Mediakult is very pleased to be presenting the work of Mez Breeze this month on All about X, 0 and 1. I first came across Mez in 1995 when I joined the Nettime list, when at the time Mez was publishing a lot of her poetic code work known as Mezangelle. Here is some information from Wikipedia:
Mezangelle is a type of poetry Breeze developed in the 1990s using Internet text language found in ASCII codes, online games, and other forms of Internet communication. “Mezangelle” refers both to the works themselves and the hybrid language in which they are composed—codeworks of this sort “playfully utilize programming terminology and syntax” (Sondheim, Alan. Introduction: Codeworks) alongside “human-only” or so-called natural language, creating a creolized language that combines human language and code. In these works, the primary message is semantically overcoded in such a way that multiple different readings are made possible.
Our paths ‘virtually’ crossed again when we were both included in the 2000 publication of the Net Art Guide, (Fraunhofer IRB Verlag, 2000), compiled by the Electronic Business Innovation Center (EBIC) based in Stuttgart, Germany.
Since her early days of creating code poetry, Mez has gone on to create and collaborate on many interesting projects. For example, she also explores and exploits environments that involve online socializations or encounters. Such encounters involve the modification of online gaming environments, such as World of Warcraft, EVE Online, and Second Life, and social networking and alternate gaming software such as Facebook, Passively Multimedia Online Game (PMOG) and Twitter. As a member of the online group Third Faction, Mez has been involved in a number of in-game projects within World of Warcraft, with the aim of disrupting and challenging the combative structure of the game. In this way, Breeze challenges the assumed binary division between the online environment and the real world, and acts to subvert the factionalized “confrontational player-vs-player interaction” ( Evans, Sally. ‘The Anti-Logos Weapon’: Excesses of Meaning and Subjectivity in Mezangelle Poetry) that the game world tries to enforce. Breeze’s use of multiple avatars for her digital works further emphasizes the breakdown of the division between digital and real selves.
Other recent projects include The Dead Tower, a collaboration with Andy Campbell, (see a review by Leonardo Flores) and a book titled Human Readable Messages.
For her submission to the ‘All about x, 0 and 1’ program, Mez provided us with a great video of what it means to be a networked artist. Hope you enjoy it!
Mediakult 