Code Is Poetry: Video Art That Turns Code Into Literal Poetry

Code Is Poetry is an art video of me writing code that is an actual poem, it also reveals images from my life and dreams as it’s being written.

This is best viewed full screen in HD so you can see the text being written out in the video.

For this art piece, I wanted to merge technology, more specifically, coding and poetry. There is a saying made popular by WordPress, ‘Code Is Poetry”. I wanted to take that phrase literally and write an actual poem that is literally code. I also wanted the code to reveal a mosaic of chaotic images from my life as the poem/code is being written. The mosaic of the images represents my life and dreams and how they are indistinguishable from one another. Just as how the poem and code are indistinguishable from one another.

There are seemingly millions of images that occupy and haunt my mind like an internal ghost. Meanwhile, as time goes on I find it harder and harder to distinguish the images in my memories. Are they from real life, from dreams, or from images I have looked at? I use the metaphor of the poem/code to represent the confusing merged and inseparable nature of our dreams and memories in our heads.

The codes I used for this piece were CSS and HTML. They are some of the most simple languages of all coding. But yet are necessary for people to connect with online technology. They by and large define everything that is visible on a website.

This is the poem I wrote and read in the video:

Internal Ghost

Born Into
A Reality
I Cant Flee.

Confined by walls
Placed in mind
Unwillingly Built
By Those Who Hurt,
Who Are Hurt,
An Endless Cycle.

Trying To
Break Free
Of the density.

My Senses Lie.
There's A Truth
I Do Deny.

I sleep
I dream
I die
I wake
I escape

Passing Through
Thoughts And Dreams,
Memories And Moments,
Stories And Film,
Music And Voices.

Entering My Mind,
Contorted And Twisted,
Lost Images
Entwine Themselves
Causing Unreal Chaos
Inside A Fictitious
Temporarily
Constructed Universe.

Distorted Stories
Reveal Themselves
Everlasting Vanity
As They Consume
My Constant
Superficial Hours.

A Mosaic
Of A Life
Shortly lived.

Never Remembered.

I used Adobe Edge Code CC along with Chrome for the coding part of the movie, I used QuickTime Player to record my screen and I used Audacity to record and edit the audio.



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