Binary Poetry of All Kinds: 01010111 01001111 01010111!

Sometimes a search term can send you down a path you didn't expect. I set out this morning to find examples of poetry written in binary code. And though I did find some, I also found a larger body of binary-related work that's worth sharing.

The first person to have seriously approached the concept of poetry in binary was Czech poet Ladislav Nebeský, who developed his particular technique between 1966-1972. A good example of this idea is the poem "light - dust". Nebeský used binary poetry as a jumping off point to explore poetry of what he calls "Non-written Words." I find his non-written word poems to be a little reminiscent of minimalist painting.

Of course, Nebeský wasn't the only one to think of writing poems in code. There are many less serious, more whimsical examples like this one. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the maxim works both ways: if poetry can be code, then surely Code is Poetry.

Now when I searched "binary poetry," I knew I wouldn't just get poems that were written in binary code, but also ones that simply involved two complimentary objects or forces. A good example is this one by Keith O'Connor about the colors white and black in painting.

Lastly, there were two things in my search that I didn't expect to find at all, but was delighted I did. One was a song by Ben Mono called "Binary Poetry" which has a catchy techno-inspired beat. Another was the Binary Poetry Flickr set, which features some pretty stunning black-and-white photography.

Who knew that a simple Google search for "binary poetry" could yield such diverse artistic results? If you know of any examples of binary-related art that I may have missed, please link to it in the comments. With any luck, this little voyage of discovery isn't over yet.