«Book – Tomorrow, Two Blue Bottles» by Danita Pushkareva

Ted Nelson coined the term «hypertext» in 1965 to refer to the text that is «branching or performing actions on request». Usually hypertext represented by a number of texts with interface properties and containing nodes transition between them, which allows to choose readable information. Well-known and pronounced example of hypertext  is a  Web pages. In the broader sense of the term, any hypertext is  a novel, a dictionary or an encyclopedia, where there are links to other parts of the text, usually associated with the term.

Looking at the artwork «Book – Tomorrow, Two Blue Bottles», we encountered  such a concept as hyperliteratura (hyperature?)- new property of literary prose work, which is characterized by the features of hypertext (internal links, no linear narrative). The artist uses in his work the game effect, typical of postmodern literature: values ​​of the original text are expanded. The book becomes a form of organization of text painting, with its unit not presented in a linear sequence, but as a system of possible transitions and building links between them. These relations are assigned the name of Anton, naming one letter code name «Anton», constructing additions new meanings to existing artistic text. Following these connections, we can read the book in any order, to form various linear texts. The spectator (reader this artwork) correlates with the hero Anton and passes the quest book, traveling through the maze of his imagination.

To read the artwork «Book – Tomorrow, Two Blue Bottles», the artist used the system dictionary. To solve the main issue in the product «Who is Samantha?» we must surf into a hypertext navigation. The algorithm is a logical search by keyword, product displays in the format of the quest games. The author not only deliberately replaces desired character Samantha, a copy of Anton, but also gives Anton deathless function – up to 13 million copies.

Of course, the artwork «Book – Tomorrow, Two Blue Bottles» united by the two different concepts – Text and Reality. The book is similar to an  opening of  the door to the text-hyper-reality, where the Hero  «Samantha, a copy of Anton» lives. The spectator through the hero tries to define his or her identity and to find a way out of the alphanumeric code space. The hero does not address gender issues or whether he is Samantha or Anton, he is trying to slip out of the labyrinth in the formula dialectic vocabulary knowledge.

The project represents a book, consisting of two pages. On the first page the viewer sees the poem organized by alphabetical principle from the letter «A». The first line consists of several words, it (what?) has meaning. However, moving on, lines are becoming less connected, as a result, the poem finishes on the letter “K”. Everything is sequential- the artist follows by the letters of the alphabet, from the one side it becomes a basis and a frame, boundary – from other. The creative energy of the artist should be concluded in the frame of  the rules, clearly structured sequence. The energy of the  beginning following the strict rules  of the alphabet, but it is already peter out to the letter “K”. It reveals one of the main problems of artists – the inability to finish the job. Unfinished work is a stone  around the neck of an artist. However, following the logic, something  that has no end is infinite. Sign of three dots is equated to infinity.! Opening a two paper ?book a viewer sees on the second page the phrase «You are in eternity», unfinished transferred from the framework of the concept killing creativity in the framework of the concepts, writing unfinished work in infinity. Not ending the work, the artist doesn’t finish the conversation with it, the author has the power to change the development of the plot, the rules and topics. He writes himself into infinity, when he is in permanent interaction with his work.

This work presents the text as a way to transmit the character of the artist, state of his mind and soul. Feature of the concept of the poem is that the meaning of words is not important, the main thing is alphabetical order. The viewer experiences the principle of the unfinished in practice when he reads the poem. At the moment when the viewer turns the first page,  the unfinished work converts from the negative frame into the positive. The question is how deep the artist and the viewer are ready to take a positive aspect of eternity.

Everything about me is false by Sveta Gorlatova

A humanistic poem.

The source for this poetry book is “Adventure stories”.

The cover of the book shows a picture of a man who has lost his head (pic.1). The question mark is painted in the free space and demonstrates the sense of indetermination.

Behind the cover (pic.2) is a symbol of human’s Estrangement. The picture with the small spot on the empty piece of paper is the only faithful point in the world. This spot and the phrase below destroy human illusions of belongings to something, false sense of protection and safety.  It shows the Estrangement from the world, from the society and from one’s self. A human finds himself in a total deception.

Then there is a “window” for the poem (pic.3). The poem (pic.4) starts with the picture of a man standing with his back, but his head is turned to us with his face (which actually belongs to the man from the cover). The poem is composed with the phrases taken from the characters of the “Adventure stories”. The speech has its owner – a human, and this fact makes every word vivid and tangible. The phrases become voices. These voices scream questions: who we are? Who we are meant to be? Are we a part of anything huge (a society or the Universe)? The poem turns to the phenomenon of self-reflection and self-negation which is an issue for the existentialist philosophy. Total abandonment gives a fear, doubts, uncertainty.

However, it could also turn to wrong idea, and probably total deception and total abandonment are just “nonsense”.

Poetry book by  Maria Ivanova

What you see on the inside cover is a poem which consists of a few phrases cut from one page of a book (H.G. Wells, The History of Mr. Polly). For the author it was important to find words by using only one single page in order to prove that every page matters and has radical meaning to the whole book’s structure. The main idea was to try to extract clue key phrases from a random page inside of the book and put them on the last one (which is the inside cover and not exactly a page) in order to make a parallel line between them. The page from which the phrases were cut is also a part of the poem. When you see the missing parts on that page, it becomes clear that the text we see everywhere, in this case in the book, isn’t a constant construction. The cut pieces that were transformed to a new story (poem), demonstrate how very fragile the text is.

In this case, the content of the poem is not the main focus of attention. The structure of the poem from one page is very flexible and can be changed to any form without going beyond one page. Freshly cut and glued, these words look like they have just appeared unexpectedly. The green careless background reminds of human hands in opposition to the printed words which were also cut from the book by hands. This is a reminder that all letters, which were technically printed, still come from the living mind and hands.