mirabilia et monstra: das Gruselkabinett Nora Gomringers

While monsters and cyborgs of all kinds remained products of art and fantasy for centuries, this changed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, when biotechnologies made it possible to produce hybrids and whimsical formations: the world of contemporary miracles is manifold. In her lyrical “trilogy of surfaces and invisibilities”, slam poet Nora Gomringer lists big and small mirabilia and monstra of our culture. She evokes inner, invisible beasts and very visible beings, a cabinet full of freaks. The horror that gives birth to the monster is indeed a horror vacui, that fear of emptiness that should at least be filled with lists and litanies. Enumerations, repetitions, series and accumulations of all kinds preserve moments of minimized language and at the same time bring ambiguity, dialogue and interaction back into play. Thus, the tension between a denotative language of knowledge and language in the full sense becomes fruitful, and Nora Gomringer certainly manages to confront the reader audience with its own taboos and voyeuristic needs.