mezangelle" language as a literary technique or device really starts to assert itself. It allows Mez to extend her work beyond the boundaries of more conventional literary mediums and coaxes the viewer to construct new meanings for themselves of what it is they're engaging with on screen.

The works (net.wurks) contained within _][ad][Dressed in a Skin C.ode_ can be viewed as either singular texts, or as enhanced (n.hanced) works which utilise JavaScript and Flash to extend the user's conceptualisations even further. Rollovers and segments of audio are also effectively implemented within these enhanced works, with the sound samples used having at times a grating, yet organic quality about them which can be quite unnerving.

Originally, the navigation and interface design of _][ad][Dressed in a Skin C.ode_ may be fairly confusing and unorthodox (particularly the difficult to read fonts and the directory of enhanced texts, with its arrays of what appear to be linked buttons), until it is realised that Mez has not set out to create a site that conforms to usability guidelines and commercially driven ideologies. This is a site that allows the user parallel or simultaneous understandings of the content, while instigating "non-linear and imaginative order" into the vocabulary of electronic communication.

Mez's _][ad][Dressed in a Skin C.ode_ is an excellent example of the notion of web "spaces" as opposed to web pages and through the use of the "mezangelle" language system and syntax, it is a highly thought-provoking and stimulating collection of textual works. Intended to expand and extract upon a user's perceptions and conceptualisations, these works will leave you feeling somewhat enlightened and enriched by their required level of comprehension and engagement."

- Scott Esdaile, fine Arts forum.

"An honorary mention goes to "Re (ad.htm" by the Australian artist mez, This entry created a lot of discussion in the jury, and quite dissimilar individual rankings and opinions. "Re(ad.htm" consists of a selection of writings or, to use the artist's terminology, "wurks" that had been posted to several net cultural and arts-related mailing lists. They are highly condensed pieces written in "mezangelle", an invented hybrid language which mixes syntactical snippets of programming languages, network protocols and markup code with the English language. The resulting texts can be read in multiple, often contradictory ways due to their elaborate use of ambiguity and compound ('portmanteau') words noted in rectangular brackets, thus resembling regular and Boolean expressions in commandline programs and programming languages.

In contrast to a merely ornamental code chic, this hybrid language is used to expose and deconstruct the epistemological politics engendered into seemingly "neutral", technical codes. It is poetically dense, involving and difficult, but also humorous. Of course, it is not technically executable code, although the bracketed expressions expand into multiple combinatory output sequences. But above all the mezangelle targets fictitious, fantastic compilers, creating a dream-like imagination of metonymic contiguity between human bodies and machines. Sure, this topic has been spelled out in popular culture and media theory multiple times, but mez succeeds to free it from all cyber-kitsch by tackling it from within, in structure."

- jury for the read_me 1.2 software art award.

"Mez's latest, _][ad][Dressed in a Skin C.ode_, at times seems to propose that the decay of a system (sometimes the system is the guts of computer memory; at times it is perception itself, reduced to strangely harmonic rollovers; sometimes, yes, it is language) is also its life, the vibrant force that breathes step into its inertia....

Never have I seen such a profound use of the rollover effect as I have seen in her works. In Maschine F][w][orked N.tentions vs Haggard Critical Mass, a wonderful specimen of Mez's current mengerie of rhizomatic soma, the user faces a powder-blue typographic painting. Roving across its serene glow with the mouse, the user soon discovers that this seemingly static work (an email header, actually, from Mez addressed to the Webartery and the Wryting lists) is porous; one's rove becomes along its surface a white hand, which means COME IN. The painting-header swings between the stationary rigidity of painting and sound (a jungle; some jungle deep within the piece is choking in vines; distorted animals crawl through its undergrowth)........

Mez is primarily a writer, but a writer with a clear idea of the very core of interactive media--this work is a whole; it is not simply text transfigured with pretty pictures, be they moving to sound or no. Mez sculpts in these new media. She constructs a hypertext much like Joyce must have constructed Finnegan's Wake. There are, in her language, certain resonances that carry themselves from the bounds of the page into the quickness of motion and the ambiance of noise."

-Lewis Lacook, Rot and Root.