Fractal-Poem Room 9

Robot (2002)

Poems by Michael Karl (Ritchie). Images by Terry Wright.

Robot was designed to be experienced as a random slide show. The series can be read in any order the viewer wishes. The linear progression in this gallery merely represents the sequence in which the images were created to correpond to the poems. Use this gallery page to click on any thumbnail at random. All images were rendered using QuaSZ and were imported into various graphic programs for substantial post-processing.

Michael Karl (Ritchie) on Robot: Robot came about as a response to what I perceived as "forbidden" subjects or topics that have been treated with contempt and condescension by the high art literati of the contemporary poetry establishment. It was designed to move off the page, requiring greater interactivity from readers who could have a new version of the poem each time it was reshuffled. The topoi of Robot evolved from the realm of science fiction, with equal emphasis on the "science" and the "fabulation" of metafiction. Inadvertedly, Robot took on social and political issues relevant to the time during which it was composed, but that seems a typical by-product of the dystopia of most science fiction.

Robot first appeared in the Arkansas Literary Forum in 2003 and can be viewed as a slide show here.