The Digital/Hypertext Garden: 2020 Experiments in Art and Literature is an experimental project that attempts to process the current social, political and economic realities created by the global pandemic. As such, it considers itself to be experimental by necessity, since there is no normal or standard to return to.
Headed by Kirsten Ganzon as a project under the Valenzuela Arts and Literary Society, the Digital-Hypertext Garden is composed of literary and artistic works from various Filipino writers, artists, and creators, including works from Andrea Lucido, Carl Lorenz Cervantes, Malaya Nicolas, Yam Abejuro, Anthony Gabumpa, Mark Mijares, Eubert Torreliza, Ramzzi Fariñas, Patricia Isabel Lucido, Levi Masuli, and Josh Paradeza. The project will be launched on April 30, 6pm, via the Valenzuela Arts and Literary Society’s facebook page.
The Digital-Hypertext Garden connects converging points between literature, visual art, and multimedia forms. Some pieces in the Garden come in forms that interrogate mainstream forms of literature, especially in a time when most are forced to work and live through technology and the internet. Others rethink the implications of “connections” and “intertextuality” in the context of social isolation, quarantine, and never-ending lockdowns. But underlying the whole Garden are lives and realities radically disrupted by the national government’s incompetent Covid-19 response.
Using hyperlinks in a choose-your-own adventure form, the Garden pushes forward an intertextual, interconnected “consumption” of artistic forms, with the goal of breaking away from the linearity and algorithmic profiteering inherent in online production and consumption. In meandering around the Digital/Hypertext Garden, we invite the visitors to think about choices, and how they are always political.
