Jason Nelson

Infobox Artist
name = Jason Nelson


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Jason Nelson is a digital and hypermedia poet and artist. He was born in September 1970 and grew up in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He has a BA from the University of Oklahoma and an MFA in New Media Writing from Bowling Green State University.

Nelson currently lives in Gold Coast, Australia. He is a lecturer on Cyberstudies, digital writing and creative practice at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. Some of his works include "Between Treacherous Objects, The Poetry Cube, The Bonar Gene, Pandemic Rooms" and he won a Web Art award for "This is How You Will Die".

His most well known work is "Game, Game, Game And Again Game [http://www.freewaregenius.com/2007/06/13/game-game-game-and-again-game/] " which is a flash platform game that looks like it is played inside somebody's stream of consciousness or an artistic scrapbook of doodles, poetry, and philosophical musings.

His style of Web Art mergers various genres and technologies. These genres include art nouveau, modern art and cubism, among others. He focuses on collages of poetry, image, sound, movement and interaction [http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2007/11/wildness-in-corner-discussion-with.html] . One distinct feature found in Nelson’s work is the use of words to link ideas.

Background Information

Nelson is known as a cyperpoet. Cyberpoetry, by definition, "addresses differences between media, problematises them and does not commit to a single genre. Cyberpoetry consists of multiple media that merge and transform into each other." His style of mixture chaos and nouveau art has led to mixed reviews. By and large, Nelson has been received with open arms by the avant-garde cyber-community, but some critics cannot see past the "characteristic messiness" or "strangeness" in his approach.

Education

Nelson graduated from Bowling Green State University with a Masters in Fine Arts. He is now a professor at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. He teaches Cyberstudies, digital art, and digital creative writing. He is also the creator of digital/net art.

He started out as a poet and now has over 30 digital artworks. "Game, Game, Game, and Again Game" was one of his first works involving the use of a game engine and also his most well known. It has received over five million hits and recently won an Italian Art Award. In addition the work has been mentioned by numerous gaming blogs as either genius or insanity in game form. [http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/02/flash-game-offers-doorway-into-madness/] , [http://jayisgames.com/archives/2007/05/game_game_game_and_again_game.php] , [http://blog.wired.com/tableofmalcontents/2007/05/gamegame6_flash.html] Nelson has also won first place in 2006 for his web art "This is How You Will Die [http://www.secrettechnology.com/death/deathspin.htm] " and won an award in 2005 for his digital poetics.

Style

Some General Notes: Jason Nelson's art and poetry can conservatively be described as highly stylized, dynamic, and interactive. In many cases he mixes various forms of web media in tandem with sound and original art works which can be renderings and/or poems. Check out his most recent work: [http://www.secrettechnology.com/gamegame/gamegame.html]

Art - There is no strict adherence to any particular school of art (Cubism, Realism, Nouveau, Modern, etc.) or styles like that of technical, idealized or organic; though the inspiration from-and examples of these art schools and styles are to be found in his collective works. In simplest terms his web pages are not static galleries, they are themselves the canvass.

Poetry - Jason Nelson’s poetic style is also widely ranging from prose to what sometimes seems words without stanza or structure. His poems do have meaning in the context of his websites however. Often the reader/viewer/critic must simply gain their own interpretation which can result in any number of emotions from frustration to inspiration because that is what the perceived intention of the artist is.

Media - In addition to Art and Poetry Jason Nelson presents his work in such a way as to engage the viewer in the given spectacle they choose. He often incorporates sound, animations, video, and other forms of internet based media to present and enhance his web pages. The given media can either be designed to be mandatory and/or the conscious decision (links) of the viewer according to his intentions with the piece.

Examples:The piece "Uncontrollable Semantics" is perhaps not a typical example of his aesthetic style but it includes all of the elements listed above as a part of his work. [http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/culturevulture/archives/2006/07/19/site_of_the_wee_23.html]

The piece "This is How You Will Die" is arguably one of Jason Nelson's most famous held in the contexts of the popular culture's interest in death and strictly as a work of art. [http://www.secrettechnology.com/death/deathspin.htm]

Here follows a link to "Jason Nelson Speaks from the Machine" including a photo of Jason Nelson giving lecture with "Between Treacherous Objects" [http://www.secrettechnology.com/between/between.html] featured behind him. The photo was taken at Penn State University. [http://grandtextauto.org/2006/11/08/jason-nelson-speaks-from-the-machine/]

For further art analysis I advise visiting Autostart: A Festival of Digital Literature: [http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/autostart_bios.html] and reviewing some of the material he has posted about himself on the main websites (reference secrettechnology.com and heliozoa.com)

References

(1) http://www.griffith.edu.au/school/art/staff/nelson.htm

(2) http://www.secrettechnology.com/

(3) http://www.let.uu.nl/alw/frame/en/forthcoming.shtml

(4) http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2007/11/wildness-in-corner-discussion-with.html

(5) http://www.arcticacre.com/jasoncv.htm

(6) http://www.heliozoa.com/

(7) http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/culturevulture/archives/2006/07/19/site_of_the_wee_23.html

(8) http://grandtextauto.org/2006/11/08/jason-nelson-speaks-from-the-machine/

(9) http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/autostart_bios.html