Tues agenda

• Look at Name Compositions
• Discuss reading by looking at print-outs of images
• Look at Vocabulary (ongoing list)

Thurs agenda

• Workshop 1: Basic HTML & CSS

Thurs assignments

• Reading (See below). Please read both essays. Email me (laurel@linkedbyair.net) three reading discussion questions you have (not for me but for the group) before 8am on Tuesday.


• Workshop 1. Complete the Workshop 1 Assignment. If you have any problems, first go through Workshop 1 Walkthrough. Please email me if, after reading through all the materials, you still can't figure something out.

Reading

• 
  “February 8, 2010” from Post Internet by Gene McHugh.


• 
  “If It Doesn't Exist on the Internet, It Doesn't Exist” by Kenneth Goldsmith (2005).

Tues agenda

• Discuss readings
• Look at some Conceptual Art & Art in Circulation
• Deploy Retype a Flyer
• Look at Workshop 1 Assignment and class homepages
• Give out Yale Bert server info. (Updated on Workshop 1 Walkthrough.)

Tues assignment

• Retype a Flyer. Go out onto campus and take down a flyer posted somewhere. Return to your computer with this flyer. In 24/28pt (24pt font size, 28pt leading) bold Helvetica all caps, retype the flyer on a letter sized paper. Do not leave out any text that is on the original flyer. (But do leave out images — this is a text-only exercise.) You should do your retyping in Word, Pages, or InDesign. This shouldn't take you long (max 30 minutes). Please bring both the original flyer and your retyped flyer for class on Thursday.

Thurs agenda

• Look at results of assignment Retype a Flyer
• Look at work of Experimental Jetset
• Deploy Project 25 Variations
• Work in class time on HTML/CSS

Thurs assignments

• Reading. Please watch the documentary, read the interview, and look through the brand guidelines. Email me (laurel@linkedbyair.net) a) one paragraph answer and b) two discussion questions before 8am on Tuesday. Please use this question for your answer: As an artist or designer, why restrict yourself to one typeface? What about if you are a company or organization? Other than typeface, what are other ways to restrict a brand, personal or corporate?


• Retype a Flyer one more time with your new flyer. Bring into class on Tuesday.


• 25 Variations. Finish Levels 1 and 2 (ten total variations) for Thursday.

Reading

Helvetica, a documentary film directed by Gary Hustwit (2007).
(Will be sent to you over email)

“Helveticanism”, an interview with Experimental Jetset (2003). Originally published in Emigre.

Brand Guidelines
(Will be sent to you over email)

Tues agenda

• Class cancelled

Thurs agenda

• Look at second round of Retype a Flyer
• Discuss reading
• Look at Levels 1 and 2 of Project 25 Variations
• Look at Oulipo and examples of working with constraint

Thurs assignments

• Shrub Compositions. Download the iPhone app Shrub. (For this week it is free.) For Tuesday, present to the class ten found typography compositions. There are two constraints 1) You must only use the readings as source material. 2) You must pick one of the following to base your compositions around: Labyrinth, Dance, Start/Stop, Conversation, or Bubbles. (I should be able to guess which one you chose without you telling me or titling your compositions.) Please present your compositions (image files) on a new HTML page and link it from your class homepage.) Update: I have made an example class homepage here.


• Reading. Read the stories. They are all fiction and somewhat related to Oulipo. Take notes as you normally would. There are no discussion questions due, so please focus on making the Shrub compositions from the readings.


• Please either install Adobe InDesign on your laptop or make sure you can access it in our classroom/computer lab. We will be using it next week.

Reading

• 
  Preface to Exercises in Style Raymond Queneau (1947)
  


• 
  “The Instruction Manual” from Cronopios and Famas by Julio Cortázar (1962)
  


• 
  “Psychophant” from The Sixth Day and Other Tales by Primo Levi (1990)
  


• 
  “About the Typefaces Not Used in this Edition” by Jonathan Safran Foer (2002)
  

Tues agenda

• Look at Shrub Compositions
• Discuss how the readings and/or constraints affected making of shrubs
• Workshop 2: More HTML & CSS

Tues assignments

• Complete Workshop 2 Assignment

Thurs agenda

• Look at digitizations of concrete poems: Sweethearts (analog), Sentences (analog), Oblique Strategies (analog).
• InDesign tutorial with tips
• Deploy Project 2: Poem Cube
• Look at Phase 1 of Workshop 2 Assignment
• Do Phase 2 of Workshop 2 Assignment
• If time, look at PhD. Sound

Thurs assignments

• 25 Variations. Complete Level 3 (five new, fifteen total variations) for Tuesday.
• Complete Phase 2 of Workshop 2 for Tuesday
• Start thinking about your Poem Cube
• Reading. Read the PDF below. Create three discussion questions and email to me before 8am on Tuesday.

Reading

L-I-F-E by Rob Giampietro and The Serving Library, 2010.

Tues agenda

• Discuss L-I-F-E (reading from last week)
• Look at Level 3 of 25 Variations
• Sign up for time slots next class
• Work in class time
• Give Dropbox Pro account access to Kelli and Shalisa

Tues assignments

• Be ready to show some found text you will possibly use on your cube.
• Complete Level 3 and ask any specific HTML/CSS questions you might have.

Thurs agenda

• Individual meetings:
• — 12:30 – 12:50: Hong
• — 12:50 – 1:10: Shalisa
• — 1:10 – 1:30: Kelli
• — 1:30 – 1:50: Charlotte

Thurs assignments

• For Tuesday, bring in two directions of Poem Cube. One should be manifested as an 8" x 8" x 8" physical model.

• Reading. After reading Chapters 1 and 2 of Uncreative Writing, answer the following questions (please email to me by 8am next Thursday):

  1) There is more text available to us today than ever before in our history as human race. The reason for this is the pieces that fit the “in-between” times — things that don’t typically classify as reading material. Tell me five different things you read today that fall into this category of atypical reading material. Please be as specific as possible with your names and descriptions of each thing that you read.

  Using your list of five readings, please tell me:

  — Which would sound pleasing to be read aloud? Which would sound strange to be read aloud?

  — Did any of your readings contain a pattern, visual and/or semantic?

  — Which sources did you read on paper, and which appeared on a screen? How did this affect their readability?

  — Which readings did you plan to read? Which were forced onto you? Which did you read subconsciously? Was your reading constant or interrupted?

  2) In the reading, Kenneth Goldsmith states “The uncreative writer constantly cruises the Web for new language, the cursor sucking up words from untold pages like a stealth counter.” How does being “uncreative” actually lead to creativity in writing? Why is this important today?

Reading

Uncreative Writing, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 by Kenneth Goldsmith, 2011.

Tues agenda

• Look at two directions two directions of Poem Cube. One should be manifested as an 8" x 8" x 8" physical model.

Tues assignment

• Email answers to discussion questions from last week (Uncreative Writing) by 8am on Thursday.

Thurs agenda

• We will do some in-class research on “poem objects”.

  Please choose one of the names from the list:

  Carl Andre
  Tauba Auerbach
  Paul Elliman
  Ian Hamilton Finlay
  Alison Knowles
  Lawrence Weiner
  

  During this in-class exercise, please research the work of your chosen person. You can start on the internet and check out a book from the library should you need to.

  I have invited each of you to a website called Arena. Please create a channel with the title of your chosen artist. Use this channel to collect information. I'll show you how to do this in class.

  For next Thursday, present at least three works by this artist. When you present the works, please make sure to include the appropriate metadata: Artist Name, Title of Work, Year. Medium; Dimensions. (The last two things, medium and dimensions, are not totally necessary if they are unavailable or unknowable.)

  Example:
  Tauba Auerbach, Untitled Fold Painting III, 2009. Acrylic on linen, 80 × 60 in.

  When you present the images, show us them but do not explain them initially. Like our first look at the poem cubes, let’s try to have a conversation about the work before the presenter tells us what it really means. That said, when you present the work, try to present it as accurately as you can. (That is, if it’s a physical object, present a few documentation photos of it so that we understand it best.)

  I’m mostly interested in how these artists create “poem objects”, or ways of making poetry physical. Show us how this artist does this. Please show us the works you find most interesting.

Thurs assignment

• Finalize Poem Cube. Bring in finished version for Tuesday.


• For next Thursday, present at least three works by your chosen artist.

Tues agenda

• Final critique of Poem Cube

Tues assignment

• Prepare presentation of three works from your chosen artist from last week

Thurs agenda

• Presentations of three works from artists interested in poem objects

Thurs assignments (for Week 9, not Week 8.5)

• If you want to make any final adjustments to your Poem Cube before handing in a final, please do so for Tuesday.


• Finish Levels 4 and 5 of project 25 Variations


• Update your class homepage to the best of your ability. This should include documentation of your Poem Cube. Use Anonymous Participant as a model.

Tues agenda

• Website Drawings. This is a simple exercise inspired by Sol Lewitt and other Fluxus Instructions. I would like you to create three .HTML pages according to my very specific instructions. Click here to launch the short assignment.

Tues assignment

• Finish Website Drawings. Add it to your class page and email me a link by Thursday, October 23rd.


• Finish the homework from last week for next week on Tuesday.

Tues agenda

• Look over Levels 4 and 5 of 25 Variations, Phase 1.


• Walk through the making of Website Drawings #2 and #3.


• Deploy 25 Variations, Phase 2.
  

Thurs agenda

• Look at different types of website navigation:
  Early days of the web ("the index"):
  • — berkshirehathaway.com
  • — cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/index.html
  Arist websites that remember old web, giving website its own spin:
  • — dextersinister.org
  • — db.michaelguidetti.info
  • Websites with lateral navigation:
  • — artasiapacific.com
  • — harvarddesignmagazine.org
  • — klim.co.nz
  • — common-name.com
  • — sweetheartsweetheart.com
  • — allmyfriendsatonce.com
  • Artist websites:
  • — anishkapoor.com
  • — damonzucconi.com
  • — bagina.kr
  • — saraludy.com
  • — newrafael.com/websites
  • — weiyi.li
  • Websites with more particular navigations:
  • — lineto.com
  • — future-expansion.com
  • — art-handler.com
  • — showcase.commercialtype.com
• Working time on navigation system and 25 Variations Demo

Thurs assignments

• Complete 25 Variations, Phase 2 and be ready to show on Tuesday.


• Reading. Read the first half of the Anthology of Concrete Poetry. Please select three poems from this first half that you think could be promising to digitize or present online in some way. (At least one of the poems you choose should be in a language other than English.) Please be prepared to present each poem, stating why you think each has digitization potential. Due next Tuesday.

Reading

Anthology of Concrete Poetry, edited by Emmett Williams, 1967. Read the Foreward and then go through the first half of the book, reading the poems and their annotations. Please stop when you get to this poem by Ernst Jandl (1964).

Tues agenda

• Look at navigation systems from 25 Variations
• Look at three poems to potentially digitize
• Troubleshooting time on 25 Variations

Thurs agenda

• Deploy Project 3 Translated Poem
• Download Website for Phone Poem Kit
• Troubleshooting time on 25 Variations

Thurs assignments

• Make any changes to 25 Variations as a whole (navigation system, poems themselves) for final critique of project on Tuesday


• Reading. Read the article about translation by Walter Benjamin and be ready to discuss it in relation to Project 3. (How are different artistic mediums like different langauges? What is translation in the digital age? What might Benjamin think is the purpose today of digitizing a concrete poem?) Then read through the second half of the Anthology of Concrete Poetry. Again, be on the lookout for a poem you could use for Project 3. For next Thursday's class, select a poem you will work with (either from this half of the book or the first half).

Reading

“The Translator's Task” by Walter Benjamin, 1923. Translated by Steven Rendell, 1997.

“Response to à Rebours” by Paul Legault, 2013. (This is a text from a longer work in which Legault “translates” abstract terms from Walter Benjamin's famous essay into “simpler” phrases.)

Anthology of Concrete Poetry, edited by Emmett Williams, 1967. Go through the second half of the book, reading the poems and their annotations.

Tues agenda

• Final critique of 25 Variations

Thurs agenda

• Discuss Benjamin (and Legault) reading


• For Translated Poem, bring in a complete-as-possible greeting card. Please also show progress on your website for phone. If there is something you don’t know how to do technically, please sketch it out as thoroughly as possible on paper and we can troubleshoot together.

Tues agenda

• For Translated Poem, bring in any edits to the greeting card. Show continued progress on website for phone.


• Remaining time: work in class day

Tues assignment

• Please let me know if there is anything specific for your phone poem that you would like me to demo for Thursday.

Thurs agenda

• Working day!

Thurs assignment

• Once your greeting card and website for phone are complete, test them over Thanksgiving Recess. With the card, conduct an experiment by placing it into the greeting card section of Walgreens, CVS, Rite-Aid etc. and monitor if antyhing happens to it. Please also have others test your website for phone.

Tues agenda

• One last working day!

Thurs agenda

• Final critique of Translated Poem

Thurs assignments

• Make sure your class website is up to date. Email me a .zip archive of your class website by Friday, December 12th.
  
  To make a .zip file, first put all of your content in one overall folder. Then, if you are on a Mac, click the folder while holding the control button. Select "Compress 'folder name'". (It might also say simply "Archive".) This will turn this folder into a .zip file. Then, to send it to me, since it is likely larger that Gmail allows in its attachments, you can go to the website WeTransfer.com. Upload your file and enter in my email address.

Seminar description

This seminar and studio focuses on Concrete Poetry, a genre that utilizes the semantic, visual, and phonetic elements of language as raw materials to arrange words in space.

Readings

I recommend you buy one book: An Anthology of Concrete Poetry by Emmett Williams (1967), which is a great overview of the genre filled with many examples and annotations by the artists themselves.

For learning about works before 1900, we will source material from Pattern Poetry: Guide to an Unknown Literature by Dick Higgins (1987). We will also look through UbuWeb’s Visual Poetry section (http://ubu.com/vp/) to understand its significance and reputability as an online source.

Additionally, we will look at various small works by artists such as: Guillaume Apollinaire (France), Tauba Auerbach (US), Hugo Ball (Germany), Samuel Beckett (England), Augusto de Campos (Brazil), Paul Elliman (US), Bob Cobbing (England), Öyvind Fahlström (Sweden), Ian Hamilton Finlay (Scotland), Christopher Knowles (US), Jiří Kolář (Czechoslovakia), F.T. Marinetti (Italy), bp Nichol (Canada), Seiichi Niikuni (Japan), Dieter Roth (Iceland), Gerhard Rühm (Austria), Mira Schendel (Brazil), Daniel Spoerri (Germany), Mary Ellen Solt (US), Timm Ulrichs (Germany), Emmett Williams (US).

We will consult critical writing and research about concrete poetry by reading selected articles from publications such as Eye Magazine, Typographica, Dot Dot Dot, and Occasional Papers.

To transition into new media, we will read excerpts from The New Media Reader edited by Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Nick Montfort (2003).

Exercises & assignments

We will start out by creating non-interactive, still images (first with glue, scissors, and paper, and then with Adobe InDesign). But shortly after, we will create concrete poems that can only exist on the screen (with HTML and CSS, and later some jQuery and JavaScript). Some examples of these exercises and assignments include:

• — Create 25 square poems with the same five words in each (InDesign)
• — Bring an existing poem of no more than one page. Enter it into the scrambler, a web-based tool. Use the new, generated poem to create a new composition (InDesign)
• — Tell a story through targeted linked words on a page that is 10,000 pixels long (HTML and CSS)
• — Write three poems from William Gillespie’s Table of Forms, each of a different form, and find a way to display them (HTML and CSS)
• — Write a sentence that rearranges itself over time (jQuery and JavaScript)

Weekly activities

Usually, Tuesday will be the more structured day of class. Tuesday’s class will include any combination of:

• — example-based lecture

• — exercise critique/discussion
• — group activity to identify visual and poetic elements in selected works


Thursday’s class will include any combination of skill-based workshop with working lab time and/or individual consultation.

Final project

In the process of studying various poetic constraints and processes, students will be creating a web-based collection of their own concrete poetry.

They will also develop a web-based index through which these poems can be navigated on their own terms. This index will bind the collection of poems into a cohesive volume. We will research existing devices and content management software, but also explore building our own systems, focusing on flow and navigation.

Grading

10% — Reading discussion questions
20% — Participation, attitude, diligence
30% — Exercises & assignments
40% — Final project

Academic integrity

Poetry has a rich history of appropriation, so students will become familiar with using pre-existing language as raw material. Because students will be creating digital poems in this class, the culture and legislation surrounding software and its use will be discussed.

About Laurel Schwulst

I am an interactive designer and artist. Since 2010, I have been working with Linked by Air, a design studio focused on the production of public space located in New York. In 2012 I was appointed lecturer in graphic design at Yale, where I have since taught “Interactive Design” to juniors and seniors. The intrinsic relationship between graphic design and language is part of my ongoing research.

Download Syllabus as PDF