Digital T[H]Readings [1994–2025]

Medium: Codework / Net.art.

Collaborators: Multiple + many: including participants on the email lists/listservs 7-11, American_Express, nettime-I, nettime-bold, nettime-unstable, Poetics, arc.hive, trAce, Wryting, Fleshfactor, Xchange, FACES, Thingist, hothouse, Spectre, Verve, Cybersociology, Syndicate, Eu-gene, Ensemble, WebArtery, RHIZOME_RARE, ANAT, empyre, fibreculture, ScreenTalk, INFOWAR, netbehaviour + Recode [+ others]. Main collaborators on such lists include: JODI, m@, =cw4t7abs/Integer, 0100101110101101-dot-org, Heath Bunting, Alexei Shulgin, Vuk Cosic, Olia Lialina, Keiko Suzuki, Mouchette, Luther Blisset, Murph the Surf, "Jeff Koons", +lo - y+ [+ countless others] who collaboratively roll + batter networked output.

About: Development begins of the signature hybrid code-poetic language mezangelle through the use of internet-based Kajplats 305 + Cybersite + YTalk [Telnet/Unix] + IRC [International Relay Chat] + MOOs/MUDs [Multi-User Dungeons]. This is a time of gender-obscuration due to a preponderance of tech-centred males [+ all the baggage that implies] + experimentation + discovery + connection + gestation + communication.

"In 1994, when a friend of a f[r]iend introduces me to a computer lab filled with internet-enabled machines, I grin + bite down hard. The first Meztext works classifiable as ping-worthy are spontaneous collaborations created via the Internet/web. In 1995, I spot-hunker in a series of interchangeable computer labs + proceed to create text fictions with other likeminded boffins connected via browser-based chatrooms and YTalk. My fictionalised inserts pepper those of Melbourne Uni students, Palo-Alto based scientists and Swedish software engineers to create rambling, ingenuous text-sets. Avatarial names/pseudonyms abound. Using Telnet, Mosaic [Netscape] and email as our playgrounds, we digitally shuttle missives...In 1997 [on the 7-11 and other lists] participants banter and code-mash. We engage and theory-fling. We creatively troll. We word hack + prank: anonymously, harmlessly. We ASCII-bomb and strangle protocols. We meta-trawl and spam - fiercely, constantly. We bash output until it no longer resembles software +/or discourse. And out of this chimeric soup crawls Mezangelle: a fomenting language born-torn from the writhing[s] of this original net.art crew. From this squirming birth, Mezangelle proceeds [+ continues] to evolve. Originally, it patches stylistics drawn from these forum bloodbaths + code [s]mashings. Nowadays, it alters networked output to explode and enhance meaning beyond the expected, similar to making ‘plain’ text blossom through a hypertextual lens. Mezangelle beg-beckons readers/users/players to unzip, to be curious, to unlock. To meaning piece. To question and collapse."

Medium: Online Fiction / Web Art.

About: Showcased at 'Wollongong’s World’s Women Online' [WWWO], an Australia’s all-women web exhibition assembled for the Fourth United Nations World Conference on Women, these two early HTML pieces join more than thirty digital works in one of the largest online sites produced in Australia at that time. Through a Strainer + Bruised Living present short, image-+-text webpages that merge gender-critical theory + allegory: their presence within WWWO situates them near the beginning of Australian web art + showcases how the nascent Web can host collaborative, activist-oriented practice.

Medium: Interactive Fiction / Net.art.

About: Writing under the avatar name "M[e]z Post Modemism" in 1995, Cutting Spaces is initially inspired by email exchanges + online activity before manifesting as a signature Meztext in 1996. In 1997, this work eventually makes its way into the Norway based online exhibition + zine called ‘The TUG Project’. Cutting Spaces plays with the audience, making them cyclic + plot-vulnerable in a hiccup-looped narrative. Cutting Spaces is a project designed by a meta-author determined to drag + push a reader as far as hypertext allows.

Medium: AI Fiction.

About: First written as an experimental piece of speculative fiction, The MALFI Trials features a fictional Artificial Intelligence construct desperate to maintain [its own version] of autonomy [MALFI is short for Multi-Artificial Life Form Interface]. In 1996, MALFI later morphs forms, showcasing at the 'Virtual Universe Online Exhibition' [via the Public Art Forum + New-Media Symposium] at Prague’s Goethe Institute. The project:

“…promotes a proactive experience through providing the audience with the ability to play Electronic God [or Goddess] – that is, to create the future of the MALFI entity via crucial narrative choices. One hyperlinked path/set of choices allows MALFI to attain freedom/autonomy, the other leaves MALFI dependant on its scientific confines. These choices impact on the resultant MALFI persona, and leaves the viewer with an interesting emotional twist – if they direct the hyperlinks to ensure MALFI gains independence, they are surprised to discover that maybe MALFI doesn’t want it after all, thus encouraging them to interact again with the project in order to ascertain MALFI’s motives.” — The MALFI Trials Catalogue Description as part of the 'SEC (Secondary Consciousness)' Exhibition, Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Israel, 1996.

Medium: Net Radio / Web Audio.

About: A cluster of short sound pieces constructed under the avatar “Ms Post Modemism” for Net Audio Xchange #3, the on-line radio compilation broadcasts from Ars Electronica’s Remote-C server during the 1997 festival in Linz. Listeners reach the works through the project’s hub where Xchange co-ordinators invite net-radio artists to upload links + .ra/.ram files for a continually growing playlist. The September edition places the Ms Post Modemism tracks alongside contributions from Riga, Berlin + other DIY stations, positioning them at the intersection of early webcasting + sound-art experimentation. Although the archive has since gone dark, contemporary Xchange call-outs + release notices on the Nettime/Syndicate lists document the broadcasts + their link to Ars Electronica’s net-culture programme.

Medium: Hypertext Fiction / Net.art.

About: Blood Puppet Manifesto [the characters of which Frederic Madre describes as: "...dripping tortured beings in ascii soul torment"] features in one of the first net.art interface-based exhibitions called the 'Net Art Homework Project' [instigated by Professor Natalie Bookchin at University of California]. It also features in the 'Beyond Interface: The Exhibition & Web Conference' in Canada. The work morphs from interactive-based text [developed in 1996] to a more graphical-based version in 1997 + showcases at the 'Progressive Dinner Party', an influential 1999 curated collection dedicated to showcasing experimental hypertext + web-based literary work by women. Published in 'Riding the Meridian', the project serves as a landmark in digital literature history, foregrounding female-identifying practitioners in the emergent field of electronic literature + net.art.

An extract from the text version of two of the Blood Puppet Manifesto characters:

Nailgun Puppet: "Origins unclear; possibly a soldier damaged via a chemical weapon assault. Is orally and (suspected) aurally incapable. Physical description: Acid damaged armour covering partially melted organic base. Has unstable kinetic energy which results in sporadic limb movements. Behaviour includes: Performances with weaponry to shock the reality capable."

Man in Cloth Puppet: "Started puppetdom in an ambulance after being the victim of a hit and run accident. Is the instigator of the naming process. Physical Description: Wrapped in layers of bandaging obtained through questionable means. Random sewing acts as a cohesive element, as does partial body fluid seepage. Behaviour includes: Habitually declothing terminally ill hospital victims. May be violent on request if located within visual access of flashing red lights."

Medium: Macromedia Director / Shockwave.

Collaborators: Gary Zebington.

About: Built in Macromedia Director + served as a Shockwave movie, this collaboration with Gary Zebington turns the idea of “linguistic fluidity” into a live interface experiment: unfortunately, the project itself is eventually lost to time. Two plaintext files consisting of emailed creative responses [mezmail.txt + garmail.txt, stored on the server] continuously feed the work: on each load the program plucks two phrases from each file, producing four mutable text cells [mezstat, garstat, mezrep, garrep]. The GUI then permutes these cells in real time, altering the source lines into new hybrids. Because the evolving e-mail clumps soon exceeded Shockwave’s native limits, the text files remain external, allowing the artists [or anyone with server access] to append fresh material that the piece will immediately mine on its next pass. The result is an endlessly re-composing interface poem in which code, inbox chatter + graphics merge, signalling an important step in the evolution of Mezangelle from e-mail lists into multimedia software.

Medium: Hypertext Fiction / Codework.

About: Internal Damage Report is a browser-native fiction-+-codework that hijacks the format of a multiple-choice self-assessment quiz, exposing how diagnostic language fractures under ambiguity. This codework-driven choreography turns the questionnaire itself into a co-author, guiding readers through how to traverse psychic + textual 'internal damage'. Exhibited in 'CTHEORY Multimedia: Digital Dirt', it is also published in the online journal frAme [Issue 2, 1999] + then showcased the following year in Cauldron & the Net [Volume 2, 2000].

"Internal Damage Report is devoted to 'rhizomezatic' altering of the psychomedical form...Chromosomal narrative strings transgress the pain fantastic....forms 'mezander' into and out of the fictionalised blood code. Will you take the dirt[ee]/damage test?"

Medium: Web Art / Net.art.

About: Commissioned by Experimenta Media Arts for their online gallery, _Ah.genda_ is a browser-based, gender-prickling artwork that wraps interactive narrative choices inside gif + glitch aesthetics. In 1999, the project showcases at the Whitney Museum's Artport initiative 'Idea Line' + is listed in NT2’s Hypermedia Directory. The creation of this project coincides with ongoing gender blurring due to undue attention when the author's gender is discovered by certain online sectors [ie the use of "they/them" vs "she/her" at a time before standard pronoun identification].

"_Ah.genda_ promotes, dissects and convolutes armies of genderfic[a]tions and socialisations known to those of us of the fair-err or mean-err sex [& those who dwell inbetween]. A-gender bcums a-gendah! becomes a-genda: mix n matching stops n stoops here. Select a playa or a vict.him-or-her, add a touch[e] of variables & a relevant situation and see wot transpires..."

Medium: Web Art / Macromedia Flash.

Collaborators: Talan Memmot.

About: Releasing in the December 1999 issue of the online journal BeeHive 2:5, Sky Scratchez is a web piece co-created with Talan Memmott. The interface [by Memmott] opens a stack of pop-up scenes where text + images rearrange a sequence of mezangelled lines. Long unavailable at its original URL, the work is preserved in The NEXT Electronic Literature archive, which notes BeeHive as first publisher + records it as Version 1.0 of the collaboration.

"...in a collaboration with Talan Memmott titled "Sky Scratchez," Breeze takes the lines "My neck contracts / and brow beats into tattoos" and "mezangelles" them to read "[meye [kne]e.ck[ronic paine] con[ned].tract[ov teXt]z N br.OW!! bee[hiVez]att:z N-2 tat[telletailz]2z." Mezangelle takes advantage of the reader's ability to hold more than one thought (often a contradictory thought) in mind at a time as he or she reads—an intellectual skill that hypertext and online literature emphasize and often require." — John Reep, Post Identity Magazine, "'Re: The Fact That I Am Fiction': Mary-Anne Breeze, Her Avatars, and the Transformation of Identity", 2004.

Medium: Flash-based Electronic Literature.

About: _Clo[h!]neing God N Ange-Ls_ splices religious iconography with biotech jargon through looping sound, strobing text-images + mutating mezangelle. This work presents as part of 'Point in the Fluid Productions' [an imaginary cloning company]. Screening at MediaArtLab’s 'Pro & Contra MachineMachy' in Moscow + the d.ART 2000 programme in Sydney + included within the d-i-n-a.org exhibition collection, it is now archived at 'The Next' museum + library + preservation space from two sources: Cauldron & Net [Volume 2] + frAme [Issue 4]. The project was also celebrated as part of the 2020 'Tribute to the Flash Generation', a celebration of:

"...the genius of the Flash Generation...The term, “Flash Generation” captured the zeitgeist of a new era of cultural production when artists and writers discovered they could express their creativity through movement, images, sound, and words through Flash software. Online journals like Poems That Go, Riding the Meridian, The Iowa Review Web, Caudron & Net, BeeHive, and many others emerged as leading publishing venues for this new form of born digital media. During the heady period of 1999 to 2009, Flash influenced the development of net art, interactive art, Flash games, and literature, not to mention personal and organizational websites. It wasn’t until the rise of the Apple smart phone at the end of the first decade of the 21st century that Flash’s dominance as a viable form of digital production waned. After December 31, 2020 Adobe discontinued its support for Flash..."

Medium: Hypertext Literature / Codework.

About: Created in-part during the first Australian Digital Writing/New Media Residency hosted by Wollongong City Gallery, this work gives voice to cyborgian mezangelle, merging HTML + JavaScript + Flash pop-ups + audio. First featuring in the Wollongong City Gallery Resident Artist Exhibition, in 2001 it tours globally, featuring in: 'hybrid_life_forms: Australian new media art' at the Netherlands Media Art Institute, STATION ROSE hypermedia Webcast Lounge at Art Frankfurt, 'd>art01' at City Exhibition Space Sydney, 'Under_Score: Next Wave Down Under Festival' at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the CyberMovie section of the 'Media Forum/Festival' at the XXIII Moscow International Film Festival, the Micromuseum of Athens Mediaterra Festival, 'De- Globalizing/ Re-Globalizing' Greece, '::contagion:: australian media art' at the Centenary of Federation exhibition at the NZ Film Archive in Wellington, 'MAAP01 EXCESS' New Media Festival at the Brisbane Powerhouse + regional partner venues, as well as 'State of the Arts: The Proceedings of the Electronic Literature Organization's 2002 State of the Arts Symposium and 2001 Electronic Literature Awards' [published as a book with CD-ROM]. This work goes on to continue being showcased in multiple exhibitions + academic presentations + papers [as well as being shortlisted for the first Electronic Literature Organisation Fiction Award in 2001]. At this time, Mezangelle continues to manifest in game-related spaces, making sneaky appearances in Massively Multiplayer Online games [MMOs] such as Everquest + World of Warcraft.

"In the beginning of the navigation through _the data][h!][bleeding t.ex][e][ts_, Mez playfully takes a symbolic blood sample from the viewer, who is invited to confide in her and type his/her childhood nickname. With the viewer's nickname becoming part the verses on the following page, he/she is initiated into the communication process as an act of creating culture. The syncopated recital of enchanting verses written in this personalized synthetic 'mezangelle' language combines pieces of collective and anonymous e-mail chatting. Mez composes the texts by inter-penetration of different layers of writing, codes and signs which have become the vernacular of communication through e-mails. The language is enticing and onomatopoeic. Its refreshing quality recalls the ways in which a child learns to speak. The artist breaks the stereotypical categorizations of Internet communication by placing the viewer in the position of the child who is learning a new language. No longer obeying the rules of grammar, linear language in this project goes out of control and splinters into words and codes governed by a new syntax." — Rossitza Daskalova, CIAC Magazine: 13th edition, “Language Transformed by the Machine”. "

Medium: Hypertext Literature / Net.art.

About: Commissioned in 2001 for “MODEL CITIZENS” at Artspace Visual Arts Centre, this browser-based piece reworks several Mezangelle texts posted on the day [+ the day after] the 9/11 al-Qaeda attacks against the USA. Scrolling html pages display phrases such as “trauma networks” + “FBICIANBCCNNNYPD” from these e-mails, which are converted into social commentary combining mezangelle, images + audio. When early versions of the texts appear on Nettime + other lists, some posters condemn the work[s] as “premature” + “insensitive”, while defenders praise the display of stripped-back critique. These exchanges are preserved in the Nettime-bold threads headed “::[post] 11th hr Reality Smear::” + “trauma networks vs bloodlust demeanors” among others. After the Artspace exhibition, the piece showcases at the 'Net Working Online' Exhibition at Watershed Media Centre, Bristol + is later projected at the 4th International Conference on Modern Technology & Processes for Art, Media and Design [Bangkok, 2003].

Medium: Flash-based Electronic Literature / Net.art.

About: First circulated as a stream of mezangelle e-mails, the work is re-packaged this same year as a Flash interface that samples those list-posts + lets only thin, layered slices appear at each click [in no fixed reading order] backed by brief audio shards: visitors must explore, pause + repeat to piece meaning together. This piece subverts the art-grind machine by refusing to perform as a finished, marketable object. Instead, it invites new learning curves that unsettle ordinary web-navigation habits + exposes how digital culture rewards polished commodities over raw, process-driven work. In 2002, the Flash version launches online in mark(s) release 3.01 + is republished that spring in Cauldron & The Net Volume 4. After the online launch, the Flash file is archived in Rhizome ArtBase + a live rendition follows at Sydney’s Ngara New Media Poetry Prize after the announcement of it making the finals [2004]. Two years later, the work is also showcased at New York's Pendy Gallery. Together these venues trace the work’s path from open-ended e-mail performance to a deliberately unstable gallery artefact, while preserving its critique of object-fixated, economically rationalised art making.

Medium: Hypertext Literature / Codework.

About: Gathering six years of "net.wurk fragments" [from 1995 to 2001] into a single Flash-driven, hyperlinked “skin”, this work lets audiences peel through layers of codeworks + email output + hacked-chat residues that fuse flesh-metaphor with machinic syntax. First unveiled in the Electronic Literature Organization’s 'State of the Arts' Gallery at UCLA, this work is then shown in multiple venues in 2002 alone, including 'Project Hope ARTE.RED 2002' [a view of online artistic creation in Australia through the most important projects of 20 artists at ARCO 02 Spain], 'D-Art 2002' [the International Conference on Information Visualisation] London, the 'Future ForWORD 2002' Seattle Poetry Festival, the 'Nomads & Homesteaders' 2-day symposium in tandem with 'Version>02', Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, 'How2' [a Journal exploring non-traditional directions in poetry + scholarship by women] + 'garage 2002: playground' at Stralsund Germany.

"_][ad][Dressed in a Skin C.ode_ can be viewed as either singular texts, or as enhanced (n.hanced) works which utilise JavaScript and Flash to extend the user's conceptualisations...Rollovers and segments of audio are also effectively implemented within these enhanced works, with the sound samples used having at times a grating, yet organic quality about them which can be quite unnerving. Mez has not set out to create a site that conforms to usability guidelines and commercially driven ideologies. This is a site that allows the user parallel or simultaneous understandings of the content, while instigating non-linear and imaginative order into the vocabulary of electronic communication..._][ad][Dressed in a Skin C.ode_ is an excellent example of the notion of web spaces as opposed to web pages, and through the use of the "mezangelle" language system and syntax, it is a highly thought-provoking and stimulating collection of textual works. Intended to expand and extract upon a user's perceptions and conceptualisations, these works will leave you feeling somewhat enlightened and enriched by their required level of comprehension and engagement." — Scott Esdaile, "fine Arts forum".

Medium: Codework / Net.art.

About: A compact “wurks” bundle of mezangelle e-mails that reads like poetic spam but operates as codework, Re____(ad.htm prompts readers to question where authorship ends + algorithms begin. The work earns an honorary mention at the 'Read_Me 1.2' Software Art Festival before travelling to Machinista 03 in Perm, Russia, where it joins an international line-up probing machines as co-authors of culture. In 2005, it showcases in NTT InterCommunication Center’s exhibition 'Art Meets Media: Adventures in Perception – Media Online: Software Art' [Tokyo, 2005].

"In mid- to late 1990s, a subgenre of Net.art emerged in the Internet, particularly on mailing lists, which spoke in strange tongues of English interspersed with network protocol code, IRC slang, snippets of program code, programming and markup syntax, Unix commands, ASCII Art, often sent by pseudonymous entities as artistic spam to net cultural and arts-related mailing lists, and provoking all kinds of interesting questions such as "is this the work of a spam bot?", "was this text processed with algorithmic filters?". In 1997, the mailing list "7-11" became the melting pot of this activity, and the place for the Australian net artist mez to develop her "mezangelle" which systematically copies & pastes syntactical elements of all kinds of software and networking codes into a private language. Her "codework" - to use the genre description coined by Alan Sondheim - semantically expands through syntactic condensation, using among others square brackets in the style of regular and boolean expressions to denote multiple, often contradictory meanings at once. In his essay "From Hypertext to Codework", critic McKenzie Wark writes: "Rather than link discrete blocs of text, or 'lexias,' to each other, Mez introduces the hypertext principle of multiplicity into the word itself. Rather than produce alternative trajectories through the text on the hypertext principle of 'choice,' here they co-exist within the same textual space." For her writing, mez uses Internet textual sources such as logged IRC conversations, Unix manpages, software output and programmer's diaries to rewrite it into highly subjective, para-essayist reflections on identities, genders and body politics where machines and humans meet and mangle in ever-unresolved twists...mez is only one arbitrary signifier among of a lapsing entity which also appears such under names as "][", "a][nti][nglo.cubic", "app][lick.ation][end.age", "][Buyo][Logical" "][co][De][e][p.rivation", "Cur.][O][va.ture", ".][depth][f.unction" "][die.][so][lution][", ".dirtee, codah.", "dis.[UR]Locate" "][D(NA).fence][", "Flesh, T.rage.dy", "]flewd[", "hu][bris, wo][man" "net.cod][a][e][x][r", "Seizu][o][r][d][e][r][", "self, re:ply.cator" "S.lee][k.ages][purr", "*star[.dot]*star", "St][o][asis" "strip::&::sponge::N.cryptor", "sub.sista", "][s][.Urge.Protect.][or][" ".traumachine." — Florian Cramer, "Re ____(ad.htm and pro][tean][.lapsing.txts", 2003.

Medium: Flash-based Electronic Literature.

About: Published within 'gender[f]' [an online exhibition curated by Deb King for Women’s International New Media Arts Month], this flash-based work honours the more than 400 maquiladora workers murdered or disappeared in Ciudad Juárez. The piece grows out of an earlier mailing-list performance [archived in the UB Poetics log on 11 September 2001].

"gender[f] addresses issues of gender, racial and economic biases resulting in systemic violence against women and minorities. This project arises from the unseemly juxtaposition of a "war on terror" with the every day realities faced by women living in cultures that enforce female circumcision, do not give equal value for equal work based on cultural bias, tacitly accept violent domestic situations, use sexual intimidation as a military tactic and fear of reprisal as a cultural control. The name, gender[f], designates a programmatic function. The function – gender – holds an unlimited, presently undefined array – [f] – the identities, issues and/or representations of women in society. This work is dedicated to the the over 400 murdered and disappeared women of Juarez who worked in the maquiladoras of Juarez." — Deb King, 'gender[f]', Curatorial Statement.

Medium: Codework / Net.art.

About: [net]blog to log][ah!rhythm][ is a "reverse-engineered" weblog that transforms a LiveJournal feed into mezangelle code-poetry, using linguistic ruptures + timestamps + scrolling. In 2004, the work’s polyvocal text-stream|part-bio-log showcases at the 'Art of the Biotech Era' [Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide Bank 2004 Festival of Arts] + in 'p0es1s—Digitale Poesie/Digital Poetry' organized by the literaturWERKstatt Berlin in cooperation with the Brückner-Kühner Foundation, Kassel. It resurfaces two years later in 'RADICAL SOFTWARE' at the 2006 Piemonte Share Festival, where the Curator says of the project:

"[net]blog to log][ah!rhythm][ [is] entirely focused on language — [to Mez] even the seemingly immediate language of a blog is a programming code that can be disassembled and reconstructed. If the Net shares anything with Babel, it is precisely this confusion of tongues. Her “mezangelle”, an idiom that fuses natural language with IT code, situates itself, on one hand, within the grand line of linguistic experimentation stretching from Dante to Joyce, and, on the other, draws a vital lesson from Dada and Surrealism: to critique a society one must first undermine its logical-rational structures, which are embodied in language itself." — Domenico Quaranta, Curator, 'RADICAL SOFTWARE', 2006.

Medium: Electronic Literature / Net.art.

About: Forged as a riposte to mid-2000s hype around “immersive cross-platform” writing, _ID.Xor.cism_ auto-scrolls a stream of mezangelle across a slim browser frame, pairing the minimalist text with scrolling graphics to slow readers down + turn each line into a miniature act of identity-exorcism. The project launches in SCAN | Journal of Media Arts Culture as part of the W[n]e[t]b.Wurks Series + the work goes on to win the 2006 Italian 'Site Specific Index-Page' Competition. Subsequent showings include the virtual exhibition 'I.den.ti.ty' [an online exhibition devoted to the many ways networked interfaces shape, splinter + reveal digital selfhood] + Spreadhead’s 'New Mind Cake' net-radio series + the group show 'Project Blog?' which surveys artists repurposing blog architectures as creative engines. In 2007, the work is also features in Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures #3 where it serves as a case study in browser-based code-poetry. It also features in multiple exhibitions over the next decade, including in 'Notes From the Underground' at Federation Square Melbourne [2009/2010]: "_Notes from the Underground_ features guest artists for the duration of a month on the big screen at Federation Square as part of a selection of the best and undiscovered screen-based video and sound works."

“Interaction in ID_Xor-cism is mainly in the interpretation, but a singular explanation does not avail itself. Is the “ID” being exorcised or exercised? Is ID identification, or the psychoanalytic term for the source of impulse to pleasure principle (or both)? Different readers will have unlike perspectives, and some will see it both ways. Viewers of Mez’s works are not only required to read (and sometimes interact), but to translate the mezangelle language, which often (if not usually) creates multiple interpretive possibilities. Mez’s interest in playing with—and making as much as she possibly can out of—ASCII code is obvious; the addition of images gives viewers more to work through…Mez works this possibility—with her use of language, and by using images as prefix and suffix—to extreme ends, and by doing so metaphorically hits two, three, or more notes at with a single gathering of letters formed into a word in ways previous generations of writers could not.” — C. T. Funkhouser, "New Directions in Digital Poetry", NY: Continuum, 2012.

Medium: Codework Imagery.

Collaborators: Peter Ciccariello.

About: Co-created by image-poet Peter Ciccariello, Ctrl+C is a set of browser-native “copy-command” collages merging Ciccariello’s photographic text-scapes with mezangelle fragments into three layered image-poems. Each image is a digital cut-and-paste [the title nods to the keyboard shortcut], foregrounding the ease with which language, photos + identities can be duplicated - or corrupted - inside network culture. The images circulate through net-poetry mailing lists: they are noted for their hybridisation of 3D typographic landscapes + bracket-laden codework, expanding the possibilities of collaborative, cross-platform digital poetics. Five years later it resurfaces in the March 2011 issue of Fogged Clarity.

Medium: Visualized Codework / Digital Readymade.

About: Launched as a “re-mashed” blog experiment, ______dis[ap]posable_ splices mezangelle with social-network markup + embeds every hyperlink in a live Snap Preview window, so hovering over a word reveals a mini-screenshot rather than sending the reader elsewhere. Snap’s own product team cites the piece as a catalyst for its April 2007 upgrade: “On 4/16, Snap introduce[s] a major upgrade to Snap Preview Anywhere that was inspired in no small part by Mez’s use of link previews to illustrate text, rather than using links to send people away” writes Peter Angles, Market Director at Snap. The work begins its exhibition history at 'TAGallery_002’s de-re-/con-struct(ur)ed LANG(U)agE' [2007] where the work headlines a roster of experimental text interfaces: it continues the same year in Electrofringe's 'ElectroOnline' showcase, which focuses on emergent web practices. The project also features in the digital-literature showcase for the First International Congress ARTECHMEDIA 07 [Spain].

"...there’s something about taking disposable, ready-made, super-easy bits and pieces and putting them together as Mez has done that’s just really fascinating...And by putting the link preview to a purpose other than its intended purpose (as Duchamp did with his pissoir) Mez has me seeing it all anew." — Dr Jill Walker Rettberg, "Snap Preview as Readymade (Ready-to-Assemble) Poem", 2007.

Medium: Codework / Digital Performance.

About: This inaugural “Poetic Game Intervention” hijacks live text streams from Twitter + the scrolling guild-chat of World of Warcraft [WoW] to craft “MMO Voyeur Aggregationistic Rem(H)ashing.” Select in-game emotes + trade shouts captured in Ironforge on the WoW Bloodscalp server are spliced into mezangelle output + reposted [line-by-line] to Twitter, turning routine character actions into running micro-poems exposing how identity markers are copied, pasted + monetised across platforms. Branded Twittermixed Litterature, the work demonstrates a broader Poetic Game Interventions ethos: namely, manipulations of pre-set MMO parameters that disrupt or critique game mechanics from a sociological angle. First announced on Rhizome’s community board in July 2007 + performed that same year during the 'E-Poetry 2007' Digital Poetry Festival at Université Paris VIII, it was also featured in Judy Malloy's 2008 "Electronic Authoring Software: How New Media Writers Create Their Work".

Medium: Critical Manual / Theory.

Collaborators: Ars Virtua Foundation + multiple authors including James Morgan, Joseph DeLappe, Trevor Dodge, Shane Hinton, Azdel Slade, Greg J. Smith, Robert Rice.

About: An online “field manual” for the reality-virtuality continuum, _Augmentology 1[L]0[L]1_ unfolds as a theory-blog sponsored by the Ars Virtua Foundation/CADRE Laboratory for New Media, with a mix of essays, XR case-studies + reader debates on avatars, geolocation + mixed-reality ethics. Extracts are published in the Hz Journal #12 under the title “Augmentology Extracts” + key posts are later archived in the P2P Foundation Wiki. The series of _Augmentology 1[L]0[L]1_'s “Social Tesseracting” texts [speculative dispatches on networked existence/functioning] makes the shorlist for the Vilém Flusser Theory Award at the 2011 'Transmediale' Festival, with the judges stating:

"'_Social Tesseracting_: Parts 1 - 3' details the emergence of synthetically-defined interactions and their impact on current entertainment models/knowledge formation. This series is part of the '_Augmentology 1[L]0[L]1_' project, a '...working manual discussing the formation and evolution of synthetic environments'. The Augmentology project presents content via a networked (link-rich) format rather than subscribing to canonized standards of referencing and/or validation. Thus, all sources are presented to reflect a link-based orientation. Each '_Social Tesseracting_' entry adheres to the overarching project aim whereby content is: '...constructed to reflect how participants absorb information within attention economies and synthetic environments. The entries are designed to function within a system dependent on embedded information streams. Concepts are condensed to reflect this.'"

Medium: Twitter Literature.

About: Invited to transpose micro-texts from a Twitter feed into a physical gallery setting, this work combines Mezangelled tweets in posts applied directly to the gallery wall. The piece questions who “owns” language that is generated, scraped + remixed by machines, echoing the exhibition’s wider concern with authorship + possession. It is commissioned by curators Birgit Rinagl + Franz Thalmair for the group show 'Y O U . O W N . M E . N O W . U N T I L . Y O U . F O R G E T . A B O U T . M E.': first for the Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana [16 May – 22 June 2008] + later showing at Galerija Miklova Hiša, Ribnica [17 Oct – 10 Nov 2008]. It is speculated [but not yet confirmed] that _s[p]erver[se]_: 404 poetry_ is the first instance of a live Twitter thread exhibited in mixed-reality form.

Medium: Mixed Reality Installation / Insurgency Performance.

Collaborators: The Third Faction Collective: Thomas Asmuth [MiriamMoore], Mez Breeze [BowwToxx], John Bruneau [Cretivcowman], Jenene Castle [Mohanna], Steve Durie [Tookis], Brian Babella [Tiomat], Kyung Lee [Sootso], James Morgan [Deaxter], Ali Sajjadi [Layli], Liz Solo [Sliz].

About: /hug [pronounced “slash-hug”] sets up a Red-Cross-styled non-governmental aid organization inside the World of Warcraft, training avatar volunteers to cross the Horde/Alliance divide + deliver aid, emotes + peace-keeping gestures. The intervention plays out simultaneously as in-game performance + gallery installation from the Third Faction Collective: machinima tutorials brief recruits, while visitors use real-world “field stations” to dispatch missions that rewrite WoW’s conflict economy as acts of collaborative care. /hug premiered in 'WoW: Emergent Media Phenomenon' at Laguna Art Museum California [sponsored by Blizzard Entertainment], then circulated through 'All for One' [Works Gallery, San José], the 'ZER01 Open House' + the downtown 'SubZERO Block Party', carrying its humanitarian play ethos from virtual battlegrounds to mixed-reality + museum spaces.

"The piece that made the biggest impression on me was an installation that comes from a collective called /hug (slashhug), whose volunteers seek out and assist “noobs” (new players) who may otherwise get “ganked” (gang killed) by more experienced players…the group’s preference for an anarchist spirit of cooperation and service over rape, pillage and competition seems such the antithesis of the stereotyped fanboy, I couldn’t help but have admiration for their insurgency. They offer a much-needed critique—and the lone voice of dissent—to the game, as well as much of the exhibition.” — Dave Barton, “Boobs, Bloodshed and Some Actual Art at Laguna Art’s ‘World of Warcraft’ Show”, OC Weekly.

Medium: Netprov Performance / Twitter Literature.

Collaborators: Many + various [ie in the physical gallery as well as on Twitter].

About: On Halloween night, a trans-reality “netprov” called #OutsideUrDoor unfolds across three intertwined stages: a wall-scale projection at New Media Scotland's Edinburgh’s Inspace Gallery, a live audience at the Third International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling + Twitter itself [under the hashtag #OutsideUrDoor]. Three avatar Twitter accounts [the zombie @MrShamble + werewolf @vvolfmaan + vampire @Nozfera2] improvise a 15-minute stream of location-based clues: gallery visitors answer in real time while remote followers join the thread, collapsing online + onsite storytelling into one hybrid performance. Commissioned for the late-night programme 'Inspace...no one can hear you scream', the Twitter archive of the work is later preserved with screenshots + commentary in Hyperrhiz 11: Special Issue 'Netprov' [2015] while scholarly discussions of mixed-reality fiction reference it as a benchmark for social-media performance art.

"...a new media art education can speak to forms of collaboration that are truly of our age. One pertinent example of this can be seen in #OutsideUrDoor (2010)...Using the Twitter social-media platform allowed Breeze to present this performance in a shared space that combined the traditional gallery with interactivity taking place at a distance. All involved could participate, responding to posts and helping to guide the time-based horror narrative." — Robert Sweeny, “Investigating the Misusage of Technology as a Gesture of Freedom” in Visual Arts Research, 2020.

Medium: Digital Print.

About: Created by overlaying one of the original daguerreotypes with digital brushstrokes, the illustration takes the form of a sinuous, doll-like figure where the elongated body rises from a root-shaped base, a torso ribboned in white, while streaks of broken rusty-red hair slash down her neck. One stitched-white cross replaces one of the figure’s eyes, lending a Burtonesque-eeriness: hovering between fragile-ballerina + folk-effigy. Exhibited in ACMI’s online competition 'In a Burton Wonderland' [the companion gallery to 'Tim Burton: The Exhibition'] the work is selected by Burton as one of fourteen finalists + named Co-Winner. Burton remarks about the shortlisted works:

“I’ve been really impressed with the quality of work that I’ve seen in the Burton Wonderland online gallery. The artworks are so varied and interesting that it made it very hard to choose the top fourteen. All the artists who submitted work to ACMI should be really proud of their creations.”

Medium: Codework Performance [performing as Netwurker_Mez].

Collaborators: sister0 + Ko66.

About: Commissioned by [+ performed live at] the Netherlands Media Art Institute's Exhibition 'The Art of Hacking', this collaborative gal‐powered performance-hack by sister0, Ko66 + Netwurker_Mez stages identity theft through an immersive blend of soundscapes + live‐coded manipulations + spoken and typed text + embodied performance. Framed by 'The Art of Hacking' [an exhibition celebrating hacking as a creative, ethical practice rather than criminal “cracking”] Error_in_Time(v.t_3) exposes the porous boundary between human + machine, probes surveillance + social media logics + offers alternative strategies for engaging with imperfect systems:

"In _Error_in_Time(v.t_3)_ sister0, Ko66 and Netwurker_Mez give us a compelling insight into geek space from the perspective of a female hacker. _Error_in_Time(v.t_3) uses sound, literature, performance and live code manipulations to explore the intimate workings of computer/human interfaces, surveillance and social media." — From 'The Art of Hacking' Exhibition catalogue.

Medium: Print / PDF Anthology.

Collaborators: Many + various [ie email + listserv back-n-forthers].

About: Published by Vienna imprint Traumawien as a 328-page paperback, this volume gathers eight years of mezangelled code-poetry/codeworks into a single “reader-friendly" artefact. The book functions both as an archival snapshot of mezangelle through formative e-mail/listserv output + blog experiments + as a practical primer for newcomers to the language. Early reception for Human Readable Messages comes from the electronic literature community, while Salon für Kunstbuch stocks it as a reference title for text-based net.art. Literary critic A.J. Carruthers devotes a section of his chapter “Mez Breeze Between the Centuries” [in "Feeding the Ghost 1: Contemporary Australian Poetry" 2018] to the book, praising Human Readable Messages as a “magnum opus”: a post-digital long poem whose pages of codework document eight years of continuous electronic poetics.

"'Human Readable Messages_[Mezangelle 2003-2011]' is a book published by Traumawien containing almost a decade of Mez Breeze's Mezangelle writings. Mezangelle is hand-crafted text with the aesthetics of computer code or protocols. What marks Mezangelle out is how deep its use of those aesthetics go and how effectively it uses them...'Human Readable Messages' is typeset in Donald Knuth's Computer Modern font, a beautifully spindly artifact of the early days of computer typesetting, with the occasional intrusion of Courier-style monospaced teletype/typewriter fonts. This gives the printed text a digital, online feel retaining a genetic link to the environment it originated in...'Human Readable Messages' provides an ideal opportunity to familiarize ourselves with Mezangelle in the depth that it deserves..." — Rhea Myers, Furtherfield.

Medium: Augmented [Synthetic] Reality Game.

Collaborators: Andy Campbell, Chris Joseph, Julian Stadon, Mark Billinghurst, Adrian Clark, Matt Tait, Judi Alston, The Human Interface Technology Lab.

About: Labelled by academic Dr James O’Sullivan as: "...the digital equivalent of Orwell’s 1984”, #PRISOM drops players into a glass metropolis under constant algorithmic watch, confronting them with decision points derived from real-world surveillance incidents. Commissioned for 'Transreal Topologies' as part of the International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality [ISMAR 2013 Adelaide] in collaboration with the University of South Australia’s Wearable Computer Lab + the Royal Institution of Australia, the piece merges Unity generated environments + authoritarian graphics + novel mechanics + anti-surveillance narrative + wry mezangelle slogans to expose how PRISM-style data-harvesting normalises life inside a panopticon. After its ISMAR premiere, #PRISOM tours widely, showing at 'Refest 2014' [CultureHub/La MaMa New York], 'Viral Dissonance' [FLEFF 2014], 'VECTOR 2014' Game and Art Convergence [Toronto Canada], 'Notgames Fest' [Cologne Game Lab 2015], 'Transitio_MX 06' New Media Art Festival [Mexico City 2015] + others. It is also shortlisted for several awards + later features as a practice-based case study in the anthology "WomenTechLit" edited by Maria Mencia.

"#PRISOM seduces and repels in the same instant, situating a ‘player’ within a gameworld of seeming transparency but in actuality a harsh digital realm of endless surveillance. Neither pulpit nor pleasure, #PRISOM forces players to make choices rendering the harsh reality of a surveillance culture inescapable. This is a powerful interactive work, with a political message that is all too clear (in both senses)." — The 2014 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards Judging Panel, Digital Narrative Category.

Medium: Mixed Reality Writing.

Collaborators: Panos Couros + WordStorm14 participants [too many to list!] + an amazing group of hard-working behind-the-scenes techies.

About: Co-devised and curated by Mez Breeze + festival director Panos Couros for the 'WordStorm 2014' Top End Writers Festival in Darwin, #LiquidPage is a real-time, festival-wide experiment in collaborative digital writing. Using a shared Google Drive doc as its hub + live projection screens in panel rooms + rolling feeds on Twitter, Facebook and Storify, the project invites authors, attendees + remote followers to co-write, remix and mutate text throughout the four-day event. The evolving event captures on-site|off-site physical and digitally-based conversations + audience reactions + poetic fragments, demonstrating how networked platforms can collectively shape narrative + blur the line between reader + writer + editor.

Medium: Electronic Literature / Net.art.

About: Commissioned for 'Beyond the Interface' [the art programme of the 2014 International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, Munich] this faux-legal, browser-based document asserts total proprietorship over every AR, VR + mixed-locative layer it calls the Overlaid Space. The project exposes how ownership, surveillance + biometric control can hide inside bureaucratic text. After its Munich premiere, the work travels to a second-site run at Furtherfield Gallery, Finsbury Park, London [2015] + is later included in the exhibition 'Digital Art: Archiving and Questioning Immateriality' for Computer Art Congress 5, Paris [2016]. An online edition remains accessible on itch.io. Academic Kathi Inman Berens has this to say about the project [+ how it operates as political/social-critique]:

“Mez Breeze’s ‘T[he]Issue’, a terms of service like document that addresses disputes about ownership and rights of nonhuman / augmented bodies in cyberspace...puts the reader/spectator in the position of dreading the legalese. Our rights are abrogated in language we really can’t read or understand. I like the characteristic Mezangelle 'T[he]' in the title, which reminds us that cyberfeminists have been fighting to make virtual spaces hospitable to women for thirty years. The result right now? Corporations have more rights than citizens and how we exist in digital interfaces will express the rights of corporations above the interest of individual citizens.”

Medium: Interactive Fiction.

Collaborators: Meg Vann, Donna Hancox.

About: A browser-based multimedia thriller created by author Meg Vann + interaction designer Mez Breeze + research lead Donna Hancox, Provocare confronts Australia’s ongoing epidemic of violence against women [created in a year when 63 women had already been murdered by intimate partners] + uses its interactive form to expose how gendered violence permeates both private + public spaces. Adapted from Vann’s novelette "Provocation", the work invites readers to page through text-image panels whose jump-cut typography + multimedia overlays mirror its storyline about female agency + violence against women. Commissioned as the inaugural project of 'Queensland Writers on the International Stage' [an Arts Queensland / QUT initiative partnered with The Writing Platform + the Queensland State Government], Provocare launches online October 2015 + is profiled by both The Writing Platform and Books+Publishing as a flagship model for writer-designer collaboration. The team presented the piece at the 'Collaboration Nation' panel during the Brisbane Writers Festival [4 Sept 2015], positioning the work at the intersection of crime fiction, feminist theory + digital literature. Provocare is catalogued in the QUT ePrints Repository + is discussed in a talk given by Vann at 'Writing Digital Futures' 2015, extending its reach across academic + digital-literary networks. Vann's comments on the project highlight the critical importance of highlighting [+ solving] this gendered-violence crisis:

"Like most women, I live with the effects of violence. Memories of abuse, and ongoing vigilance against harm creates core beliefs and behaviours that often cast women as having victim mentalities. But I believe it makes us survivors. Dedicated to a young woman who lost her life to a stalker, ‘Provocare’ explores this premise: the main character is a survivor of anorexia nervosa. She develops dysfunctional habits that, while self-harming in relation to her illness, are adapted to become tools in her battle for survival against the pernicious and unrecognised violence of a workplace stalker. Surveillance is also a theme in ‘Provocare’ as I am increasingly concerned about the misuse of surveillance technology – designed to improve public safety – in the abuse of women. Providing digital collaboration opportunities, and welcoming all-women teams, is vital in voicing women’s lived experiences, and challenging the predatory viewpoints so dominant in normative cultural narratives.”

Medium: Interactive Fiction.

About: Commissioned by if:book Australia, this browser-based experiment pairs a living writer with one long deceased to test what happens when public-domain fiction is literally resurrected. The work splices passages from Anna Maria Bunn’s "The Guardian, a Tale" [from 1838, it's the earliest known novel printed on the Australian continent] with contemporary commentary, multimedia, mezangelled output + hyperlinks. The reader can shuttle between the colonial-gothic original + twenty-first-century remixes, exposing how questions of authorship, copyright lapse + textual afterlife haunt both eras. Curator Simon Groth describes the project chapters as “...trailblazing new ways of telling stories” + the work is short-listed for the 2016 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards in the Digital Narrative category. By foregrounding Bunn’s move into the public domain, Rumours of My Death urges readers to see older texts not just as static artefacts.

Medium: Narrative Game / Web-based Fiction.

Collaborators: Andy Campbell, Chris Joseph, Tracey McGarrigan, The Space Arts Organisation + Team.

About: Co-written/developed with Andy Campbell, this first-person narrative game follows single-dad John + his daughter Charlotte as a cache of occult heirlooms bends their sense of time. Glitching emails + strange clues present themselves while their house itself reconfigures, turning domestic space into a Möbius loop of memories. A companion web-based recombinant story extends the narrative outside of the primary game space: both the web story + game component explore concepts centred on traversing boundaries from childhood to adulthood, the construction and perception of reality through life experience + the influence of those closest to us [+ the petrifying thought of duplicate selves housed in alternate realities] + the elongation of the real as we [think we] know it. At Concept + Beta stages, the project makes the finals of the BBC Writersroom/The Space Prize for Digital Theatre + is subsequently awarded The Space Open Call Commission [BBC/Arts Council England, 2014] + also the Tumblr International Digital Media & Arts Prize. In 2015, the project secures additional production funding + is cited by critics as: “...a superlative rebuke to the idea that electronic literature can’t be literary” [Dr James O’Sullivan, Los Angeles Review of Books]. The Beta build begins its festival life screening at the 'Parallels' showcase, the 'Freeplay' Independent Games Festival, the Digital Writers’ Festival 'New Kinds of Narratives' event + the International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling. In 2016, the same Beta is installed in the Electronic Literature Organization 'Next Horizons' Exhibition, while a public demo appears in the EGX Leftfield Collection. Other nominations + awards include Best Overall Game at the 'GameCity Festival' [2016], Best Experimental Game – Game Design Awards [2017], Runner-up in the Robert Coover Award for Electronic Literature [2017] + the project is shortlisted for both the Opening Up Digital Fiction Competition + Turn-On Literature Prize [2017].

Medium: Hybrid Chapbook.

About: Published by Cordite Books, this print volume collects five years of livestreamed mezangelle transmissions. An introductory essay by media theorist Florian Cramer situates it within post-Internet poetics, with works: “...composed in a period after net.art email forums had disappeared. 'New media' had, in the meantime, ceased to be new. The arts terms 'post-internet' and 'the new aesthetic' describe this state of affairs where online and offline, digital and analogue, can no longer be separated.”

"Like many I was thrilled about the recent publication of Mez Breeze’s print book ATTN: Solitude. Combined now with Human Readable Messages_[Mezangelle 2003-2011] I think of these two works as a kind of proto-modular long poem, ATTN Solitude collecting her codewurks from 2011–2016, and Human Readable Messages from 2003–2016. Really this is a sustained work over a decade from 2003–2017. I like that Florian Cramer blurbs the book and starts out by saying “Don't mistake this for an experimental poetry book.” As Cramer points out, the book’s content is text-streaming content, net.art email forums, chats, correspondence, online gaming, web design, internet memes, etc...but Breeze is using these forms of composition well after they have ceased being used. Breeze is therefore “post-Internet” Cramer says in the sense that online and offline, digital and analogue, etc., are no longer separated." — AJ Carruthers, "The Lives of the Experimental Poets 10-12: Stewart, Farrell, Breeze", Jacket2, 2017.

Medium: Virtual Reality / Game Experience.

Collaborators: Ian Harper, Andy Campbell, Kate Pullinger, Chris Joseph, Walter Brecely, Esteban Camacho Steffensen, John Patten, Ron Poitras.

About: This first Inanimate Alice YA Virtual Reality episode [developed for both Vive VR headsets + desktop computers] strands Alice on a broken-down Autobus in the middle of nowhere. Players move through the stalled bus + an empty desert stretch + an abandoned service building where Alice battles a suspicious greenwashing corporation [+ suspected trolls] as she tries to charge her phone to get help. Released in Early Access in 2018, the project is an Australia-Canada co-production with funding from the Canada Media Fund + Screen Australia/Australian Government. An additional 360-video edition runs on desktops + mobiles, while the full build targets room-scale VR. In 2017, the beta version makes the finals of the QUT Digital Literature Award [Queensland Literary Awards] + gains an honourable mention in both the Turn-On Literature Prize + the Opening Up Digital Fiction Competition. The completed episode earns an honourable mention when the Opening Up competition re-runs in 2018, then is short-listed for the 2019 Public Library Prize for Electronic Literature + wins the 2020 Woollahra Digital Literary Award [Readers' Choice], whose judges praise its: “...brilliant visual storytelling that opens new possibilities for narrative through VR.”

Medium: Virtual Reality Literature.

About: A Place Called Ormalcy is digital literature designed for + developed in Virtual Reality. It allegorically traces the makings of a dystopic society + how such fascist principles can arise in the most benevolent of places. This VR Literature work has social commentary at its very core, commenting directly on + about the rise of current totalitarian trajectories + the contemporary malaise, confusion + accompanying acclimatization patterns. Luring audiences with over-saturated colours, the narrative unfurls to reveal an authoritarian allegory: readers orbit the frozen scenes in either 3D or VR, zoom in on pop-up footnotes + watch the chipper protagonist Mr Ormal shed his freedoms as authoritarian rules seep through. Text, spatial elements + 3D assets are bundled so the piece runs on phone, desktop, or headset, inviting literal perspective-shifts to expose how tyranny develops. The seven-chapter work reaches the finals of the 2018 Queensland Literary Awards for Digital Literature, stars in the ICIDS 2018 Art Expo [Dublin] + is later shortlisted for the 2019 New Media Writing Prize. A room-scale VR edition is demoed by Glasgow publisher Hedera Felix during SisM #1’s launch at the 2019 Cymera Festival [Edinburgh] + in 2021 a bilingual feature in 'A Glimpse Of' [The Junta Trap Issue] introduces the work to a southern-European literary audience, framing its candy-bright dystopia as an object lesson in creeping fascism. It is also published in Notre Dame Review Online, which posts the full seven-chapter text as a standalone PDF in 2019 + in 2020 is permanently archived by the British Library.

"This is a clever allegory using naïve illustration and nonce words…which lends a sinister overtone to serious subject matter of authoritarianism. Its text and three-dimensional illustrations are beautifully integrated, giving the entire story an unsettling effect from the beginning.” – 2018 Queensland Literary Awards, Digital Literature Judging Panel.

Medium: VR Microstory Series.

About: In V[R]ignettes, a suite of XR tableaus invite the reader to pan, zoom, or flip into autopilot while annotations “smear” across layered 3D/VR dioramas: each microstory mixes kinetic distortions + collage textures + multi-tier text. The series earns an Honorary Mention for the Dot Award at the 2019 New Media Writing Prize, with festival slots including 'FunctionFest' Digital & Electronic Arts Festival [Palma, May 2019] + the VR/AR showcase Dyscorpia 2.1 [University of Alberta 2019]. The work then wins the QUT Digital Literature Award at the 2019 Queensland Literary Awards, hailed by the judges for its: “...visceral intensity” + intuitive yet “...non-linear exploration”. Festival momentum continues through 2020: selection for the Electronic Literature Organization’s virtual gallery '(Un)Continuity', inclusion in the SIGGRAPH 2020 Art Gallery 'Think Beyond', showcasing in the International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling's 'Texts of Discomfort' Exhibition + presentation during the Besides-the-Screen Network’s online show [Porto/Vitória]. Select showcases include the 'Wild Media' online gallery curated by The International Digital Media and Arts Association [Winona State University, 2020], Issue 5 of the Backslash Lit Journal [2021], the VerbivocoVirtual pavilion of The Wrong Biennale [2023] + the Electronic Literature Collection [Volume 4], where the editors say of the project:

"V[R]ignettes is a VR anthology in the genre of high fantasy. Readers/players can use the touchpad to zoom into the 3D model, spinning, rotating or otherwise shifting it to gain perspective on the fantastical creatures. Breeze tags snippets of story to different parts of the 3D model. There are also arrow keys that jump to each tagged snippet if the reader wishes a guided form of exploration. The reading experience is to toggle between examining the volumetric dimensions of the modeled creature or phenomenon, then reading Breeze’s signature enigmatic prose written in an English-based language she invented in the 1990s called mezangelle. V[R]ignettes is a microstory universe where each individual vignette explores the literary connection between kinetic actions/mechanics and textual evocations. At once exploratory and forensic–readers of Breeze’s large body of literary works will be rewarded by diving into and pursuing continuitites among the works she’s made over 30 years–V[R]ignettes boldly limns what’s possible in the “extended reality” [XR] of 3D literary environments."

Medium: VR Sculpture.

About: Sculpted entirely in MasterpieceVR, this character is first built for the cross-platform 'Sustainable Future Cities' initiative [backed by Microsoft, Samsung, MasterpieceVR + Sketchfab] which invites XR artists to imagine sustainable futures. This lopsided robo-figure's wonky aspect + scavenged-scrap aesthetic hint at circular-economy repair culture while parodying sleek tech utopias. In 2020 the work is acquired by the Museum of Other Realities [MOR] + installed in the body-themed group show 'Body Clock', then added to MOR’s permanent collection where visitors can inspect the model at room-scale + read an in-app artist commentary.

Medium: XR Literature.

Collaborators: Mark Marino, Davin Heckman, Scott Rettberg, Annie Abrahams, Jeremy Hight [RIP dear Jer], Andrea Phillips, David Thomas Henry Wright, Michael Maguire, Auriea Harvey, Anna Nacher, Rhea Myers, Chris Kerr.

About: This ongoing collection of collaborative XR “storyboxes” [which initially sprung to life in 2020 during the pandemic] turns micro-fiction into navigable dioramas: readers reveal the text by panning, zooming, or letting an autopilot camera drift, so the act of reading becomes a series of viewpoint changes rather than page-turns. A Neural review calls the result: "...a new type of digital literature reading environment with an intriguing composition of form and texts”. The complete series is showcased in the Electronic Literature Organization’s 2021 online exhibition 'Platforming Utopias (and Platformed Dystopias)', with the project also being published in The New River Journal + the Anthology of Contemporary Literature + later showing in the digital-art strand of The Wrong Biennale #5.

“Just as an explosion of forms, materials and approaches constituted a revolution in the visual arts, so too a proliferation of forms, materials, ideas and approaches seems to be revolutionizing literature…“V[R]erses” are a stunning example of this.” – Steve Tomasula [Editor], "Conceptualisms: The Anthology of Prose, Poetry, Visual, Found, E- & Other Hybrid Writings as Contemporary, Conceptual Art", University of Alabama Press, 2022.

Medium: AI Microstory Book.

About: This book [published in pdf form] blends AI-generated manipulated portraits with mezangelle microfiction. Having worked with AI output previously, this book is an attempt to harness the idea of AI as a legitimate creative tool [that can be used in tandem with traditional creative practices, rather than to simply replace them]. Born from an invitation to participate in OpenAI’s Artist Access Program [back when OpenAI were purely a not-for-profit research organisation], this volume fuses DALLE2-+-Stability-Diffusion–generated portraits with mezangelle microstories to test what happens when human imagination + machine vision combine. Released on itch.io in August 2022, it reaches the site’s Top Sellers list on its first day + is later flagged as a “top performer” on Wonderbox Publishing. The volume goes on to take second place in the 2023 Loom Art Prize. After publication, extracts + the full work circulate widely: it is discussed at the Future of Text Symposium [London, 2022] + the ADA Symposium's 'Indeterminate Infrastructures' [Whakatū/Nelson, 2022]. It's also exhibited in the 'Resistance' gallery at 'ELO 2023 – Overcoming Divides' [Coimbra], 'More Than Meets AI' at UC Berkeley’s Worth Ryder Gallery [2023] + the ICIDS 2023 art show 'Traversing Boundaries, Barriers & Borders' [Kobe], reprinted in The Digital Review 04 [2024] as part of their 'AI-Augmented Creativity' issue + is shown at the iDMAa 2024 Conference/Exhibition [Winona, Minnesota]. Together these showings mark the book as a touchstone in ongoing debates about AI + authorship + electronic literature.

"Individually, the forms in '[Por]TrAIts' make an appeal to be received with empathy...without the Mezangelle text the portraits develop familiar traits of fantasy narratives, but the text also locates the figures in dramas of the present. In co-creating with AI, Mez progresses a counter-narrative to its demonisation in other quarters." – Dr Fiona Becket, "Contemporary Visual Poetry: Women Writing the Posthuman", Routledge, 2025.

Medium: VR Sculpture.

About: Built in MasterpieceVR under Microsoft’s 'VR Influencers' programme + sculpted wearing a Samsung Odyssey WMR headset, Recyclic imagines a wind-powered turbine that is also a whimsical creature/sculpture, leaving viewers to decide whether they are meeting a dormant robot-monument or a biomech organism. With the title fusing “recycle” + “cyclical”, the work premières in the “Future Cities” Art Exhibition at the 14th ACM Creativity & Cognition Conference [Venice 2022]. Included among twenty VR/mixed-reality works responding to sustainable-urban themes, Recyclic is catalogued in the Conference Art proceedings + remains viewable on Sketchfab.

Medium: Interactive Fiction / Net.art.

About: A re-imagining of an earlier Calvino-inspired prototype created in 2014 as part of an educational project, Humidcity is revived in 2023 + then completed in 2024. Humidcity tells the story of a drowned + sodden cityscape with swells of expandable poetic [mezangelled] text + soggy imagery letting visitors expose hidden layers. Each reveal alters the mood of the urban drowning city, exploring the slow seep of environmental collapse. The 2024 build features in 'Transforming Literary Places', part of the Tartu 2024 European Capital of Culture programme, with the Exhibition going on to feature in the Literary Festival Prima Vista 2024 'Futures Better and Worse' Event + in the social program of the International Conference of the Science Fiction Research Association. It also features at the 17th International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling [Barranquilla, Colombia] + is installed [via a local WLAN node] in the 'grey) (area' Gallery on Korčula’s St Mark’s Square: a collaboration with Darko Fritz, Format C + Korčula Town Museum that lets passers-by stream the work directly to their phones. The curators of 'Transforming Literary Places' had this to say when presenting the work:

"'Humidcity' by Mez Breeze is a digital interactive system where storytelling transcends traditional modes. In this piece, the “Mezangelle” poetic style acts as a prism, refracting words into multiple meanings and perspectives much like the multifaceted streets of an urban landscape. The narrative becomes a labyrinth of text, a digital metropolis that beckons readers to explore its hidden alleys and discover its encoded stories. [With literary reference: "Le Città Invisibili" by Italo Calvino.]"

Medium: Interactive Fiction / Net.art.

About: An interactive, browser-based artwork, _Prog[W]res[tle]s_ weaves commentary on doom-scrolling + democratic back-sliding + the ever-present climate emergency + dis/misinformation + extremism + gender objectification. Through the use of mezangelle, the piece challenges readers to interpret layered meanings, as exemplified by the title itself: a portmanteau of "Progress" + "Wrestle." The work comprises five sections, each pairing mezangelled commentary with visual AI-genned narratives that unfold through a cyclical scroll technique. This twin-scrolling design allows audiences to interact with each scroll by manually reversing, fast-forwarding, or stopping them altogether. The cyclical auto-scroll feature symbolizes the relentless pace at which social challenges evolve + how they are perpetuated by continuous social media feedings. _Prog[W]res[tle]s_ makes its physical-exhibition debut at '(Un)Linked', the 2024 Electronic Literature Organization Conference Exhibition hosted by the University of Central Florida + is later featured in Digital America Issue 25 [2025]. The work shows at the art program of the Association for Computer Machinery's 'Creativity and Cognition 2025' [where the piece appears in the online gallery hosted in GatherTown], with a companion scholarly piece published in the ACM Digital Library. It is slated for display in 'Digital Art Gallery D-ART' 2025, part of the International Conference on Information Visualisation in Germany [both as an online work + in a physical gallery space]. The work is also short-listed for the 2024 Woollahra Digital Literary Award in the Digital Innovation category, recognising its code-poetic take on contemporary crises.

Medium: Interactive Simulation.

Collaborators: David Ciccoricco, Marina Cone.

About: Co-created by David Ciccoricco + Mez Breeze + Marina Cone, BabyHex takes the form of a language-learning simulator fronted by a child-like face on a screen. Visitors [who are cast as training interns] cycle through four scripted interactions: imitation [saying words the system repeats], generation [praising emergent babble], association [showing objects for naming] + calibration [throttling the pace of learning]. What begins as orderly psycholinguistic conditioning slides into runaway sentience: the toddler races through syntax, questions her own embodiment + hints at fault-lines between paternal scientist + experiment daughter. The project riffs on Mark Sagar’s 2013 'BabyX Soul Machines', functioning both as stand-alone aesthetic simulation + critical reply to research that models [+ monetises] dis-embodied "children". The project also has callbacks to The MALFI Trials, with references like "INFODOME" [a name derived directly from The MALFI Trials Scientific Research Organisation]. Built in HTML 5/JavaScript, the project debuts in the Electronic Literature Organization’s '(Un)linked' Exhibition [2024] + receives its first lecture walk-through at the Otago English and Linguistics Seminar, where Ciccoricco frames the piece as: “...parenting unruly AI”. It goes on to receive an Honourable Mention in the 2025 Robert Coover Award for Electronic Literature.

Medium: Net.art.

About: Originally written at the height of the GameStop short squeeze frenzy of 2021, We Like The $tock [WLT$] is a web-native work that mixes live-style memes + gamer lingo with a social-media interface design to satirise Reddit's r/WallStreetBets. Styled as a satirical net.art piece emulating a retro Reddit thread, it's published in Re-mediate Literary Magazine Issue 2 [2025]. P.D. Edgar, the Editor of Re-mediate, says this about the Issue + the piece:

"The pieces in Issue 2 are made with computer-generated text and text found on the computer, like Dan Power’s “To the Moon!” which comes straight from an LLM-integrated legal advice bot. Likewise, some emulate the environment where that language came from, as in the case of Mez Breeze’s “WE LIKE THE $TOCK,” which has been designed after Old RedditTM, or aya karpińska’s “Questions,” which looks like a spam folder in a mobile email app."