Sunday, July 11, 2010

TWEET ART

Behold -- we've seen Excel art, iPhone art, and even blue-screen-of-death PC art -- now we've got TWART. Using a template similar to old-styled ASCII art, people can submit their own artistic masterpieces for everyone to see and share. Here's two that can be seen on the web.


And lo and behold --
when you work on it,
you get this magnificent example
by body builder, teacher,
exercise Artist, Nick Jones -- whose body is a work of art.



There are other creative art forms on Twitter.com as well.

If arguing is your forte? @lilyroseallen "Always with an opinion," a recent twitter spat with Courtney Love was a highlight.

@BPGlobalPR is not the voice of energy giant BP. It's an anonymous Twitter account with ten times the viewers as BP. BPGlobal's tweets are more amusing, satirical and truer, including this gem -- "The good news: Mermaids are real. The bad news: They are now extinct."

Already tweeting has emerged as a literary form. Last month, CBS announced a fall show, "My Dad Says," based on @shitmydadsays, in which comedy writer Justin Halpern collects the twittered sayings of his senior-citizen father. William Shatner has already signed on to play the part.

Some writers pooh-pooh twitter, declaring -- "What could you say that's worthwhile in 140 characters or less? As Halpern and the fake BP people show, an awful lot.

Like any other kind of literature, Twitter-Lit (or Twitterature), has its strengths as well as limitations.

Twitter-Lit is immediate, telegraphic, suited to social commentary. Because it's first-person, it's a natural for parody and perfect for humorists. Twitterers have invented accounts for their cats, for dead celebrities, and for fictional characters -- there are feeds for Darth Vader, the Hulk, and Shakespeare --the Royalshakespeare.com has a Tweet version of "Romeo and Juliet" on the web that includes phrases such as --"Such Tweet Sorrow but even so has it come to this?"

Music hasn't quite made it on Twitter. "The Streets"' Mike Skinner has been experimenting, and has tweeted three new tracks. Recently singer-songwriter Imogen Heap took her fans with her to this year's Grammys, by wearing a "Twitter dress," decorated with a necklace that revealed live tweets from her million or more followers. "I just thought it'd be nice for them to come with me," she said.

The always artistic, peripatetic Lady Gaga, has 3.5 million enjoying her Twit-Lit creations -- she's currently the fifth most followed on Twitter, one behind Barack Obama

I have to confess that when I log in every morning, I try to create twitterature. Tomorrow will be my 122nd tweet but gee -- I have to wonder if anyone is hearing the peep of any of my tweets, except my 3 followers.

1 comment:

Kevin Daly said...

I resisted twitter for a very long time, but am now an avid user. There are days and topics where I just want to disconnect, but mostly it's amusing to connect to friends, and 'stranger-friends' who sometimes become friends and colleagues. 140 characters is a challenge - what can you say in that time that will be informative or entertaining. Such an interesting world! (Oh, and I'm now following you, too!)