Thursday, November 19, 2009

Out of nothing is a fascinating website. I'm into the set up, the design of it, the sheer black backdrop, the gray gradients of speech boxes and text, or the sudden splashes of color on one of the many pages available for pouring over. It feels like their name- the space of the website seems to grow out of nothingness, this blackness and darkness.
The writing presented here is fabulous. I am getting into the out of nothing our souls burst forth like shelling peanuts. The second selection there, by Jared Woodland is a dizzying, dark and magical tale of a character somewhat out of sorts, laying down in a gutter, welcoming cockroaches to crawl all up on his hands. The piece contains no use of punctuation, is one continuous maniacal speeding train of consciousness, naming no characters, only speaking in the first and second person. I like how this selection of work is arranged, each individual piece classified within a block similar to those of the elements on the periodic table. Its as if when combined, all the elements of this selection form something, out of nothing, out of words which are really only still artifice.

I found Sidebrow's website far less appealing to my eye and attention than out of nothing. Their page looks old, outdated, simple white and html basic text with hardly any color. I did find it interestiong to place the main contents skewed over to the right hand side of the page rather than the usual left, an unexpected feature. However when I went to go read some of the work I was not intrigued, they open and appear as mere word documents, receiving no real special treatment to make the text feel and look more readable and manageable to the online blog reading literary audience. Upon more investigation, however, some of the projects are rather thrilling and weird like the Ghost Project, presented as images and texts approaching the issue of embodiment and other worldliness present in our physical realm of existence. I'm reeled into the story here, still wanting more from the website. Simplicity though is always welcome. I'd just say this site is slightly minimal for my taste.
love, Ben

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