ARCHIVERSE

LETTERS FROM THE ARCHIVERSE is an ongoing visual poem composed by Jeff T. Johnson in architectural modeling space, using AutoCAD design software. In progress since 2008, when it was given the working title LIVE FROM THE VOID, it combines attributes and methods in concrete poetry and open-field composition with 3D image modeling capabilities. These are precedents for a larger project called THE ARCHIVERSE, which explores materiality in writing and the potential for language-based visual and audio art in an age of ready access to touch-screen mobile interfaces. In collaboration with Andrew Klobucar, it is currently being developed as a networked, multi-user tablet app called ARCHIVERSE.

LETTERS FROM THE ARCHIVERSE was created in AutoCAD, which serves as a provisional platform while the tablet app is developed. In public performance, Johnson and Klobucar animate and explore LETTERS FROM THE ARCHIVERSE via projection and sound, incorporating original music and samples with improvisatory reading of the digital language/object environment, along with performative lectures that engage digital poetics.

THE ARCHIVERSE is a conceptual space explored as a series of multimedia theoretical models, including LETTERS FROM THE ARCHIVERSE, ARCHIVERSOLOGY, STARS OUR DESTINATION, and various recordings and projections that manifest in private and public performance. Writings related to this exploration can be found on the POETICS page, screen captures are on the ARRAYS page, and other multimedia are sampled on the RECORDINGS page.

In addition to the ongoing documentation at this site, materials related to a year-long ARCHIVERSE residency are archived at Organism for Poetic Research (NYU).