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 Carolyn
Guertin is a poet and scholar of the new media arts,
specializing in the feminist avant-garde, at the University of
Alberta, Canada. Curator of 'Assemblage:
The Women's New Media Gallery' at trAce, her own creative
and critical works have been widely published in print and online.
Best known for her radical experiments with new media arts native
criticism like "Queen
Bees and the Hum of the Hive" (published in BeeHive), she
also creates sensory, immersive new media poetry. She is a literary
adviser to the Electronic
Literature Organization.
Her creative texts include 'skeleton
sky,' 'Incarnation:
Heart of the Maze' and 'Machine
Dreams and Webbed Arts'.
Interview with
Carolyn Guertin
What
are you planning to use your studio for?
Workshopping
the second half of my electronic novel, The Attributes of Heartbreak.
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/traced/guertin/heartbreak/
It
is a historical work based on ancient myth and set in Ancient
Sumeria (modern day Iraq).
How
much will we be able to see of work in progress?
Half
of the work is completed. At present I am still trying to find
the proper voice for the second half, so it might be a while before
too much of that is visible. As it becomes available though, readers/browsers
will be able to tour its component parts.
How
will you use your journal?
It
will consist of three parts. An exploration of the issues of the
background, history and myths of the piece, alongside the present
day pillage of these ancient artifacts and the current political
situation as it relates to ancient history. The second stream
will look at writing process. The third stream will be concerned
with issues of images, design and structure.
Here's
some background info: a timeline of the writing process.
The Attributes
of Heartbreak, Or, Gilgamesh, 12 Leagues He Travelled
Writing Journal
June
to July 1999 - I write the text that will be the Gilgamesh
part of The Attributes of Heartbreak. A wonderful voice evolves
that casts the Sumerian king as something half way between an
Old Testament prophet and a queer street punk. With the Sumerian
passion for writing on walls, this will be a text that speaks
that language in contemporary terms, graphically evoking both
palimpsest and graffiti. The Epic of Gilgamesh is an ancient Sumerian
tale of a one of the greatest kings of all time. Gilgamesh, who
was said to be two-thirds god and one-third human, ruled around
2,700 BCE. He took a wildman named Enkidu as a lover and spurned
the goddess Ishtar as a mate.
Gilgamesh's
story is one of friendship and betrayal told on twelve tablets
that documents the events that lead not only to the decline and
fall of Sumer, but that also has as its backdrop the larger events
of the death of the worship of the goddess in the era. It was
so powerful a tale that it has come down to us not in its original
version, but in the Akkadian language of Sumeria's Babylonian
conquerors. It has resonance for me as one of the earliest post-oral
texts and its twelve-part episodic nature evokes both the temporal
and spatial nature of storytelling. Its very timelessness, and
its focus on mortality and immortality, speak to my contemporary
concerns, those of a virtual world where hardware and software
upgrades can render whole universes obsolete overnight.
August
1999 - I begin coding the text, selecting and designing
images, mapping the narrative in a format appropriate for web
delivery. I suspect it is too large for the web and I dislike
the goddess's story as told only by Gilgamesh. Ishtar deserves
to speak in her own voice, but I am undecided about how to weave
her tale into the overall structure. I debate whether to use the
Sumerian names for gods and places, but decide to follow the Babylonian
model of the Epic to avoid confusion.
September
1999 - How quickly priorities change. I am hit by a stop-sign-running
pick up truck while cycling to work. Only my left leg and left
hand escape uninjured. I begin what quickly becomes apparent to
me is Ishtar's journey, the descent into the seven levels of hell.
It will be a year before I full appreciate how severe my injuries
were. Attributes is put on ice as I slowly reclaim my body, recover
the use of my limbs and learn how to sit and walk normally again.
December
2000 - After 15 months of convalescence and still inhabiting
a badly broken body, I return to Attributes with the awareness
that Gilgamesh's story in isolation is only half the picture.
The goddess Ishtar's story must also be told. This opens many
narrative possibilities and makes the text entirely inappropriate
for the web. It also brings Gilgamesh's story closer to home,
uniting much of my earlier work on sibyls, prophecy and feminist
retellings of history. My relationship to language has changed
as a result of what may have been a stroke that I suffered in
the accident. My work is much more visual than it used to be.
I code and edit the text, putting most of the Gilgamesh narrative
online. I set it aside while I have some minor surgery at the
end of the month. I go blind for three days as a result of what
the doctors dismiss as "complications." Surely this
is the final depth of hell.
February
2001 - I begin to design the textual apparati for the
entire text, including the Ishtar narrative. A friend who is a
web designer, Tamsin Bohnet, delivers me a java-based sundial.
It is an exquisite rendition of the doorway to Gilgamesh's text.
I design Ishtar's doorway as a compliment.
March
to May 2001 - Ishtar's story continues to become clear
to me and the more reading I do, the more I am astounded by the
fact that Inanna's hymns-as Ishtar was originally called-tells
the same story as the Epic but from what I can only interpret
in contemporary terms as a feminist perspective. Inanna too has
a same sex companion, Ninshubur. Like Enkidu in relation to Gilgamesh,
Ninshubur surpasses Inanna in every way, making her ultimately
better rounded and far more powerful than she ever could have
been on her own. Ninshubur has never been touched by male hands-or
semen as we are explicitly told-and so, therefore, is the spiritual
half of this union.
June
2001 to December 2002 - I am finally able to return to
work at 2/3rds time and finish writing my dissertation.
January
2003 to April 2003 - After teaching in Spain for a week,
I defend in January 2003. The rest of the term is largely consumed
by teaching duties in Edmonton and Athabasca, although I continue
to research Inanna and ponder possible approaches whenever I can.
May
2003 - A return to the tale in earnest and with only
one other course on the side.
trAce Writers' Studios are awarded to individual writers, or collaborative
groups, in order to support and promote the development of web-based
writing. They are not time-limited, but are reviewed annually
and decisions on continuation are taken at that time
There
are currently three studios: Randy Adams, Carolyn Guertin, Francesca
DaRimini. We hope there will soon be some works open to the public
from these artists and writers.
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