Machinology

The clip here is in Finnish but worthwhile a look. It features the scratch-it poetry table designed by the artist group IC-98 for the Frankfurt book fair. Muistikirjoituksia – Recollected Writings is a site-specific installation where Finnish contemporary poetry can be unfolded in ways that hark back to earlier days. In the short clip, one of the members of IC-98 Patrik Söderlund tells how this is a way to approach digital literature – or perhaps we should call this installation more accurately post-digital in the way Florian Cramer defines the term referring to uses where it dismisses “the idea of digital processing as the sole universal all-purpose form of information processing. Muistikirjoituksia frames materiality and pre-modern site-specific forms of engaging with literature in the public. Söderlund challenges us to think of new literature not only in the short time span of new digital technologies but asks to consider literature in a thousand year horizon.

More on IC-98-group here.

(I am personally excited to see Patrik Söderlund’s name pop up as he was the designer of the cover of my first book, Koneoppi. He also designed the covers of the Eetos-publication series we started in 2004.)