Project Poetics April 17, 2009
Posted by gbcarter in Unconventional Discourse.Tags: Mystory
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When we were talking Monday about poetic techniques and structures to adapt for our own projects, I was puzzled as to a specific setting for my project. Then I remembered something from my childhood: every year my family takes a vacation to the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, and every year we drove right past Oak Ridge National Laboratory on the way. Given that my project is concerned with the experiences of the people involved in nuclear development, that area could be a potent figure to use in the project, both for historical and personal reasons.
Nice ‘find’ from your ‘memory bank’ — indeed takes time to search our ‘hard drives’, far too inefficiently than we’re accustomed now. With its personal relevance, this ‘grounded’ setting from personal experience avoids recycling the now-cliche status of some place like Los Alamos, for example.
[In this vein, check out Don DeLillo's Underworld (no relation to "Vampires vs. Lycans" film series!!); not now, in time for project, though -- 800+ pages = 'leisure-reading' (before Med school!).]
First reaction to image: “wow, sublime beauty; but is it real?”
However, in our mode of working, this question isn’t an issue — we’ll manipulate images/figures for our purposes, much in the style and cultural logic of advertising or music videos (etc etc): all are hyper-real, constructed, without ‘realism’ (or actual referents); and yet they are expressive and effective for their purposes.
Hopefully time for this latter point on Monday; would be great if you could remind me.