Terminal Zone: A Manifesto for Digital Poetry

Jacques Donguy's 'Terminal Zone' manifesto, published in artpress in July 2002, argues for digital poetry as a new avant-garde. It traces precursors like Ladislao Pablo Györi (Buenos Aires), who developed 3D poems in English and Spanish, and Arthur Kroker (Canada), who coined 'Crash art'. Donguy himself, with Guillaume Loizillon, used cybertext and scrolling text since 1983, published 'Tag-Surfusion' in 1996, and performed early computer performances in 1998. Since 2000, a new generation in France, influenced by Guy Debord and computers, has emerged: Anne-James Chaton uses samplers; Eric Sadin creates 'hypermedia performances'; Jean-René Etienne composes 'Glitzkrieg'; Christophe Fiat calls poetry 'hacking of literature'; Olivier Quintyn practices 'sampling virus'; Christophe Hanna invents processes of 'extirpation-revelation'; Joachim Montessuis uses Max/MSP software. The manifesto calls for a future CD-ROM writing that is 'intermedia' (after Dick Higgins), returning to iconic and oral origins of writing in a fluctuating space. It references Jorge Luis Borges, Ted Nelson's Xanadu, William Gibson's cyberspace, and James Joyce's 'verbi-voco-visual'. The text was preceded by theoretical writings since 1994.