#experimental literature
Contents
silent but surplus letters
someone has visually demonstrated all of the matter that these silent but surplus letters visually make when printed in three different languages. (via Letterology: The Silence Experiment )
international exchange for poetic invention
international exchange for poetic invention International Exchange for Poetic Invention is a multilanguage weblog with links and information on poetic invention - our term for exploratory / investigative / experimental / radical / conceptual poetry. We hope the site will serve as an international point of contact for the exchange of information among those interested.
Typotranslation
On more than one occasion, the artist Marcel Duchamp published some unusual written works. Rather than to write and produce a book, the artist chose to produce, in limited edition, a box full of reproductions of small handwritten and drawn notes, not unlike a database, or a file-share of an artist’s hard drive. Rather than being a completed creative work, the notes are ideas for, or about, creative work.
False Start by Jonah Bokaer
Jonah Bokaer is a choreographer who experiments with computer models of the human body. By simulating iterations of movements until they verge upon the impossible, he is able to find new movements that are possible, with training.
Traumgedanken
The book Traumgedanken (“Thoughts on dreams”) contains a collection of literary, philosophical, psychological and scientifical texts which provide an insight into different dream theories. To ease the access to the elusive topic, the book is designed as a model of a dream about dreaming. Analogue to a dream, where pieces of reality are assembled to build a story, it brings different text excerpts together. They are connected by threads which tie in with certain key words. The threads visualise the confusion and fragileness of dreams.
textsound
Textsound is a bi-annual online journal of experimental soundworks. It is like a combined publication and mixtape. The tenth and latest issue of Textsound is called the Michyou Issue and features the work of poets who love in Michigan. The editor says that many of these poets come from an academic environment where experimental approaches are taken on a regular basis.
Futurist Typography and the Liberated Text
Google Books has a preview copy of Futurist typography and the liberated text By Alan Bartram In the early decades of the twentieth century, European artists, poets and designers called for the destruction of outdated assumptions about vision and language. Numerous manifestos resulted, demanding new artistic forms. None of these manifestos was more aggressive and poetic, or wider in scope than Filippo Tomasso Marinetti's Futurist Manifesto of 1909. Painting, sculpture, literature, architecture, theatre, cinema, and music were all caught up in its net. Typography""until then a distant relative in the arts""also played a major role in Marinetti's program. Written by leading design scholar Alan Bartram, this fascinating book examines the rise and evolution of the Futurists' approach to typography and graphic design, placing it within the context of contemporary artistic and literary movements. The volume features examples of some eighty Futurist books or other designs for print, many of them relatively unknown or previously unpublished, accompanied by new translations of over twenty of the featured texts. Bartram illuminates the complicated meanings of the Futurist designers' graphic works in order to provide a new understanding of their extraordinary and influential visual language.
One Hour of Television
One Hour of Television is a bleeding, screaming, literary freak-beast adventure novel created by new Canadian voice-sensation Kristina Born. Told in poetic-micro-burst segments, Born transcribes a filthy world of wicked science, consumerism, bomb building, and Texas hold em. From a boiled pot of Gary Lutz, Andy Kaufman, and pure human fear, One Hour of Television is a story of mad consumption that will, through its paper, consume you. In a recent interview with The Faster Times, Kristina Born the author has some interesting things to say about how the book was created, and what sort of style it is written in.
Poor. Old. Tired. Horse.
An new exhibition of concrete poetry is on display at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. The exhibition is titled "Poor. Old. Tired. Horse." gets its name from a periodical by that name that championed new works of visual poetry in the 1960's.
Interactive DVD Novel
"The Imaginary 20th Century" is a historical science-fiction novel takes the form of a large-scale projection, which is an interactive work that includes 2,200 images culled from different visual archives. The story focuses on the whimsical adventures of a woman in the year 1901 who has four different suitors, each with their own vision for the new century. Existing not only as an art installation, but also as a book and a DVD-ROM, The Imaginary 20th Century proposes a new approach to narrative.
Vorticism
Vorticism was a short lived British art movement of the early 20th century. It is considered to be the only significant British movement of the early 20th century but lasted fewer than three years.
Asemic Writing
Asemic Magazine explains the concept of Asemic Writing. It looks like writing, but we can't quite read it. I call works like this “asemic writing”. Asemic writing seems to be a gigantic, unexplored territory.
Roulette TV: New and Experimental Music
Infinity’s Kitchen dabbles, ever so slightly, with experimental music, as well as literature. The opening release party for our publication featured several musical acts. If you like that sort of stuff, check out Roulette TV.
Anderbo
Anderbo.com is one of an increasing number of online literary journals. The magazine publishes three issues online and one print issue annually. It features poetry, fiction and "fact" writings. Here's a clip from the journal's facebook page.
Link is Dead. Long Live Locus!
A "wake" was held for Baltimore's defunct arts magazine, Link: A Critical Arts Journal in Baltimore and the World (1996-2006). For ten years or so, Link was a preeminent authority on the subject of "" you guessed it "" arts in Baltimore and the World. Notable contributors to the publication included Yoko Ono, in the final issue.
Experimental Writing Conference
If you're in the Los Angeles area, and you read Infinity's Kitchen, then you should definitely check out the "Untitled" conference. If anything cool goes online, as a result of this conference, we'll be sure to mention it here. Here's the skinny on this year's conference.
Live From the High Zero Music Festival
Baltimore's critically acclaimed High Zero is perhaps the most unusual festival of new music in the country, mixing no-holds barred experimentation on a large scale with all new, spontaneous collaborations between some of the most interesting musicians on the planet. Since 1999, the festival has inspired radical methods and brought utopian intentions to hundreds of varied performances, on stage and on the street.
A History of the Future of Narrative
A History of the Future of Narrative: Robert Coover. Novelist Robert Coover's keynote address at the Electronic Literature in Europe seminar (elitineurope.net), September 13th, 2008. Introduced by Scott Rettberg.
Experimental Literature & Artists’ Books
There will be an exhibition of Jack Kerouac's original manuscript for "On the Road", at Columbia College in Chicago this fall. (Hopefully, this one will allow photographs.) In conjunction with that, there will be another exhibition that “highlights the ongoing exploration of writers/artists in the area of experimental literature vis-a-vis artists’ books”.
Digital Fever: Archiving Art and Poetry Online
If you've ever wanted to learn about the state-of-the-art, when it comes to digitally archiving artworks and poetry on the internet, here's a treat for you. "Digital Fever: Archiving Art and Poetry Online" is a critically-oriented (lengthy) discussion of digital media and the future of archiving, featuring alternating models for poetry and visual media currently operating online. Project Website (with 92 min. multimedia recording): https://slought.org/content/11144/
Poetry on the Broad Side of a Barn
The poem is by John Donne, entitled "The Sun Rising." Source: dbqp: visualizing poetics
Illuminated Manuscript
At a show called Documenta 2002 in Kassel, Germany, an unusual kind of electronic book was featured. It was called "The Illuminated Manuscript." As the author describes the book:
The Validity of Experimenal Literature
In 2002, there was a big debate over the validity of experimental literature. It was sparked by an article in the New Yorker, September 30 2002, where "Jonathan Franzen writes about the career of William Gaddis, one of the most imposing modern novelists, and considers the question of whether a novel's difficulty is related to its quality as literature". In the online interview that accompanied the article, Franzen raised a few concerns about what he calls "difficult literature".
Radical Small-Press Writing
Aside from the Modernist Journals Project, it can be difficult to see online copies of the small-press publications where much of the experimental literature has happened over the past century or so. That's why Eclipse is a useful web site.
Dreaming Methods’ Digital Storytelling
Dreaming Methods is a website that features some of the best digital storytelling on the internet. With an archive of more than 20 works of interactive literature, it is a great place to learn about digital literature. The site began its life on Amiga Public Domain during mid 1990s, as an archive of many of the projects created during that time.
Vispo in The World
Repugno Selects is a new blogzine for visual poetry / word art / text objects "" as they intervene in the world. Each issue, Repugno the editor, gives us an interesting collection of graffiti, and things like graffiti to enjoy. His criteria: the visual poetry cannot appear on a page. Instead, the art featured ere is printed on brick walls, tacked onto phone booths, and discovered in alleyways. Repugno calls this kind of stuff "Vispo in the World". (Vispo, of course, is short for "visual poetry".) The criteria for Repugno Selects also serves as a good definition of what is meant by "Vispo in the World". Read on.
Visual Poetry in the Avant Writing Collection
Recently, The Avant Writing Collection has published a catalog of visual poetry, Visual Poetry in the Avant Writing Collection. It includes many samples from the collection, along with critical writing.