Cody on Cage on Joyce by Cody Trepte

Cody on Cage on Joyce (2008) is “a writing through a writing” according to the artist’s own description (Trepte, Rhizome.org). Cody Trepte pays tribute to two of the artists who inspired him: James Joyce and John Cage. He gives us a powerful sense of artistic legacy (Trepte), updating their early works using his random word generation program. Trepte employs 21st century technology to rework the text of Fourth Writing through Finnegan’s Wake (1972). Written by avant-garde artist John Cage, Fourth Writing was, in turn, based on randomized selections of Finnegans Wake a novel written by James Joyce in 1939. Joyce’s contribution to this litany of randomization is, in itself, idiosyncratic (Wikipedia). Joyce spent almost 20 years combining over 60 languages into an invented strange language for the book he wanted “to convey what goes on in a dream, during a dream”.

Like Joyce’s Finnegans Wake and Cage’s Fourth Writing through Finnegan’s Wake, Cody on Cage on Joyce pokes light-hearted fun at our need to make sense out of nonsense. In all three works, letters as well as words are combined at random. Capital letters appear anywhere within a group of letters, suspending our normal rules of language to create that dream quality.

Unlike Joyce’s or Cage’s work, however, Cody on Cage on Joyce is not static, finalized into a permanent text. It is plastic, changing with each ‘refresh’ of the browser. Trepte felt the internet was the perfect medium for Cody on Cage on Joyce (Trepte) and I agree. Although the text is considered “unreadable” (Rhizome.org) the fun of this project is to try: try to read it, try to make sense of it, try it on again. The project has the feel of a magic eight ball where we eagerly await the next ‘answer’, no matter how absurd. After each new selection we have an opportunity to generate a new story of our very own. Each new refresh has a charming quality of personal possession since nobody else will ever have exactly the same version. My inability to post a section of the text from the "launch Art" site, makes that feeling even stronger. I accessed the work at Rhizome.org but it is also available on CD.

The poetic-verse structure of Cody on Cage on Joyce elicits the comforting sense of rhythm that poetry provides. It is enlightening and delightful when we experience the limitless power of our brains to create new connections and produce our own story from the available ‘nonsense’ and randomness. Personally, I found it is endlessly entertaining.

Citations:

Trepte, Cody. …might be good. Artist Space: Cody Trepte [Internet]. Available at http://www.fluentcollab.org/mbg/index.php/artistsspace/index/94.

Trepte, Cody. Cody on Cage on Joyce [Internet]. Available at https://webmail.smcm.edu/OWA/redir.aspx?C=ba769135409f4b159836432cdf201072&URL=http%3a%2f%2frhizome.org%2fobject.php%3f48567

Trepte, Cody. Statements: Cody Trepte [Internet]. Available at https://webmail.smcm.edu/OWA/redir.aspx?C=ba769135409f4b159836432cdf201072&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.codytrepte.com%2findex.php%3f%2finfo%2fstatements%2f.

Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia, Finnegans Wake [Internet]. Available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnegans_Wake.