Digital Zoopoetics
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14195/2182-8830_11-1_8Keywords:
zoopoetics, digital zoopoetics, animal studies, digital poetry, artificial intelligence, machine learningAbstract
This article discusses the emergence of a genre of technologically mediated, computationally networked zoopoetic practices. I approach this discussion through an analysis of contemporary examples of zoopoetry, firstly drawing on print-based examples such as the poetry of e. e. cummings and the poetic animal dialogue of the novelist Laura Jean McKay. I then consider the ways in which digital technologies and digital aesthetics have the potential to add modes and imaginaries to zoopoetic authorial practices. I introduce digital zoopoetics through the creation of two related digital interfaces: The (m)Otherhood of Meep (2023) and The Songbird Speaks (2024-ongoing). These works invite new imaginaries for interspecies signal interpretation through machine learning technology by moving towards generative interspecies translation as its own zoopoetic form. From the practical contribution to zoopoetics that these works make, I offer a non-exhaustive series of suggested affordances of digital and computational aesthetics that come forth as representative of a digital zoopoetry form.
Downloads
References
ANDREAS, Jacob, Gasper Begus, Michael M. Bronstein, Roee Diamant, et al. (2022). “Toward understanding the communication in sperm whales.” IScience 25, no.6. DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104393.
AZMA, Sheeva (2002). “Poem-painter: E. E. Cummings’ Artistic Mastery of Words.” SPRING: The Journal of the E. E. Cummings Society 11: 79-88.
BAKKER, Karen (2022). The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology Is Bringing Us Closer to the Worlds of Animals and Plants. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
BENJAMIN, Walter (1999 [1934]). “Franz Kafka: On the Tenth Anniversary of His Death.” In Selected Writings, edited by Michael W. Jennings et al., 794–818. MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
BROWNE, Josephine (2021). “Speculative pandemic challenge to human exceptionalism.” TEXT 25.2. https://textjournal.scholasticahq.com/article/29570.pdf [21 Feb 2023].
CARTER, Marcus, Sarah Webber, and Sally Sherwen (2015). “Naturalism and ACI: Augmenting Zoo Enclosures with Digital Technology.” Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology—ACE ’15: 1–5. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2832932.2837011
COHEN, Milton (1987). POETandPAINTER: the Aesthetics of E. E. Cummings’s Early Work. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
CHRISTESEN, Linda and John Nelson (2000). “Vocal communication in the Grey-headed Flyingfox Pteropus poliocephalus (Chiroptera: Pteropodidae).” Australian Zoologist 31, no. 3: 447–457. DOI: 10.7882/AZ.2000.005.
CUMMINGS, Edward Estlin (1935) No Thanks. New York: The Golden Eagle Press.
DEMELLO, Margo, (Ed.) (2013). Speaking for Animals: Animal Autobiographical Writing. New York and London: Routledge.
DERRIDA, Jacques (2008). The Animal That Therefore I am. New York: Fordham University Press.
DRISCOLL, Kári and Eva Hoffmann. (2018). What Is Zoopoetics?: Texts, Bodies, Entanglement. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
FRENCH, Fiona, Clara Mancini, and Helen Sharp (2016). “Exploring Methods for Interaction Design with Animals: A Case-Study with Valli.” Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Animal-Computer Interaction—ACI ’16: 15–17. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2995257.2995394.
FUNKHOUSER, Chris (2012). New Directions in Digital Poetry. London: Bloomsbury Press.
HAGIWARA, Masato (2023). “AVES: Animal Vocalization Encoder Based on Self-Supervision.” IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), Rhodes Island, Greece: 1–5. DOI: 10.1109/ICASSP49357.2023.10095642.
HAREL, Naama (2020). Kafka’s Zoopoetics Beyond the Human-Animal Barrier. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
HIRSKYJ-DOUGLAS, Ilyena, Patricia Pons, Janet Read, and Javier Jaen (2018). “Seven Years after the Manifesto: Literature Review and Research Directions for Technologies in Animal Computer Interaction.” Multimodal Technologies and Interaction 2.30. DOI: 10.3390/mti2020030.
JACOBS, Joela (2018). “The Grammar of Zoopoetics: Human and Canine Language Play.” In What Is Zoopoetics?, edited by Kári Driscoll and Eva Hoffmann, 63–81. London: Palgrave.
KRAUTH, Alinta (2018). “Electronic Literature.” In The SAGE Encyclopedia of The Internet, edited by Barney Warf. Washington DC: SAGE Publications. https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/skpromo/aTsCiB/the-sage-encyclopedia-of-the-internet-3v/i3897.xml?PageNum=323.
_____ (2020). “Making-with: Nonhuman Animal Inclusivity in an Electronic Literature Practice.” ACI’2020 10–12. DOI: 10.1145/3446002.3446051.
_____ (2024). “What the Songbird Speaks: AI interspecies translation interfaces.” The Digital Review 4. DOI: 10.7273/bpw7-an93.
KULICK, Don (2017). “Human–Animal Communication.” Annual Review of Anthropology 46: 357-378. DOI: 10.1146/annurev-anthro-102116-041723.
KUZNIAR, Alice (2006). Melancholia’s Dog. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
MOREY, Sean (2019). “Speculative Zoopoetics.” In Rhetorical Speculations: The future of rhetoric, writing, and technology, edited by Scott Sundvall, 45–66. Denver: University Press of Colorado.
MCHUGH, Susan (2009). ”Animal Farm’s Lessons for Literary (and) Animal Studies.” Humanimalia 1, no.1: 24–39. DOI: 10.52537/humanimalia.10115.
MCKAY, Laura Jean (2020). The Animals in That Country. Melbourne: Scribe
_____ (2020). The Animals in That Country. Melbourne: Scribe (e-book).
MOE, Aaron (2013a). “Toward Zoopoetics: Rethinking Whitman’s ‘original energy’.” Walt Whitman Quarterly Review 31, no.1: 1–17. DOI: 10.13008/0737-0679.2091
_____ (2013b). Zoopoetics: Animals and the Making of Poetry. London: Lexington Books.
_____ (2015). “Thirteen Ways of Reading EEC’s R-O-U-N-D MoOn: And the Making of a Poem.” Grand Valley State University online documents. https://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/cummings/Moe_21.pdf. Accessed 1 June 2023.
NAJI, Jeneen (2021). Digital Poetry. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
NELSON, Jason (2021). “Poetic Playlands: Poetry, Interface, and Video Game Engines.” In Electronic Literature as Digital Humanities: Contexts, Forms, and Practices, edited by Dene Grigar and James O’Sullivan, 335–350. New York: Bloomsbury.
RUZKOWSKI, Andrew (2013). “E-Poetry and (Non-)Human Nature: The Space and Place of Eco-Poetics in Digital Lit.” Poets’ Quarterly. https://www.poetsquarterly.com/2013/04/e-poetry-and-non-human-nature.html. Accessed 12 Jan. 2024.
SENIOR, Matthew, David Clark, Carla Freccero (2015). “Editor’s Preface: “Ecce animot”: Postanimality from Cave to Screen.” Yale French Studies 127: 1-18.
SMITH, John and Harper, David (2003). Animal Signals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
WEBBER, Sarah, Marcus Carter, Wally Smith, Zaher Joukhadar, & Frank Vetere (2020). “Co-Designing with Orangutans: Enhancing the Design of Enrichment for Animals.” DIS ‘20: Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference. 1713–1725. DOI: 10.1145/3357236.3395559.
WEBSTER, Michael (2000). “E. E. Cummings: The New Nature Poetry and the Old.” SPRING: The Journal of the E. E. Cummings Societ 9: 109–124.
WITTGENSTEIN, Ludwig (1958) Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd.
ZIOLKOWSKI, Theodore (1983). Varieties of Literary Thematics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Alinta Krauth
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
MATLIT embraces full open access to all issues. Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
- A CC licensing information in a machine-readable format is embedded in all articles published by MATLIT.
- Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
- No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Notices:
- You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.
- No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.
