Ranger is an online literary journal of avant garde literature, music, video and visual art; the 13th issue was released recently containing the usual smorgasbord of weird and wonderful challenging works. I’m pleased to be represented in this issue with the glitch music video “Reality Programmer,” which includes difficult music from Hearasay in Paradox Lust.
You can view the video in Ranger here.
While reviewing my YouTube channel yesterday, I discovered that one of my earliest videos had been removed for “violating YouTube’s Terms of Service.” I never received prior notification of this removal, so I’m not sure when this actually happened. Checking out the video, I noticed it does include swastikas among the imagery, before they are mirrored and distorted into abstract, “asemic” shapes. I assume the appearance of swastikas alone was enough to justify the removal, because there’s nothing about the video that engages or discusses Nazis or fascism. Or “flat earth theory” for that matter.
The source for “Earth Remains Flat” is newsreel footage from WWII which represents Nazi war efforts, taken from a video series about the history of the war. Neither the original newsreel nor the video program were promoting fascism or Nazism. Likewise, my video was not promoting or glorifying any ideology or theory–neither Nazism or “flat earth theory.” Instead, “Earth Remains Flat” deconstructs–or detournes–the original newsreel footage using various video effects (including glitching and mirroring) to demonstrate the warping of truth and fact that accompanies the downfall of nations and cultures. Overlaying the imagery is an excerpt from a longer poem, also titled “Earth Remains Flat”: “earth remains flat/at the edge–as if/land ends/here.”
Here’s the complete poem:
“Earth Remains Flat” is part of a series of poems called “Civilization’s Lost,” which explores the fragility of nations, cultures and languages by examining lost cities and civilizations around the world. The poems in the series were published in a variety of literary journals, including Empty Mirror, BlazeVox, Futures Trading, Word 4/Word, Streetcake and Yggdrasil. Both the poem and the video for “Earth Remains Flat” were published in Otoliths #45, from 2017, along with several still images taken from the film. Neither the editor or anyone else has ever alerted me to an issue with the appearance of swastikas in the video.
YouTube cites their “Hate speech policy” as the reason for the removal of the “Earth Remains Flat” video: “Content that incites hatred against individuals or groups based on their protected group status isn’t allowed on YouTube. This may include inferiority claims and/or conspiracy theories. We review educational, documentary, artistic, and scientific content on a case-by-case basis. Limited exceptions are made for content with sufficient and appropriate context.” The video includes no “inferiority claims” or racism, and no “conspiracy theories” and has no content to “incite hatred” against anyone.
I initiated a “review” with YouTube, so we’ll see what comes from that. I suspect that there may not have been a complaint about the video, but that some AI may have detected the swastika and flagged the whole video.
Ranger literary magazine released two issues this winter (!). I had poetry in issue #8. In issue #9, one of my glitch videos is included “That’s Edutainment.” Possibly could be filed under “video poetry”? You can check it out here. The video features music from Hearasay in Paradox Lust, a project which has a brand new Bandcamp page here.
Ranger literary magazine picks up where Angry Old Man (aka, Son of Angry Old Man) left off. It picks up the avant garde literary baton recently passed on by the now defunct Otoliths. Highly recommended.
Ranger Magazine #4 was released in January 2024 featuring a wide array of experimental work in many formats. I’m pleased to be represented with two videos and six poems. The videos are “Tiger Song” and “ET ABC,” both featuring asemic language imagery and asemic vocals in the electronic soundtrack by Hearasay in Paradox Lust. The poems are “baiting,” “better get,” “whether tube or tunnel,” “we must,” “pointers pointing,” and “way out.” You can view the videos here and the poems here.
Ranger is a new literary magazine focusing on experimental text, visual and hybrid work from the editor of the defunct Angry Old Man journal. Ranger #2 was released on August 3, filled with experiments of all kinds. Witness the contents here. I’m pleased to be represented by a portfolio of new work including video, video stills/vispo, and text pieces.
My video “Phantom Broadcast” features asemic visual elements and an electronic soundtrack that includes asemic vocalizations. I pulled 20 stills from the video to demonstrate the asemic text. You can view this stuff here.
There are also seven text pieces, including “can’t go back,” “Good Times,” “It’s down to this,” “collect afraid,” “A Resource,” “There goes another angel,” and “Click the topic to access a collection of images.” You can read them here.
The last issue of Otoliths, Issue 70 for Southern Winter, was published July 30, and it bows out in classic encyclopedic style, covering an even wider gathering of experimental poets, writers and artists from around the world than ever before. As editor Mark Young noted in his announcement email, “This last issue is immense & ranges from the dunes of Oceano across to the battlefields of Ukraine, from Scandinavia down to the unceded lands of South Australia. It contains reviews, memoirs, collages, photographs, paintings, vispo, text poems, short stories, videos, combinations of the preceding plus a few other things.” The contents is too huge to paste on this post, but can be marveled at here.
I can’t say enough good things about Otoliths, as it has always seemed like the literary journal of record for the “international avant garde” ever since I discovered it in 2016, and I’ve been grateful for all the times my work has appeared on its pages. This last blast is no exception. You can find new video, vispo and text from me in these pages.
My video “New Brain Imprint” incorporates asemic textual elements in the imagery as well as what I’m calling “asemic vocalizations” in the electronic soundtrack (credited to my music project Hearasay in Paradox Lust). You can view the video here. There are ten stills pulled from the video, demonstrating the asemic text, which can be viewed here. There are also ten text pieces here, including “some functions of lingual,” “say out noise,” “tailing action float,” “talker view,” “day lag,” “palest pensive,” “nettle pack lock swell,” “laugh track to everything,” “gurgle, fetter, blessed,” and “This Immersion.”
Otoliths will be missed. It’s passing leaves a huge void in the literary journal world. But we will (hopefully) have the online archives in perpetuity, and there are print versions to be acquired on Lulu. Long live Otoliths!
The penultimate issue of Otoliths was released over the weekend; this one is number 69 for Southern Autumn 2023. As usual, it ranges widely across a variety of literary and artistic genres and hybrids from a huge cast of international contributors. One can but go to the contents page and begin selecting works to view for an encyclopedic snapshot of the artistic “avant garde.”
I’m pleased to be represented in this issue with text, vispo and video works. The five text pieces include: “Is It Ever This,” “untitled [better the day of/tomorrow],” “In case of,” “issue tote,” and “Past Ratchet.” The vispo are still images pulled from a video I made a few weeks ago, called “Hieroglyphic Avalanche,” because that’s pretty much what you get: a moving script of asemic ideograms or hieroglyphs rushing by in relentlessly kaleidoscopic neon metamorphosis. There are 20 stills pulled to demonstrate some of the individual characters.
My goal with recent video work has been to create works with asemic images and soundtracks that use “asemic vocalizations.” I had wanted to do a long form piece, and at just over 17 minutes, “Hieroglyphic Avalanche” gets the job done on all counts. (I must apologize if YouTube includes advertisements before and during playback; that’s not by my choice, I don’t know why they are there, and I’m receiving no remuneration for these intrusions.)
You can check out my text pieces here. The vispo and video link can be found here.
Otoliths #68, the Southern Summer 2023 issue, was released today. As always, crammed with text, vispo, mixed media and unclassifiable works from across the international literary avant garde. Follow the linked text to the contents for full details. Hours of great reading/viewing.
I’m pleased to be represented in this issue by an array of work, including five text pieces from my most recent explorations, plus the short asemic video “Codex Null” and five still images taken from the video. You can check out the poems here, and the vispo here. The poems are “Bird Lessons,” “Magnified Channels,” “leak allusion,” “more so,” and “Later Mages.”
jeff bagato 