Interart Concepts and Multi-Sensority
Elements of Barrier Reduction in Contemporary Poetry Formats
This doctoral project explores strategies for dismantling barriers in contemporary poetry. It examines the ambiguity of the term barrier as a lack of accessibility: as a boundary between so-called “high” and “popular” culture, as a perceptual barrier, and as a boundary between artistic genres. Barriers can be dismantled by applying accessibility strategies, which this project analyzes by looking at and critically reflecting upon the categories of “high” and “popular” culture, as well as concepts of multisensoriality and interart. Multisensoriality refers to the perception of poems that go beyond the visual, while interart refers to poems that go beyond the purely literary and integrate other artistic genres.
Contemporary poetry seems to move between the extremes of easy consumability and hermeticism. Formats such as social media poetry and slam poetry are not entrenched within “high culture” and appeal to a wider audience, while conventional poetry readings and poetry gatherings take place in small circles, which are often considered to be inaccessible. In order to initiate processes of visualization and critical questioning, the project will address the following research questions: 1. What kind of barriers exist in contemporary poetry and its event and presentation formats? 2. What poetry formats reduce barriers and increase accessibility, thereby addressing a significantly broader target group? 3. What kind of artistic methods can be employed to overcome barriers? What strategies do performative audioliterary formats (including those in the digital space) utilize in order to increase accessibility?
This project consists of two parts. The first part is explorative and participatory, and contains a short survey on the barriers that exist in contemporary poetry, as well as qualitative interviews with experts, resulting in a catalogue of barriers. In the second, main part, the project considers case studies of contemporary poetry and analyzes their level of accessibility by examining them in the light of the catalogue of barriers. The project will address these case studies heuristically by dividing them into two main categories: those with cultural barriers and those with sensory barriers. Starting with cultural barriers, it will examine deaf slams, poems written by artificial intelligence, social media poetry, print on demand poetry, collective and participatory poetry projects, poems in simple language, and poetry mediation formats. It will then go on to, firstly, examine sign language poetry, braille poems, and subtitled poetry in light of multisensoriality, and, secondly, consider the concept of interart to investigate audioliterary formats (e.g., magazines for spoken literature), text-image performance, poetry installations, poetry films, and intersemiotic translation.
Barriers and accessibility are concepts from disability studies that have not yet been applied to contemporary poetry. By taking this interdisciplinary approach, this project will contribute to the development of a critical self-understanding in the field of poetry and help to explain the popularity of certain poetry formats.