The most important draw back to being an editor once you launched your profession as a author is that you just nonetheless really feel that bone-deep compulsion to jot down. The problem, in fact, is discovering the time, which is why the under dialog with transdisciplinary artist and digital poetry pioneer Ana María Caballero occurred many months in the past, earlier than she signed with Spain’s main new media gallery, Max Estrella, and earlier than MACBA in Barcelona and the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid confirmed they’d be including her work to their collections. Since we spoke, she was additionally named a finalist for the HOFA Gallery Digital Artwork Awards within the Innovation class, and extra lately, a finalist within the Nonetheless Picture Award class of the Lumen Prize for The Sylphs from her “Being Borges” sequence (marking her fifth Lumen Prize nomination). Earlier this month, her new manuscript was awarded Trio Home Press’ Editors’ Choice in Poetry and, as she graciously knowledgeable me through electronic mail simply in the present day, her first novel has received Texas Assessment Press’ Clay Reynolds Novella Prize.
As you may infer, Caballero’s official bio is totally replete with well-deserved awards, grants and accolades. It’s additionally peppered with tech jargon (Bitcoin Ordinals, Web3, crypto artwork) that appear at first look like a curious mismatch to the normal wordsmithing that has seen her publish a number of books of poetry. However she is nothing if not exceedingly affected person and able to clarify—in methods even your grandma may perceive—simply what she means when she talks about “inserting poems on chain.” Poems, she tells me, “historically didn’t discover their method into museums, galleries or artwork collectors’ houses,” and but hers have discovered their method into all three in varied varieties.
Ready Room, which debuted at Artwork Dubai in 2024, mixed efficiency, spoken-word poetry, choreography, images and blockchain provenance. Fifty Methods of Taking a look at a Poem, a durational work she describes as an “analog generative system,” was acquired by a serious non-public collector and might be proven on the Francisco Carolinum in Linz. “Echo Graph,” her first solo present in Germany at OFFICE IMPORT gallery, stretches a single poem throughout mediums: movie, stills, sculpture. Her subsequent challenge—a brand new, choreographic video work referred to as Tempo that’s an homage to Pipilotti Rist’s Ever is Over All—will debut, additionally with OFFICE IMPART, subsequent month throughout Berlin Artwork Week.
“Her follow seeks to make poetry, probably the most ephemeral factor potential, extra tangible,” Load gallery founder Alex Simorré instructed me not lengthy after I spoke with Caballero. “She’s discovered quite a few methods to take action—her verse became video, A.I.-generated paper sculptures, bodily sculptures, e-book sculptures, and the listing goes on.” Caballero’s artworks have even made their mark within the public sale world. CORD was the primary poem by a residing poet offered within the historical past of Sotheby’s, however if you happen to’re imagining one thing like a framed piece of paper, you’re nonetheless not considering like Caballero. Whereas the customer did obtain a signed print of the poem, what they really bid on was a unit of Bitcoin inscribed with the poem—the aforementioned ‘ordinal.’
“Inserting poems on chain feels pure,” she instructed me. “If I had began by placing my poems onto canvases, my work would have been simply one other portray in a sea of work.” As a substitute, she’s creating work that’s so distinctive that it typically requires not simply a proof however an schooling to actually perceive the mechanics of it (not that that’s a foul factor). We spoke concerning the relationship between artwork and poetry, her relationship to know-how and what it’s wish to be doing pioneering work in in any other case well-trodden areas.
I’ve been following your work on-line since you’re exploring an area the place poetry meets positive artwork in a method I haven’t seen elsewhere. Do you contemplate your self a poet first or an artist first, or is that distinction meaningless to you?
There’s a semantic distinction. I educated as a poet—began writing in center college, took creative-writing lessons in highschool, then studied literature at Harvard. My profession has at all times revolved round language: investor newsletters, authorities writing—all kinds {of professional} tasks. I by no means attended artwork college, however after publishing just a few books in my thirties, I utilized to an MFA program in South Florida. I requested to be a joint main in poetry and positive artwork as a result of I needed to evolve how I current my writing. The college couldn’t coordinate between the English and artwork departments—the positive artwork division didn’t even know who to name to ask about it—so I believed, positive, I’ll simply be a poet, but the urge to maneuver past the web page by no means left.
How did what you have been doing change as soon as social media and digital instruments emerged?
When social media took off, I started turning revealed poems into easy animations. After some time, I noticed that I used to be beginning to create a sense of group round my work and to attach with different poets in ways in which I wouldn’t have in academia or by publishing in college journals. Studying about blockchain and digital provenance felt like a pure subsequent step. I may place my poems—already digital information—onto platforms the place they may very well be transacted, opening new inventive and financial potentialities. And it actually opened up a complete new method of making as a result of as I went deeper into these digital realms, I began envisioning how I may take analog poems and current them in numerous methods. I began educating myself fundamental coding and studying to make use of A.I. instruments to discover new modes of presentation.
So, know-how impressed your visible flip reasonably than the opposite method round?
Precisely. I’ve revealed six books and know the normal route, however poets typically wrestle with sustainability. I felt like there ought to be extra for poets—issues the MFA program and the impartial presses couldn’t supply me. Ultimately, I discovered it in on-line networks and blockchain, which have been explosive for my follow over the previous three years, letting me think about a poem as an exhibition reasonably than a journal submission.
Your title typically seems in crypto and digital-art circles, which surprises individuals who consider poetry as strictly analog. What’s it wish to merge an historical kind with a futuristic artwork world?
Poetry is a device that lets us talk, retailer and transmit recollections, feelings and experiences. It’s a method of holding data. What we’re seeing now with the blockchain and digital provenance is an enlargement of our methods of storing information—an explosion, actually, of the way we will retailer information and document them indelibly into these decentralized networks. Digital provenance offers my work the capability to sit down on the identical desk the place movie, images, sculpture and conceptual artwork sit. And portray, too. There’s at all times been a relationship between textual content and visible artwork, although traditionally, textual content in visible artwork leans on quick, punchy phrases—Jenny Holzer-ish statements you can learn on a billboard whereas driving by and nonetheless get that punch within the intestine. To not discredit that, in fact; the toughest poems to jot down are the shortest ones. However now I can exhibit a three-minute video poem with choreography and sound in a gallery setting the place a page-bound poem may by no means seem.
My work now has the identical capability to be exhibited as a portray, but poems historically didn’t discover their method into museums, galleries or artwork collectors’ houses. That’s a part of what makes it so thrilling: it’s surprising. What’s extra, the subject material of my work hasn’t modified. It stays visceral, rooted in embodied expertise and the seek for selfhood—matters that aren’t usually prioritized within the digital, NFT or crypto artwork areas, the place glitch aesthetics and Xcopy-style visuals are inclined to dominate. In distinction, my work typically explores fluid, typically female themes like being pregnant, breastfeeding and menstruation, and I like seeing these narratives maintain their very own alongside extra anticipated digital works. There’s an actual pleasure in inserting that sort of content material in areas the place it hasn’t historically appeared.
Who’s extra more likely to gather your work—conventional artwork world sorts or crypto collectors? What defines the individuals drawn to your work?
I believe the collectors who gravitate towards my work are visionary. They acknowledge how important this may be for poetry and for the literary arts extra broadly. To them, it’s apparent: why isn’t poetry transacted? Why isn’t it sustainable for a poet to publish a e-book, despite the fact that we declare to worth poems and see verse as culturally important? On the coronary heart of my work, past the themes it explores, is a want to see poetry vindicated and revalued—not simply applauded symbolically, however supported tangibly. These collectors, whether or not they deal in euros, {dollars}, bitcoin, ether or tezos, join not solely with the work itself however with the concept poetry is artwork. And if we really imagine that, we have to honor the craft in ways in which maintain the poet’s life and follow. In that sense, what’s occurring right here actually does really feel like a quiet revolution.
Inform me concerning the Sotheby’s sale just a few months in the past—I don’t assume your contribution attracted sufficient consideration, given how groundbreaking it was.
Sure, it’s the one poem by a residing poet ever offered at Sotheby’s. After all, folios by poets like Walt Whitman or manuscripts by Emily Dickinson have completed nicely, however these are historic artifacts. After I regarded via Sotheby’s listings, the one works by residing writers have been issues like a whole set of Harry Potter first editions. All the things else—Ginsberg’s notebooks, for instance—got here from writers who’re now not with us. So this marked a primary within the public sale home’s historical past. They’ve lengthy offered work, sculptures and different works by residing artists, however by no means a poem by somebody nonetheless alive.
What did the customer truly obtain?
The customer acquired a text-only inscription of my poem about childbirth on the Bitcoin blockchain. The poem had been in a e-book and a literary journal however reached a far wider viewers via the public sale.
Do you contemplate your self a pioneer on this house?
You’re by no means the one one—there’s at all times a earlier than, an after and a throughout—however in the case of conventional poetry, the type written with pen on paper and revealed in journals or books, I haven’t seen many poets round me taking over this problem. There’s a small however great group of poets who’re native to the blockchain, however the crossover from the normal literary world into digital areas continues to be uncommon. I perceive why—it requires studying new know-how, typically even fundamental coding, and the UX/UI of those platforms may be intimidating. However actually, if I can do it, anybody can. It simply comes right down to desirous to attempt.
What’s probably the most uncommon method you’ve introduced a poem?
The Bitcoin inscription continues to be probably the most stunning: unformatted textual content etched onto the unique chain, now additionally built-in into my one-of-a-kind e-book sculptures that invert the same old shortage mannequin.
Many individuals within the conventional artwork world nonetheless don’t absolutely grasp blockchain. How do you clarify it to them?
There’s one factor I at all times say once I’m attempting to elucidate how the blockchain works: Are you aware how a phone works? Or how your pc works—how we’re sitting right here talking nose to nose via a video digital camera, doubtless with none cables connected? Most of us don’t actually perceive the mechanics, but we settle for them as a part of day by day life. Your cellphone tells you when to show left or proper, and also you belief it, even if you happen to don’t know the way it “is aware of.” We profit from the know-how with no need to know each element.
The blockchain is comparable. You don’t want to understand all its technical intricacies to have interaction with it. At its core, it’s a decentralized ledger—a record-keeping and file-storage system that doesn’t depend on a single server or central authority. As a substitute, it lives on 1000’s of distributed servers that document info in actual time. You possibly can add your personal information—like a poem or a visible paintings—to this method, and that motion is preserved throughout the complete community. If one server fails, others retain proof that, say, you inscribed a poem on a selected part of the Bitcoin blockchain. Your digital pockets retains a document of that transaction, and you may switch that document to another person, very similar to promoting a portray. It’s only a new method of doing one thing very outdated.
Have you ever seen you’re seeing extra appreciation for poetry because you started working this fashion?
I do assume there’s been a rising curiosity in poetry—particularly, in what poetry can do as soon as it strikes past the web page. Historically, the poetry world is extraordinarily insular. It’s typically poets studying different poets in the identical literary journals. Likelihood is, the individuals studying your poem are those revealed on the web page earlier than or after you, and perhaps the editor. That’s the extent of its attain. However now, persons are beginning to assume, “Perhaps I do like poetry. Perhaps I simply haven’t been studying the type I join with. Perhaps there’s extra on the market—and perhaps I even wish to purchase a poetry e-book.”
I introduced on the Rosewood Lodge in Madrid as a part of a dialog sequence hosted by Christie’s. The girl who organized it really works with Christie’s Modern Artwork—not digital, not web3, simply the usual Christie’s. She attended certainly one of my talks, and I gave her a duplicate of my e-book. Later, she instructed me how a lot she liked it and requested if I’d do a public dialog. Afterward, a number of conventional collectors approached me, saying how compelling and logical it felt to have interaction with poetry this fashion. Seeing it introduced in a special format made it click on for them. They’re partaking with poetry now as a result of it’s been reframed—and that, to me, seems like actual progress.
To wrap up, I’d like to know who evokes you.
I like Sophie Calle and Maria Lai for pushing the e-book and poem past the web page, and I worth Cole Sternberg’s text-based artwork. Poets like Louise Glück and the Colombian author María Mercedes Carranza maintain me. By way of who I gather, I’m within the trenches, and I actually admire the work of fellow poets who’re doing unimaginable issues within the digital artwork house. I’ve friends—like Laurence Fuller—whose dedication to the craft and innovation on this medium I deeply admire.
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