2024 Vol. 15 №3

This paper is the first attempt to interpret the visual 'construemes' by the constructivist poet Alexei N. Chicherin, published in the anthology Mena vsekh (Moscow, 1924). 'Const­rue­mes' can be considered the most enigmatic artefacts of the Russian avant-garde. Although 'construemes' can be easily confused with meaningless visual zaum ('the transra­tio­nal'), Chicherin's actions and the very nature of his personality prevent one from inter­preting 'con­struemes' as actionist endeavours to scandalise or a 'play on nonsense'. Analysis of the poet's treatise Kan-Fun (Moscow, 1926), which required finding the key to deciphering the 'const­ruemes', reveals the positivist nature of Chicherin's visual-phonological exercises. In the trea­tise, the poet argues for the primacy of the eye and vision. He illustrates synthetic 'signs' or 'pictograms' with the quotidian example of propaganda posters, capable of influen­cing mil­lions more effectively than words alone.

The study emphasises the enigmatic nature of the titles of Chicherin's books, the Nie­tzschean subtexts of his self-presentation, encrypted allusions to the esoteric and magical tra­dition of the Tarot, and religious symbolism. Sixteen illustrations help understand Chi­che­rin's logic behind the creation of his four 'construemes', including the most mysterious com­position called 'Raman' ('the shortest Kan-Fun Novel in the world'). The structure of this text synthesises the verbal, visual-graphic, acoustic (phonological symbols) and musical (notes) levels. The article also examines Chicherin's proven techniques: the appropriation of the sacred dimension and self-presentation as an actor possessing genuine knowledge and ca­pable of competing alone with the entire literary environment.

This article delves into the early era of 'digital poetry', focusing on poems from the digital poetry collection First Screening (1984) by bpNichol — a poet renowned for his 'movies of words'. Two poems from this collection — 'Letter' and 'After the Storm' — were initially published in print, coming out in 1967 and 1973, respectively. The poet's creative journey from crafting 'poem-pictures' to producing 'poem-movies' sparks inquiries into the contrasting subjective frameworks of printed poems versus their digital adaptations translated into a media language akin to cinema.

The author suggests analysing the layers of media mediation in printed and digital texts as distinct material conditions of communication prompting readers to encounter a 'moment of intensity', as Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht put it, and undergo a creative experience of es­trangement enabling them to connect with the subject behind the text. The variance in media mediation shapes specific subjective structures. In both cases, the subject behind the text is a submedial subject (Boris Groys). The structures of literary and cinematic imagination allow the recipient not so much to relate to the author as to acquire an unexpected co-author, a sub-medial subject capable of replacing the author's intention with another intention or compro­mi­sing the former. In printed text, identification is possible with the submedial subject, whereas in digital text, disidentification is feasible. The evolution from literary text through digital cinema to interactive digital forms highlights the difference between the recipients of literary and digital texts. The recipient of a literary text brings to life the narrative or a lyrical 'self', actively enga­ging with the text through imagination. The recipient of a digital text identifies with an 'ava­tar' capable of making choices that influence plot development but is less effective at enriching un­folding scenes and events with additional meanings.

There is a dearth of empirical literary studies devoted to digital literature, primarily due to the poor development of a methodological framework for analysing digital texts and a lack of clarity as regards the text/meaning-generating capacity of the new communication channel, the language of digital texts' literary meta-description and the limits of freedom in interpret­ing such volatile texts. This article attempts to answer these and other questions, providing a semiotic understanding of communication in the tech environment. It also proffers the idea of new pragmatics as the effect of volatile polycode digital text, interface and reception trajec­tory. It is shown that the instability of the digital channel plays a meaning-generating role in digital semiosis.

The following principles are proposed as theoretically and methodologically significant for literary analysis of digital texts: a digital text does not preexist the act of communication; the meaning of an entire polycode digital text emerges at the intersection of words, images, video and audio; the activity of the recipient, in addition to that of producing meanings, includes material actions of text co-creation; the new tactility of communication should is a mandatory object of digital text analysis; when posted online, the recipient's reflection enables reconstructing the mechanisms guiding the reader through the text; meta-position in digital text analysis has the quality of relativity. A possible course of digital intermedial text analysis is proposed based on these considerations.

At the core of the contemporary literary process is the search for an effective extratextual communicative situation, which is especially relevant for books of poetry, whether in paper or electronic form.

This article examines current practices of delivering poetic texts to readers through auditory perception. It focuses on contemporary French poets active between 1990 and 2022, representing three different groups and movements; in Russia, they are known only to a narrow circle of specialists. The study proposes a typology of in-situ and ex-situ strategies for delivering the sound of a poet's voice to the reader. To this end, audio and video recordings by Christian Prigent (born 1945), Michèle Finck (1960) and Anne-James Chaton (1970) are examined. Analysing the presentation of poetic works by comparison and juxtaposition leads one to conclude that authors pursue two strategies: individual playback and reading (book and CD sets) and group sessions (theatrical performances and poetry festivals). Beyond the customary dichotomy of the author's versus the actor's reading, one can distinguish hybrid types of voice preservation via delegation: incorporating a recording of the author's recitation into a theatrical production (Finck) and computer processing of the author's voice (Chaton). Contemporary poetry, especially French, persists in its quest for new codes for accessing the reader, seeking innovative forms of conveying vicarious experiences with transformative potency. Prigent, Finck, and Chaton fully harness the power of the sounding voice in their poetic work: distinctive intonations, prosody, and timbre become auditory 'anchors', substituting the mnemonic techniques of traditional poetic systems. The ancient power of vocal impact is augmented by modern technologies. Modern poetry, moving beyond its linguistic laboratory, seeks to transcend into other forms of art, gaining support from music and painting while exerting a polymodal impact on the addressee's imagination.

This article examines texts by the modern British poet Brian Bilston from the perspective of their semantic and syntactic organisation and the lines of the author's investigation into paralinguistic, i. e. visual, elements. To this end, it draws on contemporary research into complex communication objects — multimodal texts. The study provides an overview of the principles of new media: modularity, numerical representation, automation and variability. Formulated by Lev Manovich, these precepts find reflection in Bilston's poetic practices. It is shown that traditional paralinguistic means, such as the spatial arrangement of components or the use of colours, shapes and figures, are used to compose iconic texts where the actual similarity of the sign and the referent comes to the fore. A non-standard technique is described that utilises the font as an element of traditional polymodality to label the actor. The use of new media elements — computer interfaces, data visualisation and emojis — in poetic and meta-poetic functions is explored alongside an examination of conceptual metaphors illustrating reflection on a subject's individual experience — reflection couched in digital reality terms, such as 'filter', 'format' and 'function'. As for the referential correlation between verbal and visual components, the role of emojis is demonstrated in devising the structures of parallel, complementary and substitutive syntax in literary, public and advertising Internet communication. It is concluded that the choice between traditional and new visual components reflects how form and content interact in a text. The espousal of digital reality elements is linked to the poet's interest in the features of communicative relationships. The significance of the communicative format associated with the conceptualisation of digital reality is shown to perform a text-forming function in Bilston's poetic practices.