"Rilke and the Archaic Torso", by Edward Picot

"How does Rilke get from his admiration of the statue to his closing phrase - 'Du mußt dein Leben ändern' ('You must change your life')? Why should a marble torso, however magnificent, seem to be sending him (and us) such a powerful challenge?"

Taking Rilke's famous poem "Archaic Torso of Apollo" as his starting-point, Edward Picot's new work of hyperliterature provides first a commentary on the poem, then an undercommentary, and finally a poetic response of his own, animated in Flash, with hurtling fragments of Greek statuary.

The New Media artist and writer Millie Niss has just opened up her website ( http://sporkworld.org ) to work from guest artists, and Edward Picot is the first to appear there. "Rilke and the Archaic Torso" can be seen at http://sporkworld.org/guestartists/picot/index.html .

- Edward Picot
http://edwardpicot.com - personal website
http://hyperex.co.uk - The Hyperliterature Exchange