Jeffrey Shaw, Sarah Kenderdine, Edwin Nadason Thumboo
Recombinatorial Poetry Wheel
2015
© Jeffrey Shaw; Photo © ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Photo: Franz J. Wamhof
- Artist / Artist group
- Jeffrey Shaw, Sarah Kenderdine, Edwin Nadason Thumboo
- Title
- Recombinatorial Poetry Wheel
- Year
- 2015
- Category
- Computer-based
- Installation
- Format
- Video Installation
- Material / Technique
- interactive computer-based installation; computer: PC (graphics card: Nvidia Geforce FX 1060), operating system: Windows 64 bit 7/10; programming language: C#; software: driver for PowerMate Controller; additional devices: Griffin PowerMate USB
- Dimensions / Duration
- dimensions variable
- Collection
- ZKM | Center for Art and Media
- Description
- Edwin Thumboo is considered the founding voice of English-language poetry in Singapore. For decades, his work has given literary expression to the emergence of a nation – its landscapes, struggles and changing identity. This installation places his poetry at the centre of an experiment in recombination and reinterpretation. The conceptual framework draws on the legacy of OuLiPo, the Ouvroir de littérature potentielle, or "workshop of potential literature." Founded in Paris in 1960 by writer Raymond Queneau and mathematician François Le Lionnais, OuLiPo brought together authors, poets, and mathematicians who believed that formal constraints—strict rules that form the basis of playful experiments—could become engines of creativity. In this spirit, twenty-seven of Thumboo's best-known poems are presented as polyvocal readings, each embodied by a figure of the poet himself, arranged in a clock-like circle on a large round projection. As visitors rotate through the figures, they interrupt one reading and initiate another—jumping between poems mid-verse, mid-breath. The spoken words appear as text at the center of the screen. What emerges is neither a faithful recitation nor a random collage, but something in between: a third text. Meanings collide: a line about the sea meets a meditation on memory; a political declaration dissolves into lyric intimacy. The work honors Thumboo's original oeuvre while gently undoing it, revealing hidden resonances.
Author
MR
Images
Jeffrey Shaw, Sarah Kenderdine, Edwin Nadason Thumboo, »Recombinatorial Poetry Wheel«, 2015 / 2018, interactive computer-based installation; computer: PC (graphics card: Nvidia Geforce FX 1060), operating system: Windows 64 bit 7/10; programming language: C#; software: driver for PowerMate Controller; additional devices: Griffin PowerMate USB , dimensions variable. ZKM | Center for Art and Media © Jeffrey Shaw© Jeffrey Shaw; Photo © ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Photo: Franz J. Wamhof
Jeffrey Shaw, Sarah Kenderdine, Edwin Nadason Thumboo, »Recombinatorial Poetry Wheel«, 2015 / 2018, interactive computer-based installation; computer: PC (graphics card: Nvidia Geforce FX 1060), operating system: Windows 64 bit 7/10; programming language: C#; software: driver for PowerMate Controller; additional devices: Griffin PowerMate USB , dimensions variable. ZKM | Center for Art and Media © Jeffrey Shaw© Jeffrey Shaw; Photo © ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Photo: Franz J. Wamhof
Jeffrey Shaw, Sarah Kenderdine, Edwin Nadason Thumboo, »Recombinatorial Poetry Wheel«, 2015 / 2018, interactive computer-based installation; computer: PC (graphics card: Nvidia Geforce FX 1060), operating system: Windows 64 bit 7/10; programming language: C#; software: driver for PowerMate Controller; additional devices: Griffin PowerMate USB , dimensions variable. ZKM | Center for Art and Media © Jeffrey Shaw© Jeffrey Shaw; Photo © ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Photo: Franz J. Wamhof
Jeffrey Shaw, Sarah Kenderdine, Edwin Nadason Thumboo, »Recombinatorial Poetry Wheel«, 2015 / 2018, interactive computer-based installation; computer: PC (graphics card: Nvidia Geforce FX 1060), operating system: Windows 64 bit 7/10; programming language: C#; software: driver for PowerMate Controller; additional devices: Griffin PowerMate USB , dimensions variable. ZKM | Center for Art and Media © Jeffrey Shaw© Jeffrey Shaw; Photo © ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Photo: Franz J. Wamhof
