Mezangelle

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The correct title of this article is mezangelle. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.

mezangelle is a poetic-artistic language developed in the 1990's by Australian-based Internet artist mez (Mary-Anne Breeze), an Australian net artist. It is widely recognized as a central contribution to Codework[1] and Internet Art.

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[edit] Definition and Characteristics

mezangelle is mostly based on hybrid words. Like the portmanteau words invented by Lewis Carroll and used in James Joyce's novel Finnegans Wake, it dissects and recombines language and stacks multiple layers of meanings into single phrases. But beyond that, it is a Internet-cultural poetic language deriving much of its tension from incorporating formal code and informal speech at once[2]. Its base construction qualifies it as hypertext on a morphological and grammatical level. It is not syntactically fixed and is in continuous artistic development.

mezangelle mixes English, ASCII art, fragments from programming language source code, markup languages, regular expressions and wildcard patterns, protocol code, IRC shorthands, emoticons, phonetic spelling and slang. It is a polysemic multi-layered language that remixes the basic structure of english and computer code through the manipulation of syllables and morphemes. Like the related Codework of jodi, Netochka Nezvanova, Ted Warnell, Alan Sondheim and lo_y, it bears some resemblance to hacker cultural 1337 / leet speak and Perl poetry [3].

Through its semantic and syntactical layering, mezangelle achieves an aesthetic effect of turning words and letters from discrete, digital units into fluid, quasi-analog information. This fluidity and flow corresponds to its artistic use in E-Mail postings to mailing lists rather than web sites.

[edit] Author

mez (Mary-Anne Breeze) works under a multitude of assumed virtual identities or, as she calls them, avatars. These avatars are presented throughout the Internet as authors of mezangelled electronic writing. Examples of these include: mez breeze, netwurker, data.h!.bleeder, ms post modemism, mezflesque.exe and Purrsonal Areah Netwurker. mez is best known for her Codework based on her self-invented language mezangelle which she publishes on mailing lists like _arc.hive_, Nettime, and netbehaviour. These work, or "wurks" as she calls them, have language play and identity swapping as a central element. Because of their dense poetical language, they are also acclaimed and influential in Digital Poetry [4].

[edit] History

[edit] 1994 - 1996

mezangelle first appeared in late 1994 - early 1995 on MUDs, the web chat channels Kajplats 305, Cybersite and unix based y-talk [5]. These instances involved re-mixing random chat responses, y-talk and irc conventions back to the participants. Chat participants communicated with each other through text based dialogue using avatars to interact. Notable avatars from this time included Viking, Jester and mez's screen names aeon and ms post modemism.

The Wollongong World Women Online exhibition (1995, University of Wollongong Online Gallery) was the 1st exhibition to exhibit a web-based text version of the mezangelle work _Through Ah Strainer_. Other online exhibitions that included mezangelled works during this period:

  • Disgruntled Book of Wizzdumb: a collaborative work between mez and the Brisbane organization digitarts (1996).
  • Cutting Spaces: web based mezangelle in the The Undercover Girl Project Norway (1996).

[edit] 1996 - 2003

During 1996 - 2003 mezangelle utilized mailing list forums as a distributive medium with an emphasis on peer collaboration. The works evolved into two sub-genres: net.wurks and code.wurks. Both forms employed code and chat convention mash-ups, html code and scripting languages to manipulate poetic structures. Code.wurks included text emulations of broken source code whereas net.wurks present in multimedia web interfaces that incorporate several code.works. An example of a code.wurk is _Viro.Logic Condition][ing][ 1.1_ [6] and an example of a net.wurk is _The data.h!.bleeding t.ex.e.ts_.

In this period mezangelle shifted from a reliance on script kiddy/hacker influences to a refined interactive practice that explored aspects of fusing biological/physical and online living. Reoccurring themes from this period include: gamer dynamics, questioning conceptions of print-based and electronic literature, ASCII art, play theory, teledildonics, viral imagery, and examinations of post-modern, feminist, and technofetistic theory.

[edit] References

[edit] Sources

[edit] External links

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