SELECTED PROJECTS
DIAGNOSIS
“Diagnosis.” is an interactive story game that tells you what is wrong with you. It was created with twine. You can read/play by clicking the pink page below. (The “Read about the project. section contains spoilers.)
JUDGMENT GENERATOR
What kinds of words do the judges on the Great British Baking Show (GBBS) use to evaluate the contestants’ bakes? How frequently do signature words like “overbaked” & “underproofed” & “stodgy” & “soggy bottom” show up? How does this judging language work? If you are the kind of person who could be wondering about these things, the JUDGMENT GENERATOR is for you!
GBBS Judgment Generator has been built from judging vocabulary frequently used by the judges. The generator was created with twine. You can judge for yourself by clicking the sample page below.
UMBRA NIHILI // THE SHADOW OF NOTHINGNESS
by Maria G. Baker and Luke Degnan
INTRODUCTION:
This text blatantly borrows the term Umbra Nihili—first employed by the German 14th-century mystic Meister Eckhart to describe the Shadow of Nothingness that haunts human existence—and then attempts to twist and monetize the concept.
Meister Eckhart originally contextualized the term by applying it in relation to human beings' longing/search for a life in real justice. To achieve a life in real justice humans must step out of the shadow of nothingness, he argued, and leave their condition as “created man,” thereby achieving life connected to the “ground of the soul” (which is not created but exists). Leaving Umbra Nihili is about departing the existential cave, experiencing light, and then returning to shine light into the darkness.
Here, none of this complex history is explicit, instead the text relates the terms Umbra Nihili and The Shadow of Nothingness to a world dominated by consumerism. Presented as a collection of reviews, the work points out how valuable our un/qualified opinions have become. We compulsively organize our world by having and formulating opinions that correspond to ratings on a scale (of stars). Imagine how life would be if we didn’t always judge things immediately and with conviction? You can’t!
★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Shame on the “authors.”
★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Umbra Nihili is about my home town!
★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
I know these products and places.
★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Because of Umbra Nihili I am not alone by myself.
★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
This work is full of XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX meaningXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX?
TO READ THE WHOLE WORK, CLICK: HERE.
LOOK FOR CONTRIBUTIONS IN:
POETRY FOR THE ACTOR - compiled, edited and introduced by Deborah Hedwall.
The book contains Maria’s poem “the ties he wore” and her translated passages of Rilke’s First Duino Elegy.
(click book cover for purchasing info)
ON DECK: brief excerpts from current projects.
FLING (a novella EXCERPT)
An inventory of some JB’s externals: Her hair is faded brown, her eyes neither distract nor pull focus, bespectacled tamely in wire rim. (Even though she flung her glasses more than 4 weeks ago, broke them and has not worn them since, my first thought of her remains wirerimmed.) Her chin is present at the bottom of her face. Her body is adequate, lean but not sculpted, neither pear nor apple, something that doesn’t evoke a fruit at all and doesn’t evoke anything else either. Her sense of style is nothing short of bland. It is absent, but not to a pronounced lack. She carries herself neither too proud nor too scoliotic. Her smile is not magical, but simply an upward pull of mouth-adjacent muscles. Her hands, however, are stunning. Perhaps this is why they revolted. (Perhaps they couldn’t live with someone so committed to obscurity? Does this theory presuppose that her hands have a mind of their own. Thanatos of body-parts? I will look into this.)
**
I just re-read my previous paragraph. Take me with a fistful of salt. I am too afraid of gushing, so I might have gone too far the opposite way. But if I take this description, my words, at face value, I might well re-use the passage to describe my I-self. Minus the stunning hands. An accidental self-portrait. I would only add that my nose is large and that I have eyes that change color within the range of the camouflage color-spectrum, moss to bark. If you were to cast me (or her) in a film version, you would pick Jim Broadbent. Or an ageing Kristen Stewart.
No, I am not sure that’s correct.
Agh, no-one ever confirmed that I am an accurate describer of people or things. Consult your imagination to fill my omissions.
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