As it wEre

An Audiovisual Translation of the Mesostic Form | Arduino, LCD display, sound

As it wEre explores the relationship between spoken language, auditory cognition, and visual perception. Using an Arduino-controlled LCD display and sound, the work translates text into a layered audiovisual composition. Rather than presenting language as a fixed, linear sequence of information, it fragments and recombines words, allowing meaning to emerge through shifting associations between what is seen and what is heard.

The work draws on John Cage’s mesostic performance work “What You Say.” In a mesostic, a vertical sequence of capital letters intersects the middle of successive horizontal lines, creating an acrostic-like structure shaped by interruption and empty space. By reinterpreting this form through electronic display and sound, As it wEre examines how spoken words acquire new conceptual and sensory dimensions when conventional linguistic structures and linear narratives are disrupted.

        as it Were 
			   anotHer world
	  		        A whole or
			                    The best one can of it
   suddenlY
			     sOmething
				       move
	     miniatUrized

               […]

                 oF it
	    	a whole sUbject
			         aNd then
		    a whole Can be
		                  whaT you say about
		        It
		               Occupy it
   	a whole caN
	    		hAve
   different timeS and
			    tAkes
   can be throWn
	                       and perHaps at the same time
			    Or
	how does one deaL with
		                 diffErent times and

               hoW
	     about my tenDency
		               thrOwn into a
		        thEn
	    and then be inSerted
	my tendency tO
	            move iNto it

— Excerpt from Cage’s “What You Say”