The BardCode Project
In the BardCode Project Gregory Betts has analysed and mapped the rhyme patterns within Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets. Shakespeare built his famous sonnets by a unique sound pattern of rhymes in the final syllable, the tenth column, of each line. Betts asks, and answers, the question: What was Shakespeare doing in the rest of the sonnet?
The BardCode project maps out the full sound pattern of rhymes in all ten columns across all of Shakespeare's sonnets. Colour coding these sound-codes results in a visual text rich with the sonic patterns of the poems. Suddenly, for the first time, you can see the BardCode.
The project is grounded in an ethos of open access and Betts has encouraged others to create their own work from his - he writes: ‘And to be clear, I fully and completely support anybody using the data in my project to develop their own work and responses. No reservations, no copyright, no hesitation. Let the words be yours, I am done with mine.’
The richness of the project and this invitation to make with and from it has already led to a series of new works which appear below. But first here is Betts talking about the origins of the BardCode project. The video ends with Betts’ own sound poetry performance of the BardCode of Sonnet 18.
Gregory Betts is a poet, professor, editor, and musician. He is the author of seven previous books of poetry, two academic studies on the Canadian avant-garde, and editor of nine books of experimental writing. The BardCode project is his second response to the playground of Shakespeare’s sonnets—the other being The Others Raisd in Me, in which he peels out 150 buried poems from the words and letters of Sonnet 150. Betts teaches at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
Sweet Forme: Shake-Speare’s Perfect Sonnets is a book created by Gregory Betts. Starting its life as the idea of putting a small selection of the 154 BardCodes into a book it ultimately presents visualizations of what Betts calls Shakespeare’s perfect sonnets. This is because in the selection process Betts realised that whilst the Shakespearean sonnet is known for its 10 syllables per lines x 14 line structure only 7 of the 154 sonnets actually conform perfectly to this pattern. These are the 7 that are included in Sweet Forme, along with an introduction to the project by Gregory Betts.
Sweet Forme was designed in collaboration with Gareth Jenkins and published by Apothecary Archive. A full colour hardcover first edition of 52 copies was released in July 2020 and sold out in early August - a paperback edition is availabe HERE.
Responses to the BardCode.
Matthew Ellis’ response to Gregory Betts’ BardCode - William Shakespeare Sonnet 143
I was looking for intrinsic logic, a sense of structure or patterning beyond the rhyme scheme of sonnet form. I found that within the BardCode's sequence of unique syllables and their repetition a suggestion of melody, an implied lyrical form, a neume. This melodic line seemed to fit quite naturally in 31 tone just intonation. (Interestingly there was another 31 tone tuning in use in Shakespeare's time - quarter comma meantone).
For the visuals I used an RGB (red, green, blue) representation of the BardCode syllable colours. Each as three eight bit values displayed as a binary map, presented synchronously in the spoken rhythm of the sonnet.
With the grid as trellis, oversized pixels and a bitstream of audio, the piece still needed more cohesion. Developing layers of sound with soft synths and non real-time granular synthesis, sculpting with bit crushers and compressors, I tried to meld the elements into a complex flow. An abstract to emphasise a multiplicity of readings. To reference the gridded sonnet form and the energetic play of the bard’s lyric.
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Matthew is an artist who makes music and develops new musical instruments. Working with a broad range of materials and processes in the field of new media. Matthew has taught theory and given practical courses at a tertiary level. Including media and design theory, programming and electronics for artists, animation and digital imaging.
Sweet Formes 1>7
Sweet Forme 1 > 7 (for Gregory Betts) is a work by Arnold McBay. In the form of a gif Arnold has combined all 7 BardCodes included in the Sweet Forme book so that the image cycles through each BardCode on loop.
Arnold writes: Betts' translation of the Bard’s sonnets suggests to me that there is much freedom within constraint (and here, a grid). His visualization of these sound patterns opens their reading potential and by creating a moving image that transitions through each of Betts’ pre-assigned BardCodes I hoped to further this expansion by revealing new colours/rhymes hidden in the transitions between each sonnet.
Arnold McBay is a Canadian artist whose work encompasses a spectrum of methods ranging from drawing, sculpture and installation, and most recently has expanded to include sound and animated language/poetry appropriations. He teaches studio courses at the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine & Performing Arts at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario and has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants. His work is in private and public collections across North America and he is represented by Thielsen Galleries of London, ON.
14 10-note phrases
BardCode 13, created by Gregory Betts, maps the sound pattern of each syllable in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 13. Sam Westphalen created a sound work in response to this BarCode by using the eyedrop tool in photoshop to find the hue degree number of each colour square in the BardCode. He then put those numbers into a frequency calculator to come up with a series of musical notes - the entire piece being 14 10-note phrases. Gareth Jenkins paired these phrases with the corresponding square of colour from which each note was derived to create this video work.
Sam Westphalen is a percussive-acoustic guitarist based in Sydney who incorporates looping and effects to create improvised sets.
Gareth Sion Jenkins is a poet, artist, researcher and publisher based in Sydney. He has spend 15 years archiving the work of Australia’s greatest Outsider artist and writer Anthony Mannix in The Atomic Book. His poetry collection Recipes for the Disaster won the Anne Elder Award in 2020. He is the founder of the Apothecary Archive.
SWEET FORME — for Gregory Betts, by Christian Bök
This animation cycles through the seven "perfect sonnets" of William Shakespeare — (sonnets, now translated by Gregory Betts into a gridded, rhyming scheme of colours).
Christian Bök is the author of EUNOIA.