The last issue of 2021 includes seven intriguing works, from sound poetry to AR and VR poetry, with topics ranging from nostalgia to trash and love for programming. This is also the farewell issue of current editor in chief.
This issue opens with Storage closet by Cliff Watson, it was born as part of a hybrid-genre story 6-foot pine: life and romance in the chrondemic age, where a virtual reality room is created in an old storage closet as a gift from one character to another. Watson has used technologies of VR and AR and video art to create a fantastic and delightful scene.
Kesken kaikista paikoista (Everywhere Unfinished) is a new collaborative piece from poet Milka Luhtaniemi and sound artist and programmer Joonas Siren. The work builds up slowly into a gentle, absorbing and spatial experience. A previous version of the work, Toinen laji, was on display at gallery Forum Box earlier this year.
Anna Helle is researcher of contemporary Finnish poetry, in her latest releases she has specialized in societal topics in contemporary poetry. Helle’s and Mitja Jakonen’s Tapahtuu meille kaikille (Happens to all of us) addresses questions of nostalgia, societal evolutions and catastrophes. It was inspired by the 30-year anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nostalgia and past is present also in the visual and audio elements of the poem through old recording technologies.
Our essay in this issue is Tarja Hallberg´s Aarrekartta runopaikoille: kokeita, vajoavia sanoja ja leikkikirjoitusta, presentation of the methods and practices of the latest series in Runopaikka concept, Leikki (Play). Hallberg introduces methods she´s developed in a project of site-speficic poetry. This time, reflecting the pandemia era, the site is home.
Luontokonttaaja is an audio poetry band delighting and confusing audience with the absurd, hilarious and also brutal lyrics by Mikko Räty and Irene Kajo. Combined with industrialish sounds by Mikko Turunen the group is guaranteed to suprise more conventional friends of poetry. Since Nokturno has no age limit, we release one of their more eloquent pieces, Olemme kokoontuneet kaikkialta kaikkeudesta (We have gathered from everywhere in the universe)
”I have begun to turn into a plastic whisperer”, says the narrator of Marjo Malin´s digital prose work Sil(a)kkaa roskaa? (Sheer trash/herring trash). Malin is known as a graphic designer and illustrator and has now taken into creating digital literature. Her work combining text and photography focuses on plastic, trash, people littering, the question we every once in a while notice ourselves asking: how is it possible that we humans spread these amounts of trash into the nature.
And last but not least, Ohjelmoinnista tykkään (I like programming) by Petri Keckman. Keckman´s charming work is about programming, with slide shows of his visual creations and him singing in Finnish. ”I program because I love it, just as little children draw with crayons just for the pure joy of it”.
This is the last issue for me as the editor in chief of Nokturno. I started six years ago, first as a coordinator and producer of the rebuilding of the site and then ended up being the editor in chief for several years. It’s been a real joy to work in a such intriguing field of literature/art. I´m thankful for all the fascinating works of art I´ve encountered and had a chance to bring to our readers, and of all the discussions with poets and artists, online and offline!
I´d especially like to thank our web designer Teemu Tuovinen for always being there to co-create new works of digital literature, for solving any technical problems we’ve had during these years and helping me with basically everything.
As Nokturno steps into the era of a new editor in chief (read more about Miikka Laihinen here) I´d like to once more raise a glass in memory of Marko Niemi, whose work in Nokturno in 2006-2014 is the foundation the site is based on. May the open-mindedness, spirit of internationality and wide interest in existing and rising fields of literature he showed in his work be the guidelines of Nokturno also in the future.
Virpi
(Image from Cliff Watson´s Storage closet)
