Yucef Merhi - Life and Work

Life and Work

Yucef Merhi was born in Caracas, Venezuela. He studied at Universidad Central de Venezuela and New School University. His artistic practice began in the mid 80s. He is known as the first artist in exhibiting a work of art that included a video game console, the Atari 2600, back in 1985. As the pioneer of Digital Art in Venezuela, Merhi has produced a wide body of works that engage electronic circuits, computers, video game systems, touch screens, and other devices in the presentation of his written words, like the Poetic Clock, a machine that converts time into poetry which generates 86.400 different poems daily. The resulting artworks expand the limitations of language and the traditional context of poetry, proposing a bold new role for the poet in our culture.