Infinity Ink Presents: An Internet

As the founding editor of Infinity’s Kitchen, I collaborated with Ink Press Productions to produce a new publication called AN INTERNET. AN INTERNET is not digital content that it part of the conventional internet, but rather an amalgamation of contained digital content on a USB drive, together with a unique, modified book.

Together, the two operations are called Infinity Ink, a collaboration between Baltimore’s Ink Press Productions, a publisher, and Infinity’s Kitchen, a literary journal and reading series. The purpose of the project is to consider: what does it mean “to publish” in a post-Internet society. To express that purpose, the two presses have come together to create “An Internet”. Like the Internet that we’re already accustomed to, this internet will be complex and diverse, but unlike the traditional Internet, this one will be offline, and shared with audiences via the physical media of a USB thumb drive, as an element of a book-like case.

“We consider our current internet and how it lives in relationship with books and the enlightenment. With people and their lives. To do this, we are creating an object - a functional internet accessible through a USB flash drive that will be housed in a handmade case, distributed like a book,” Said Amanda McCormick, co-curator of Ink Press Productions.

The final publication is the result of nearly a year of work from the project’s creators; Amanda McCormick; Tracy Dimond, the other co-curator of Infinity Ink, and Dylan Kinnett, the founding editor of Infinity’s Kitchen. A call for submissions to the project was distributed internationally last spring. It was intended to collect, for example “art, writing, videos, recipes, memes, clickbait, spam, emails, image searches, commentary, reviews, spoofs, embarrassing evidence, tweets, research data, self-help instructions, lists, photos, poetry, advertisements, and more.”

The release of the publication was celebrated at an event, held at Fifth Dimension, in the H&H Building, 405 W. Franklin St., Baltimore, Maryland 21201. This event, on October 27, 2016 featured performances by Peter Redgrave & Khristian Weeks, Poetry by Mary Walters, Dialogues by Stephanie Barber, Music by Moon Tongue, and special guests Mike Tager, Carabella Sands, and Jessica Borowski.

Ink Press Productions is a collaborative project devoted to blurring the lines of writing, visual, and performance art. We believe there are an infinite number of ways to be a book and strive to open this dialogue with as many people as possible. We accomplish this through various artistic avenues & media.

Infinity’s Kitchen is a literary journal seeking work that results from new recipes, or from existing recipes that have been compellingly redefined. Infinity’s Kitchen is an experiment to test the ways that literary work is presented to an audience, online, in person, and in print.