Irresponsible Mediums

Poetry. In 1968, avant-garde artist Marcel Duchamp and composer John Cage exhibited "Reunion," a chess performance that took place in Toronto. Whenever Duchamp or Cage moved a piece, it generated a musical note until the game was transformed into a symphony. Inspired by this performance, IRRESPONSIBLE MEDIUMS--poet and academic Aaron Tucker's second full-length collection of poems--translates Duchamp's chess games into poems using the ChessBard (an app co-created by Tucker and Jody Miller) and in the process, recreates Duchamp's joyous approach to making art, while also generating startling computer-made poems that blend the analog and digital in strange and surprising combinations. With an introduction by Jennifer Shahade. "Ever since the IBM computer Deep Blue vanquished Garry Kasparov in a 1997 match, the odds of the strongest grandmasters beating the strongest computer programs at chess continues to diminish. Even as the popularity of chess soars in many areas, artificial chess intelligence is now assumed dominant. We no longer bother with highly publicized Man vs. Machine matches, because the computers would win too easily. By placing poetry side by side with chess, Aaron Tucker reminds us of a not too distant past when we thought a chess-playing robot was far-fetched, and must and may have a human brain underneath it all."--Jennifer Shahade, two time U.S. Women's Chess Champion "Marcel Duchamp's chess games played between 1922-1961 come alive with the Chessbard's translation of those games into poetry. This wonderful book by Aaron Tucker of (close to) 100 Opening, Middle, and End game moves generated from source poems by the author is a must read for Duchamp scholars, Digital Humanists, video game theorists, and chess fans. The poetry, along with the introduction by Jennifer Shahade, chess professional and co-author of Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Chess, sets the context for the art and performative aspect of game play."--Dene Grigar "Understanding that poetry is a series of moves around a board chequered by language and thought, this book translates champion chess player Marcel Duchamp's chess games into a series of intriguingly alluring and allusive poems which reveal the leaps, obliques, sacrifices, transformations, gambits and knight's moves shared by both poetry and chess, two artforms of infinite variation.. As Marcel Duchamp observed, 'Beauty in chess is closer to beauty in poetry.' The opposite is also often true. These poems are beautiful gambits that, like the best chess games, delight and intrigue with their elegant and intelligent play." --Gary Barwin