Finnegans Wake is a complex novel that blends the reality of life with a dream world. The writer, James Joyce, combined a number of languages and used complex sound indications to create an atmosphere of wordplay and hidden meaning throughout the entirety of Finnegans Wake. It has significance for its experimental style and reputation as one of the most difficult works in the Western canon.
In the 3rd year of my study at ArtEZ University of the Arts, me and my classmates each got a different section of the book to work with. I myself got page 331 until page 357. With my section of the book, I was exploring concrete poetry. I found out that a lot of words didn’t make sense in the book and by vocalizing these words I would find them easier to understand.
In my section of the book, I gave different tones to every single word. By adding waveforms to show how the tone of the words goes up and down, I tried to help the reader understand.
My idea originally came from the sound poem used in dadaism, I refer back to this in my colored pages. These pages are a more poetic view of the book, still readable but made into a sound poem instead of a book text. The colored pages are constructed in a way, so the viewer has to ‘unwrap’ it and have a more personal interaction with the book.
