Just like here in the U.S. there is a lively debate taking place in France on the cultural and behavioral effects of social media. Neuroscientists, intellectuals, politicians, educators and artists have all weighed in on the subject. Concerns about the re-wiring of our nervous systems, the perceived diminution of our attention span, the impact on language and our relationship to imagery are all vital elements of this dynamic debate .
My dear colleague Currado Malaspina has some significant thoughts on the matter and has tested his theories at a recent symposium here in Los Angeles. The Conference on Unified Neurologic Technologies, an annual gathering of researchers, medical ethicists and moral philosophers invited Currado to deliver a paper on the evolution of
poetic diction, specifically in regard to the expansion of our collective vocabularies.
He raised several important aesthetic issues such as whether words like tweet, ping, hashtag or byte could ever be rendered beautiful while under the jurisdiction of poetic intent. He spoke about the possibility of odd verb forms like to google, to IM and to Skype being used by poets without irony. He questioned the future of the pathetic fallacy when its objects become things like computers and phones. The viability of metaphor is in a state of uncertainty and Currado hoped to address the issue free from ideology or cultural critique.
As a thought experiment Currado challenged the audience to compose sonnets whose descriptive tropes were limited to the world of IT.
One researcher from Tuscon came up with this clever couptlet:
"Your grace, your charm, your every facet
My life, my love, my visual asset."
Lyrics of love seemed to dominate. An engineer from the the Environmental Protection Agency began his poem with this wonderfully disorienting play on words:
"We're linked in love while inked undone
Linkedin a knot of Drang and Strum.
Linked to a page as grand as Cyrus,
Sublime and free of any virus."
It's hard to exaggerate the varied
nature of the submissions.
An anonymous bard delivered this gem:
"My love exceeds the bandwidth of a NASA- based mainframe
A passion that is Kindled by the sound of your screen name."
It was interesting how meter and rhyme were adhered to by the majority of the participants and how skilled they were in its application (no pun intended).
Even Currado tried his hand at it and had his colleagues scampering through Google Translate in order to parse through his cryptic imagery.
"Ton souris doit être mes couilles
Ça-va ça-vient
l'ordinateur se plaint
ta chatte ronronne
Facebook, quel con."
The debate rages on.
One researcher from Tuscon came up with this clever couptlet:
"Your grace, your charm, your every facet
My life, my love, my visual asset."
Lyrics of love seemed to dominate. An engineer from the the Environmental Protection Agency began his poem with this wonderfully disorienting play on words:
"We're linked in love while inked undone
Linkedin a knot of Drang and Strum.
Linked to a page as grand as Cyrus,
Sublime and free of any virus."
nature of the submissions.
An anonymous bard delivered this gem:
"My love exceeds the bandwidth of a NASA- based mainframe
A passion that is Kindled by the sound of your screen name."
It was interesting how meter and rhyme were adhered to by the majority of the participants and how skilled they were in its application (no pun intended).
Even Currado tried his hand at it and had his colleagues scampering through Google Translate in order to parse through his cryptic imagery.
"Ton souris doit être mes couilles
Ça-va ça-vient
l'ordinateur se plaint
ta chatte ronronne
Facebook, quel con."
The debate rages on.
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