Cordite is at last on the web. This is the last issue of Cordite to appear in print. Don't worry we'll get a more memorable address shortly.*

The decision to abandon print was not made lightly. The advantages of the internet are clear: it's cheaper, and as more and more Australians go online, the arguments for its accessibility become stronger. Print is very costly, and even with the sales and subscriptions from our dedicated readers, we have never made enough money to cover our production costs. Moving to the net will allow us to spend more money on our contributors, and to have a better chance of surviving in the long run. Visit our site and see for yourself.

Please note that if you have remaining susbscription, you will receive a refund with the print issue.

Goodbye…

This issue is also my last as editor, and our next issue, edited by David Prater and Bruce Williams will be my last as production manager. From #9 onwards, David Prater will be editing and producing Cordite.

Cordite has been a wonderful experience for a young editor to be involved in, and a rich learning experience to say the least. There have been several interesting challenges, and all of them unforgettable, some of them actionable. I'm particularly grateful for the contributions of Margie Cronin, Jennifer Kremmer, Bruce Williams, David Prater, Phil Norton, and, as ever, Arabella Lee.

What is this thing called 'Cyberpoetry'?

Cyberpoetry's a term that's come into increased usage lately. My mantra is 'digital changes everything'. What's not yet known is just how much of everything remains the same. And there are plenty of things that will take time to deliver on their promise.

The challenge is to filter the technology out of the way of the message (will we ever?) – ie when technology becomes transparent is when we're really getting somewhere – when the e falls off e-commerce and email and when the cyber falls off cyberpoetry.

Cybernetics (Greek kubernetes 'helmsman' from kubernan 'to steer') pops up in the mid 20th century as the science of feedback and control (feedforward) in closed systems, be they biological, chemical or physical. Feedback and feedforward is essentially information, and in the case of physical systems this has typically been managed by computers. Lately the word cyberspace has appeared to describe the virtual space of the Internet. Etymologically, it seems the biological and chemical aspect of cybernetics has been left aside. Here 'cyber-' takes on the connotation 'electronically computed', to give us 'computed space'. From thence we have cyberpoetry – the poetry in this computed space.

What's strictly happening in computed space is this: a maker is producing digital artefacts (HTML, Flash or Shockwave animations amongst other things) and storing them in a file system. This file system and the contained artefacts is made available on a network to be read. There are many subscribers to this network. The communication protocol (http) and mark-up language (HTML) allow this file system to be rendered and navigated (browsed or searched) in ad hoc ways by these subscribers. This requires new way of reading (manufacture of meaning) in the dizzying context of a potentially infinite number of channels.

I think only if this maker is explicitly using hyperlinked reading methods and the multiplicity of channels are they doing something distinctly new. It's dangerous to make dismissive predictions, but I suspect even the excitement for hyperlinking and multiplicity of channels as subject or method within a work will be transient. In most cases what's really at stake in all this is not the technology, but the poetry, as it has always been. To use this new word cyberpoetry is in part a move to unseat the reader from their standards. A good thing, occasionally, but is cyberpoetry a questionable misprision, used to aggrandise something not really very different? Computers and mobile phones and digital animation by themselves aren't very thrilling. And there's plenty of razzle dazzle on the 'net. I reckon readers will eventually realise the technology itself isn't much of a message. What's really interesting and more far-reaching what will happen to the channels available to writers.

The great thing about the internet is that it's cheaper than print and more accessible, and this will mean a dramatic growth in vanity publishing This may not be a bad thing, given the morbidity of poetry publishing.

At the moment the power is in the hands of editors, as arbiters and, more importantly for this discussion, gatekeepers of the known poetry channels (say, Meanjin, Heat, Southerly, Overland). Once internet vanity publishing really escalates, will we see a situation where poets publish their work to a list of subscribers, a new channel they have built for themselves, and will editors troll these sites for content for their own channels (with presumably broader reach)?

The atomisation of channels, and the new methods of acquiring and publishing to an audience is something to watch closely. Once current enterprise-level technologies go mass-market, and once poets have mastered these technologies, as they ave HTML and Flash, say, then things will get very interesting.

GST

Producing a review like this is a marginal exercise, undertaken in spare time by committed volunteers (cue the Cordite anthem). To add administraton of tax collection to the list of duties is a very tall order. I cannot imagine that the GST will do the arts in Australia any good at all. The cost of compliance with legislation just got higher, the barriers to entry a little more daunting. Thanks John Howard for your contribution to contemporary cultural production.

This text first appeared in print in Cordite #6&7 (2000). Image: Cath Barcan, Tank.

* A reference to Cordite’s first (temporary, and now forgotten) web address.