Irresponsible Mediums: The Chess Games of Marcel Duchamp

By Aaron Tucker

In 1968, avant-garde artist Marcel Duchamp and composer John Cage exhibited Reunion, a chess performance, in Toronto, Canada, where whenever a player moved a piece, it generated a musical note until the game was transformed into a symphony.

Inspired by this performance, Irresponsible Mediums--poet and academic Aaron Tucker's second full-length collection of poems—translates Duchamp's chess games into poems using the ChessBard (an app co-created by Tucker and Jody Miller) and in the process, recreates Duchamp's joyous approach to making art, while also generating startling computer-made poems that blend the analog and digital in strange and surprising combinations.

With an introduction by Jennifer Shahade, two time U.S. Women's Chess Champion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bookhug Press
• Release date: Oct 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781771663359

Book preview

9781771663359.jpg

first edition

Copyright © 2017 Aaron Tucker

The production of this book was made possible through the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. BookThug also acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Book Fund.

BookThug acknowledges the land on which it operates. For thousands of years it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island, and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

library and archives canada cataloguing in publication

Tucker, Aaron, 1982–, author

Irresponsible mediums : the chess games of Marcel Duchamp / Aaron Tucker. — First edition.

Poems.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

softcover: ISBN 978-1-77166-334-2

html: ISBN 978-1-77166-335-9

pdf: ISBN 978-1-77166-336-6

kindle: ISBN 978-1-77166-337-3

I. Title.

PS8639.U25I77 2017 C811’.6 C2017-906178-X C2017-906179-8

for Julia, for everything

Introduction

In my study of Marcel Duchamp’s chess games and career, I am often struck by his statement that Beauty in chess is closer to beauty in poetry; the chess pieces are the block alphabet which shapes thoughts; and these thoughts, although making a visual design on the chessboard, express their beauty abstractly, like a poem.1¹ Duchamp’s understanding that visualization is at the centre of chess explains to me how he reached chess mastery at nearly 40 years old, a relatively advanced age to