My poster will be full of works of participants of the first Russian Laboratory of Mediapoetry 101 for teenagers (12-19 years old). It just turned out that the fate of the project is closely related to circumstances of pandemic that is why a search for new forms of creative cooperation, ways of communication and methods of creating new projects has become overarching issue of the work of the laboratory participants.

I am the curator of the Mediapoetry Laboratory 101. Although “curator” is poorly conclusive definition. An ideologist, a dreamer, an inspirer, the one who has got a grant (financial support) from the government for a genre of mediapoetry which is not recognized in Russia yet. The project got the grant in February, 2020. My gladness did not see any limits. Off-line sessions had to start from April, 2020, but everyone knows what prevented it to happen.

The terms of the project were extended for several times in accordance with a level of my optimism. Either to autumn or to winter. Due to formal limitations and restrictions of the grant I found myself among different restrictions: necessity to hold the Laboratory not later the spring 2021, to hold at least some meetings offline. But at the same moment the government makes new resolutions not in advance enough. All of us know about new rules approximately a day before the come into force. And for the audience of my laboratory the restrictions were the most severe ones.

However I believe that, such disempowerment is breeding ground for creators. Isn’t it allowed to gather in the room? We will prepare a media poetic walk&performance. Isn’t it allowed to come up to each other closer than 1,5 meter? We will make a performance about disengagement and invisible relations. Isn’t it allowed to go out? We are glad to remember about air mail and surface mail, about telegrams and helium balloons.

Students of the Laboratory have been already chosen and are on the point of starting the work. In April I will see different projects in mediapoetry genre: games, performances, chat-poetry, texting-games, locative narrative etc. I am sure that we are waited by interesting experience of creative work. The teenagers are very flexible they needed just a little time to get used to new communicative reality of the pandemic, switching over to distant studying was easier for them than for teachers. To my mind, adolescents have better skills of new media language. They are more organic in using it that means they have greater chances to leap forward from creative and semantic point of view. Together with this young audience we are going to discuss about culture of platforms, how they have changed visually and our feelings about communication with society, what we have known about ourselves during lockdown and how to create and keep creative collaborations.

Results of this breathtaking work will be presented by me at the conference as a poster which unites works of the Laboratory participants, their thoughts, discoveries and predictions.

The Mediapoetry Laboratory 101: new forms of creative cooperation

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