INSIDE THE SKULL HOUSE
A Neuropoesis

Joel Weishaus

"It is still necessary to discover, beneath the noise of actions,
those creative sensations or those silent contemplations
     that bear witness to a brain."

 

Inside the Skull-House is a journey cast in the epic mode. Brain, its hero(ine), is perhaps the most complex and elegant achievement of this universe. Brain's quest to unravel the chemistry of its circuits and the mystery of their projections, including the "hard problem" of consciousness, adds humor to the science and relief that my path is not a pathology, but metaphor, mythology, etymology, hierology and some devices of electracy.

Because it draws upon the singular experiences that cause its topography to be unique, Brain is outfitted in the first person, while its journey is both modular and interdependent. Each segment begins with three buttons:

PRETEXT prepares the distance to be covered.
LOG-BOOK, a journal endowed with tropes, images, animated or not, quotes, poems, dreams, along with links to a paratext of references, citations, and additional information, is the project's soul, being in the world and of the mind.
Beneath these, variously named buttons lead to neurophysiological illustrations .

In its quest to understand itself, Brain is set adrift on a stormy sea of ideas. There are numinous adventures, and a beckoning horizon that serves as a learning curve "linking acts and footsteps," and conjuring a mind that describes a journey while unpacking a poet's life.

 

Begin Here

This project is dedicated to artists from antiquity to the Digital Age whose work inspires mine; along with friends and colleagues who have been encouraging over the five years of its making; in particular: Kevin Campbell, Claire Dunsmore, Ed Falco, Roy Ascott, Neil Greenberg, Len Hatfield, Deena Larsen, Jennifer Ley, Talan Memmott, David H. Rosen, Christopher Shultis, Alan Sondheim, and Gregory Ulmer.

Sections of Inside the Skull-House have been published in the following journals:

RHIZOMES: http://www.rhizomes.net/issue1/skull/intro.htm
BEE-HIVE: http://beehive.temporalimage.com/bee_core/index.html
RIDING THE MERIDIAN: www.heelstone.com/meridian
NEW RIVER: www.cddc.vt.edu/journals/newriver

Exhibitions:

"2nd Interpoetry Exhibition of Hypertext Poetics," MacKenzie University, São Paulo, Brazil, 8-11 October 2001.
"Aldeburgh Poetry Festival," Aldeburgh, England, 1-3 November 2002.