Poem Race

Poem Race is a tongue–in–cheek interactive installation proposing a reflection on the socioeconomic role of contemporary art. Having grown tired of artist rankings (does it make any sense to say that Shakespeare was the best English writer? What does it mean to 'be the best'?) The piece allows to 'compare' classic English poets attempting to provide an objective, yet absurd, comparison method: poem racing.

The installation "reads" poems out loud in Morse code, hitting a ramp where a token rests. The hitting makes the token tumble down, and so two poems can be compared by making the tokens race.

This piece was developed at 2014 ITP Camp (NYU) where we ran many races and were able to determine that Jonathan Swift is the best classic English writer. Ever.

Poem Race is a collaboration between Tomas Laurenzo and Tatjana Kudinova.