2004 Rockefeller New Media Foundation Proposal

Abstract

Poet in New York is an interactive non-linear documentary that explores the intersection of new media and poetry, showing the journey of a young Latin American poet in the streets and landscapes of New York. Inspired in the book "Poet in New York" by Federico Garcia Lorca, this project attempts to exhibit the romantic intensity and urban poetics of the most desired city of our time. From Harlem to the Brooklyn Bridge, walking around the alleys of Chinatown and the piers of the West Village, New York turns into a multidimensional city, where each corner portrays a vivid poetic experience, described by Lorca as 'poetic facts'. The film will be rendered on real-time using a G5 computer, combining 89 short videos, 34 spoken poems and 13 musical compositions, all centered in the figure and daily events of a 26 years old poet in New York. As a result, the viewer will experience a multimedia film filled with emotive scenes, juxtaposing the bucolic interior of the poet and the metropolitan surface of the city. All the content will be combined using a random-based algorithm which comprises 39.338 possible ways to contemplate the movie.