Eduardo Kac

Eduardo Kac is internationally recognized for his experimental poetry and his bio art. Kac created his first digital poem in 1982 and his first holographic poem, or holopoem, in 1983. His relentless investigation of the new possibilities of poetic creation in new media also led him to realize works of biopoetry and aromapoetry. His anthology, New Media Poetry: Poetic Innovation and New Technologies, published in 1996, was the first book on digital poetry. A second revised and expanded edition was published in 2007 as Media Poetry: an International Anthology. Documentation of Kac’s poetry is collected in the book Hodibis Potax (Édition Action Poétique, Ivry-sur-Seine, France, 2007). www.ekac.org

To learn more about Eduardo’s work, visit: http://www.ekac.org
Contact: ekac@saic.edu

“Não!” [No!], from 1982, was Kac’s first digital poem. It functions autonomously as a poem in its own right and, in its declared refusal to sing along with the “yes choir,” a manifesto for Kac’s position against the literary establishment. “Não!” is organized in text blocks which circulate in virtual space at equal intervals, leaving the screen blank prior to the flow of the next text block. The visual rhythm thus created alternates between appearance and disappearance of the fragmented verbal material, asking the reader to link them semantically as the letters go by. The internal visual tempo of the poem is complemented by the subjective performance of the reader.