Tournament of la Poéstry, àn netprov
September 2013 – December 2013
Exhibited in “Chercher le Texte” in Paris, France.
in conjunction with the Electronic Literature Organization Conference

“Chercher le text” was an international exhibition of digital literature and media art in Paris, France. Exhibiting Group: Joellyn Rock, Serge Bouchardon, Mark Marino and Rob Wittig. Juried International Exhibition. Launched under the leadership of Paragraph Laboratory of the University of Paris 8, the Excellence Arts-H2H Lab, and Laboratory Music and Computer Marseille (MIM).

Bilingual Poetry Netprov / Concept proposed by Rob Wittig:

The French and English languages share a substantial history and vocabulary. We call a competition to write poetry (in French, poésie) comprehensible to both English and French speakers without translation! This is a game in the spirit of the influential French literary group Oulipo (Workshop for Potential Literature) who delight in such technical challenges.   

Project website:  http://robwit.net/poestry

Rules of the Game: Players compose bilingual poéstry and contribute their verses to the cause of one of four medieval-style tournament challengers according to their fictional personalities. Entries are posted to the Twitter hashtag #poestry along with the challenger’s hashtag. A committee evaluates entries and declares a winner on the final day. Fictional poets include: Jaquilin (#jaq) French, a cross-dressing weaver. Guy(#guy) English knight, a deserter from the Crusades. Philippa(#phi) an English noblewoman, trapped in her tower. Roger (#rog) French Baron, a voyeur of the world. Findings: Bilingual poetry is possible to write — and hilarious — but difficult. Très Difficult.

For the project, Tournament of la Poéstry, I designed the visual content for website, created fictional characters and digital illustrations.

Netprov Contributors: Rob Wittig, Joellyn Rock, Serge Bouchardon, Margi Preus, Joel Sipress, Claire Kirch, Mark Marino, and other anonymous participants.