‘Technician of the Beautiful’

The space poem entitled Ágora, which is also a holopoem (1986), seems at the crossroads between many of your creations. The green shimmering light echoes your first holopoems (Holo/Olho in 1983, OCO in 1985, Ágora and Chaos in 1986, to name a few) but also Alba (2000). Time Capsule (1997) finds an echo in Ágora as it is enclosed in a capsule as well; Ágora goes beyond the moon that Adsum (2019) features; the biotopes entitled Specimen of Secrecy about Marvelous Discoveries welcome one living organism called Apsides, an astronomical phenomenon which is also present in Ágora’s potential orbital trajectories. Although different and unique at first glance, your creations proceed from a coherent whole and continuum. Could you explain how your inventions form a semiological continuum?

There are indeed differences and similarities in the connections that you’ve observed. When dealing with optical phenomena, green is a very important color. It is in the middle of the spectrum, has a broad range of frequencies, and is the color that the human eye is most sensitive to. Holo/Olho, OCO, and Chaos are reflection holograms, and Ágora is a transmission hologram. This is a bit technical, but it is an important distinction due to the context and different aesthetic experiences that these holopoems allow. With Ágora I have very little space in the rocket; so the question is: how can I send a complete work with very little space? In a transmission hologram, it’s much easier to explore the unique holographic phenomenon of the part containing the whole. While this phenomenon is true in any hologram, in a laser transmission hologram you can readily see it. I cut Ágora into a small fragment, to match my available space, but you can still see the entire content of the original laser hologram in its glorious glistening green. It is this small fragment (containing the whole verdant image) that will be in permanent orbit in deep space.

In a recent interview,1 you defined poetry as ‘language hacking’. Would you say the choice of the title Ágora takes part in that disruptive logic as well?

It goes without saying that when writers begin to develop their personal approach to poetry they do so within an already constituted linguistic social fabric and an awareness of the specific history of poetry itself. With Proust we have the notion that ‘chaque écrivain est obligé de se faire sa langue’, with which I agree entirely. So, when I define poetry as ‘language hacking’, I seek to simultaneously highlight two things: 1) poetry, by virtue of its difference from common speech and standard writing, intervenes in received language by altering it; 2) at the same time, a unique poetic vision is much more than an intervention in an already constituted verbal pattern, for it constitutes a world onto itself, a domain of creativity with its own logic and rules. Ágora is an unprecedented poem that combines compact physical size (derived from the unique holographic property of the part containing the whole), word-and-image poetry encoded holographically (which can be activated with a laser), propagating light (once activated, light is diffracted and travels in spacetime, thus making the poem visible), and large-scale temporality in a perpetual interplanetary orbit (like the planets, Ágora will orbit the Sun). Ágora is more than just ‘hacking’ in the traditional computer sense; it is the creation of something new. I created this poem in 1986 and I have been trying to complete it since then. Ágora is finally scheduled to fly to deep space in December 2023.2

Your explanatory web page on Ágora reveals the way the space poem was technically created (we notably see your own hands trimming a holographic plate and a green laser at work). We can understand what it is composed of (light particles, silver halide on glass, a titanium case). With the diagram representing the poem’s future location within the spacecraft and the scientifically based hypotheses that figure out the potential trajectory of Ágora once sent in orbit, we also grasp that the artistic project depends on uncontrollable factors. Indeed, Ágora’s orbit will depend on the Moon’s position on flight day. Does Ágora have a relationship to the Moon? If so, what is it?

No, Ágora has no relationship to the Moon. Ágora will be aboard the Centaur V rocket, which is not going to orbit nor land on the Moon. Before flying to its deep space orbit, the Centaur V rocket has to place a NASA payload into position to intercept the Moon. This will happen 360,000 km above the Earth. To have an idea of what this means, we may consider that the distance between the Earth and the Moon is approximately 380,000 km. Once the Centaur V places the NASA payload into position to intercept the Moon, the payload goes to the Moon and the Centaur V rocket continues its trajectory beyond the Earth-Moon system. So, the only uncontrollable factor is the exact day of the flight, which is largely a function of the weather. Once Centaur V flies, we’ll know what is Ágora’s exact heliocentric orbit.

According to your experience and ideas, what is the poet’s function? Should they decipher symbols, lead peoples, invent new languages, unite humanity and the universe, be a technician of the beautiful?

I don’t think we can determine a specific function for poets. I fear that the notion of ‘function’ may sound bureaucratic. The absolute freedom granted by the pursuit of poetry stands for a more general sense of the value of freedom. Poets can be social leaders if they have the necessary political, economic, and ethical skills. The deciphering of symbols sounds more like a hermeneutic task. The poet shall invent new forms, not necessarily new languages in the sense of Lingua Ignota, Esperanto, Sindarin, or Klingon. My space poems do seek to bring together humanity and the universe. ‘Technician of the beautiful’ is a very nice way of describing what a poet does.

Ágora seems to be both a poetic and technical object. If it does not disintegrate in space, other civilisations might see it as a UFO. It might represent the idea that there is life beyond our limited time and space frames, a technological growth that we should accept and embrace. Within galaxies, the 0.8 cm x 0.8 cm poem might be seen as an infinitesimal point where matter and light particles are concentrated. Would you agree that Ágora is a singularity?

I’d say that any poem is both a poetic and technical object. A poem in a book has to be printed and bound using a particular technology. The paper sheet itself has to be produced using specific technologies. The book has to be distributed employing transportation technologies. The book is manipulated according to usability conventions that follow these technologies. Finally, the ability to read the language in which the poem is written is a technical skill. Language itself is a technology. The only difference is that we’re familiar with the poem in a book, so it doesn’t feel ‘technical’. I have created something new, so it feels ‘strange’ due to lack of familiarity. This feeling, however, will change in time. In regards to the size of the hologram (0.8 cm x 0.8 cm), I should clarify that the poem itself, as propagating light, has no specific size. The small hologram is where the information is recorded, but once the laser shines on the hologram, light diffracts and the content propagates and expands in spacetime.

You created poems that explore the sensory aspect of the world (olfactory poems with Aromapoetry, holographic poems that require a kinetic experience from observers). Have you thought about taking into account its sonorous dimension?

I have discarded sound for two fundamental reasons, which we may describe as external and internal to the work respectively. The external reason is the fact that sound does not propagate in space, because sound is air vibration and there is no air in space. The internal reason is the material logic of the work that is irreducibly holographic, in the sense that the part (the fragment of the hologram that will travel to deep space) contains the whole (the entire visual content of the whole original hologram). Sound does not share this logic; in fact, no other medium does. Only holography possesses it.

Your web page exhibits the poem held between your thumb and index finger and shows its future position within a capsule located at the front of the Centaur rocket launched in orbit around the Sun. Does your creation stimulate the plurality and simultaneity of observation scales? Is it a new epistemological challenge?

Ágora is not only the first poem/artwork to explore the unique holographic characteristic I mentioned in the previous answer (the part containing the whole), but also the first to travel in interplanetary space in perpetuity. The contrast between these two extremes is pronounced, because the size of the hologram that will be in permanent heliocentric orbit is 0.8 x 0.8 cm, which is to say: very small. It goes without saying that deep space is vast, immense. To understand and respond to Ágora requires what we may call ‘cosmic empathy’, in other words, the ability to look up at the sky and not just see bright dots but understand and feel our relative position in the universe, as if we could look back at the Earth from the perspective of the stars. This is where we may locate the epistemological challenge you allude to. In a very direct, unambiguous way, Ágora is a work conceived for and implemented at an interplanetary scale.

Surprisingly enough, the possible target of the rocket and space poem reminds us of Copernic’s heliocentric system. Are you willing to renew Copernic’s view with the mention of the aphelion and perihelion positions within your hypothetical graphs featuring Ágora’s trajectory?

Following the information provided by United Launch Alliance, the company that will fly the rocket, I have recorded the aphelion and perihelion positions of Centaur V because it is interesting to know how far and how close Ágora will be from the Sun during its stable orbit. Understanding Ágora’s orbit also helps us see how far and how close it will be from the solar system planets that it will intersect. Based on the information that I have at present, the orbital diagram I included on my website is the one most likely to be accurate. If this diagram turns out to be the correct one (out of three possibilities), at its aphelion Ágora will be between Earth and Mars, and at its perihelion it will be between Earth and Venus. We’ll know the exact orbit once the rocket flies.3

It seems that the name of the spacecraft (Vulcan) that will welcome your space poem comes from the hypothetical existence of a planet that would have explained Mercury’s odd orbit in the nineteenth century, according to Newtonian gravity (finally debunked by Einstein). Will your poem leave the solar system? Does your invention consider these parameters? Can this unexpectedness be grasped metaphorically?

The rocket is called Vulcan Centaur and is essentially composed of two parts, already indicated in its name. The first stage, at the bottom of the rocket, often called a booster, is the one that lifts off the ground; this is the part that is called Vulcan. At the top of the first stage is the Centaur V spacecraft, where Ágora is located. About five minutes into flight, the Vulcan engines will be turned off, and the Vulcan booster will separate from the Centaur upper stage; soon after, Centaur V will be ignited and will proceed with its flight, already separated from the booster (which will fall and burn upon contact with the atmosphere). Ágora will not leave the solar system; it will be far out in deep space, but it will remain in heliocentric orbit, which is to say, inside the solar system. Centaur V is made of a special alloy of stainless steel and will stay intact for hundreds of thousands of years as it moves through deep space. Ágora is inside a custom-made Titanium 5 capsule, which gives it additional protection. The history of science plays no role in this work; the future of poetry does.

Your space poem is focused on interplanetary orbital trajectories. Is the hypothesis of the spacecraft (hence the space poem), revolving around the Sun, the Earth, and Venus with two intersection points with the Earth’s rotation line a scientifically grounded hypothesis?

Ágora was conceived for deep space. In the cosmos everything is in motion. The planets revolve around the Sun, which revolves around the center of our galaxy. Our galaxy itself is moving in the direction of the Andromeda Galaxy (and vice versa). Once Ágora flies, which is planned for December 2023, we’ll know exactly which orbit it will inhabit and what planetary orbits it will intersect. This will depend on the exact day of the flight.

Surgeons, in order to cure cataracts, also use the YAG laser that helped create the space poem. Can I try a medical metaphor in saying that your sent space poem might lift a veil on another unseen side of space? On the other hand, is your space poem a way to revivify holopoetry, which might be understood as a fixed genre? By sending a former holopoem to space, it might help to change the time and space frame of the genre. Holopoetry thus continues its evolutionary course around the Sun. Do you agree?

No, I don’t agree because Ágora was created in 1986 specifically to fly to deep space. So, I’m not ‘sending a former holopoem to space’; I’m completing a project that started decades ago and that was always intended for deep space. The term ‘deep space’ means space beyond the Earth-Moon system. I have been trying for decades to complete this work, but access to space beyond the Moon is the most difficult to obtain. This is why it has taken so long. I’ve never given up, but I also never knew if I would be able to complete it. Concerning lasers, it is important to point out that they can be quite different, depending on the intended application. The same is true for YAG lasers. When the intended application is surgery, a key concern is the amount of power or energy that will reach the tissue. Lasers for holography are intended to record information through light interference, so the primary concern is both spatial and temporal coherence, meaning: all waves coming from a given laser must behave exactly the same way. There’s also the fact that, given their intended applications, YAG lasers used for surgery are typically not in the visible spectrum, while lasers used for holography usually are. In other words, the YAG laser I used to make Ágora is different from the lasers used for cataract surgery.

In 1986, you already had the idea of sending a holographic poem towards Andromeda. That project comes true in 2023! You also sent a monogram on a probe in 1997 and ‘lagoglyphic messages’ towards a star in 2009; you had a space poem created in space (Inner Telescope, in 2017, with Thomas Pesquet) and sent Adsum to the International Space Station in 2022, in preparation for sending it to the Moon.4 Space creations are a constant creative target. Will there be other space projects after Ágora?

It could be said that, by placing Ágora in heliocentric orbit, I’m leveraging our galaxy’s movement through the universe to send Ágora in the direction of Andromeda, because the entire Milky Way is moving in that direction. The reverse is also true: Andromeda is moving in our direction as well. Another way of saying this is that both galaxies are moving in each other’s direction pulled by their mutual gravity. My work Monogram was aboard Cassini; it entered orbit around Saturn in 2004 and, in 2017, Cassini deliberately dived into Saturn’s atmosphere, burned up, and disintegrated. The lagoglyphic messages were transmitted to the Lepus Constellation and shall arrive in 2038. Inner Telescope was made in space to explore the unique aesthetic possibilities of zero gravity, which is important because it opens up the notion of making art in space, for space. If all goes according to plan, the sculptural version of Adsum shall fly to the Moon in 2025, thus completing it. Concerning future projects, yes, there are, but I prefer to not comment on them yet. I’m very focused on completing Ágora, which is planned to fly in December 2023, and Adsum, that, as I just mentioned, is scheduled to fly to the Moon in 2025. To complete these works requires an immense amount of effort, so it’s best to remain concentrated and discuss new projects when they naturally move to the foreground. Let’s revisit this topic in a few years. Thanks for your patience.