MIX 2012

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About MIX 2012

MIX: A Conference Exploring Transmedia Writing & Digital Creativity, 16th-18th July 2012 Corsham Court

MIX is the conference in Digital Creativity. For three days in July an international gathering of academics, artists, film makers and writers will meet in the stunning location of Corsham Court to discuss the current developments in digital writing.

The conference will take place at Bath Spa University’s postgraduate centre at Corsham Court from 16th-18th July 2012. Its aim is to bring together practitioners and theorists working with writing in digital media. The purpose is to create a core of research knowledge both practical and theoretical. The conference will present academic papers as well as presentations and workshops by current digital practitioners. There will also be a public exhibition of digital work created for this conference through an open call for artists/writers.

The questions we will be addressing are: How can new media be used for serious artistic purposes and how can we create a suitable critical vocabulary for this? What is the relationship between digital writers and the commercial world of ‘gaming’. Who are the audiences for digital writing and how can they be accessed? There will be submissions from those who work in digital media, concrete poetry, text art, poetry and performance, poetry and film, film poems, digital poetics, poetry and art, poetry and music, digital narratives, game writing, intermedia poetry, transmedia writing, language art, visual writing and installations.

The conference will produce a networked book of critical essays, examples of work and also an online forum where the debate can be continued.

Confirmed Key Speakers are:
Mark Amerika: Internationally renowned ‘re-mix’ artist and pioneer of internet art, digital video and experimental literature. Professor of Art and Art History at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Kate Pullinger: Acclaimed writer for both print and digital platforms. Reader at De Montfort University and founder of the Transliteracy Research Group.
Tom Konyves: Video poem creator and multi-media writer. Lecturer in screen writing in British Columbia.
Dr. Maria Mencia: Leader of practice led research in language driven new media/art/literature. Senior Lecturer at Kingston Universtity.

There will be an international line up of presenters from the U.S, Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy and the UK.

Presenters and Workshop Leaders

Doro Boehme. School of the Art Institute. Chicago.
Dr Teri Holbrook. Assistant Professor. Georgia State University.
Dr Melanie Hundley. Vanderbilt University, Nashville. USA
Philip Hartigan. Columbia College. Chicago
Christine Wilks. Writer and artist of electronic literature.
Dr. Helen Gregory. Psychology lecturer. University of Gloucestershire.
Andrew Atheron. University of Kent.
Holly Pester. Birkbeck University, London.
Dick Swart. School of Design. Utrecht.
Dr. Antonella Castelvedere. Universtiy Campus, Suffolk.
Sarah Tremlett. Video poems. Chelsea School of Art.
Professor Hazel Smith. University of Western Sydney
Dr Colin Harvey. University of Sydney
Dr. Donna Hancox. Queensland University of Technology.
Dr. Anabella Speziale. University of Buenos Aries.
Dr. Steve May. Head of Creative Writing. Bath Spa University.
Dr. Katharine Reeve. Publishing. Bath Spa University.
Caroline Harris. Bath Spa University.
Gabriel Stillwater.Bath Spa University.
Lance Dan. Bath Spa University.
Luba Diduch. Bath Spa University.
Glenn Carmichael and Sara Jane Arbury. multi media poets.
Jillian Abbot. Queensborough College. City University of New York.
Joelle Adams. Co-ordinator of the writing and learning centre, Bath Spa University
Eiliyas (Nicholas. A Kelly.) Berlin based music/text/sound artist
Patrick and Kelli Fuery. Chapman University. California
Terry Flaxton. Falmouth University.
Claire Reddington. Director of the Pervasive Media Studio, Bristol
Martin Reiser. De Montfort University.
Dr Patricia McNair. Columbia College, Chicago.
Phil Purves. Lecturer in Media studies, Bath Spa University.
Dr Steve May. Head of Creative Writing, Bath Spa University.
Liz Greenfield and Rebecca Tantony. Spoken word artists.
Bohdan Piasecki. Spoken Word artist.
Gerry Smith. Text based artist.
Sheri D. Wilson. Canadian spoken word artist and festival organiser.
Laurie Yule. University of Surrey.
Richard Stamp. Bath Spa University.
Dani Landau. Digital storyteller.
Jack Dean. Spoken word artist.
Lisa Mead. Apples and Snakes.
Julie Blake. The Poetry Archive
Lisa Mead. Apples and Snakes.
Paul Evan. Bath Spa University

Liberated Words

After what might seem a fairly random call for videopoems and a veritable storm of submissions we have arrived at a selection which we feel reflects a unique and distilled contemporary interpretation of the theme – Eugenio Carmi’s, 1960s, print-based work Liberated Words.

In their contrasting and complementary ways the videopoems explore the problematic of how we read and experience digital visual temporal text, or text in transition, liberated from the printed page. Through paradox and ambiguity they consider prose and prosody, dialogue and interpretation, personal identity and social information systems, and particularly the material in relation to the written and spoken word. The poems examine how text winds us up into its conceptual and visual net until we are tied in lexical knots; yet there are also works which lasso the line, flooding in nature and organic rhythms to create a visual interaction which we must somehow interpret anew, in other ways beyond poetry, prose and linguistic paradigms. The rise of new perceptions convey new experiences, as the lexical image stimulates and shifts in non-linear guises.

This compilation of videopoems has metamorphosed into a fully-rounded, innovative and complementary selection of poetical works from all corners of the globe. Our videopoetic Liberated Words 2012, gathered into one, universal, yet communal poem with many visual stanzas, reflects all aspects of the genre: from the philosophical, kinetic and humorous, to the performative and virtual, and we believe it provides both an entertaining and thought-provoking anthology.

Sarah Tremlett, July 2012

Links & Resources

Reading Suggestions

Media Poetry – An International Anthology

Eduardo Kac
UK, Intellect Books Ltd, 2007
ISBN: 9781841500300
Indispensable and in-depth coverage of text generation methods – with a timeline for the development of the genre from 1921 – 1996. Each chapter by a different author giving a general overview of the many areas covered.

P0Es1S: The Aesthetics Of Digital Poetry

Christiane Heibach, Karin Wenz, Bill Seaman and Eduardo Kac
Germany, Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2004
ISBN: 9783775713450
Essays by Mark Amerika, Giselle Beiguelman, Friedrich W. Block, Mark Bernstein, Nika Bertram, Simon Biggs, Philippe Bootz, John Cayley, Florian Cramer, Eduardo Kac, Bill Seaman, etc.
POes1S features contributions to an international symposium at Erfurt University, featuring installation, Internet and CD-ROM productions.

Also:
http://www.ekac.org/holopoetry.html
selected texts by Eduardo Kac on holographic poetry
http://www.holonet.khm.de/ekac/allholopoems.html
examples of his holopoetry

Videopoetry: A Manifesto

Tom Konyves
http://issuu.com/tomkonyves/docs/manifesto_pdf
the definitive guide to the various genres within the subject area

www.remixthebook.com
Mark America
‘A model of contemporary remixing and a groundbreaking reflection on digital media
Remixthebook explores the mashup as a defining cultural activity in the digital age, tracing the art of the remix to previous forms of avant-garde and modernist art through mashups of deftly sampled phrases and ideas. Mark Amerika captures the unique and continually shifting digital moment in which we live and situates the remix as an art form and literary intervention.’

META/DATA: A Digital Poetics

Mark Amerika
MIT Press, 2007
ISBN-10: 0-262-01233-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-01233-1
‘collects the writings of pioneering digital artist Mark Amerika who mixes (and remixes) personal memoir, net art theory, fictional narrative, satirical reportage, scholarly history, and network-infused language art. META/DATA is a playful, improvisatory, multitrack “digital sampling” of Amerika’s writing from 1993 to 2005 that tells the early history of a net art world “gone wild” while simultaneously constructing a parallel poetics of net art that complements Amerika’s own artistic practice.’

Expanding the Concept of Writing: Notes on Net Art, Digital Narrative, and Viral Ethics

Mark Amerika
Leonardo, US, M.I.T. Press, 2004, Vol 37, No. 1, Pages 9-14

35 Years of Visible Writing : A Memoir

Richard Kostelanetz
New York, NY, Koja Press, 2004
ISBN: 0970722486
Synopsis: ‘A memoir from Richard Kostelanetz that breaks thirty-five years of visual writing into fifteen graphically and linguistically packed chapters that re-visit and inhabit anew the formal, visual, and performative experiments with language that drive – and that are – his life’s work.’

Perhaps the most prolific exponent of writing in all forms but particularly relevant for his early work in the filmic medium.

A Companion to Digital Literary Studies

ed. Susan Schreibman and Ray Siemens, Oxford, Blackwell, 2008
http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companionDLS/
ISBN-10: 1405148640
ISBN-13: 978-1405148641
Digital Poetry: A Look at Generative, Visual, and Interconnected Possibilities in its First Four Decades, Christopher Funkhouser

New Media Poetics – contexts, technotexts, and theories

ed. Adelaide Morris and Thomas Swiss, MIT Press, Cambridge and London, 2006
ISBN-10: 0-262-13463-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-262-13463-7
Screening the Page/ Paging the Screen: Digital Poetics and the Differential Text
Marjorie Perloff, pp 143-64

Unoriginal Genius: Poetry by Other Means in the New Century

Marjorie Perloff
Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2010
ISBN: 9780226660615

Digital Poetics: The Making of E-Poetries

Loss Glazier
US, University of Alabama Press, 2001
ISBN-10: 0817310754
ISBN-13: 978-0817310752

An Art of Limina: Gary Hill’s Works and Writings

George Quasha and Charles Stein,
Spain, Barcelona:Ediciones Poligrafa, 2009
ISBN-10: 8434310422
ISBN-13: 978-8434310421

Techno-Poetry and Virtual Reality

Caterina Davinio
Essay (Italian/English) with a preface by Eugenio Miccini Sometti Collana, Collection Archivio della Poesia del 900 Comune de Mantova, Sometti Publisher, 2002
ISBN: 88091-85-8

Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing

Craig Douglas Dworkin and Kenneth Goldsmith
US, Northwestern University Press, 2011
ISBN-10: 0810127113
ISBN-13: 978-0810127111

Uncreative Writing: Managing Language in the Digital Age

Kenneth Goldsmith
Columbia University Press, 2011
ISBN-10: 0231149913
ISBN-13: 978-0231149914

The Society of Text, Hypertext, Hypermedia, and the Social Construction of Information

ed: E. Barrett
US, Cambridge, MIT Press, 1991
ISBN: 10: 0-262-52161-X

Digital Visions, Computers and Art

Cynthia Goodman
New York, Harry N Abrams, 1987
ISBN: 9780810923614

Recombinant Poetics: Emergent Meaning as Examined and Explored Within a Specific Generative Virtual Environment

Bill Seaman, VDM Verlag, Dr. Müller, 2010
ISBN: 3639236513, 9783639236514

Neosentience – A New Branch of Scientific and Poetic Inquiry Related to Artificial Intelligence

Bill Seaman and Otto Rossler, Technoetic Arts, Volume 6, Number 1, 2008

S. Brent Plate

Between Cinema and a Hard Place: Gary Hill’s Video Art Between Words and Images
Criticism – Volume 45, Number 1, Winter 2003, pp. 109-127

Websites/archives:

www.littlepig.org.uk
the essays of Simon Biggs since 1994
In 1978 Biggs invented a graphic computer system and has since used the computer for his art which includes digital animation, interactive installation, CD-ROMs, Internet and related media. His work has been shown at numerous exhibitions and he has published extensively on the subject.

http://www.wordcircuits.com/kendall/essays/index.html
Robert Kendall
1993-2003 Essays – a valuable mapping of the development of videopoetry

http://heliozoa.com
Jason Nelson
Digital Poetry Interfaces – Recommended for his in-depth demonstration of various types of digital poetry and innovative uses of new technology to create new poetical forms.

www.movingpoems.com
Dave Bonta – the one site to visit for a good overview of the genre

http://www.cornermag.org/corner05/page08.htm
extremely informative and lengthy article on the different genres of experimental poetry in Spain by Laura López Fernández

http://library.canterbury.ac.nz/collserv/campal.shtml
The Julio Campal Experimental Poetry Collection, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

http://telepoesis.net/papers/dpoetry.pdf
Digital Poetry and Collaborative Wreadings of digital texts – Rui Torres

http://www.european-mediaculture.org/fileadmin/bibliothek/english/block_digitalpoetics/block_digitalpoetics.pdf

www.eastgate.com
hypertext fiction
‘information farming’
‘the primary source for serious hypertext’

http://www.poetryvisualized.com/

http://vispo.com/misc/BrazilianDigitalPoetry.htm

http://www.cibercultura.org.br

http://www.letras.ufmg.br/atelaeotexto/ARTIGO_4_POESIA_NA_TELA.html

http://www.thegatesofparadise.com/
David Daniels’ 400 Page Visual Poem: The Gates of Paradise

http://www.furtherfield.org/reviews/lift-your-heads-o-ye-gates
for an account of concrete poet David Daniels

http://wn.com/Video_poetry

http://www.youtube.com/user/ArchivioVoceDeiPoeti?blend=15&ob=5

http://www.writingsinrhyme.com/Videos.php
Irish videopoetry

http://ekac.org/media.poetry.book.html
New media poetry Eduardo Kac Editor]

http://www.videopoesia.com/index.php?langeng&ophome
Videopoetry archive

http://www.arteonline.arq.br/museu/ensaios/davinio.htm
Techno-Poetry

http://www.cibercultura.org.br/tikiwiki/tiki-index.php?page=Ernesto+Melo+e+Castro

http://www.ubu.com/vp/index.html
a site which began in 1996 for visual and concrete poetry; editor Derek Beaulieu –
conceptual writing

http://www.ubu.com/concept/AgainstExpressionTOC-Essays.pdf

http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/electropoetics
First begun in 1997 another source of contemporary historical thinking on the subject as ‘electropoetics’.

www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/grumman/egrumn.htm
For an exploration of minimalist poetry and its historical antecedents

http://poeticks.com/ten-superior-visual-poems/marton-koppanys-poem/bob-grumman-on-poem/

http://www.bigbridge.org/issue11/minimalistinfraverbal.htm
examples of infraverbal poetry – the hidden words in other words causing secondary and tertiary meanings and or vertical meanings to be ‘disconcealed’

www.redroom.com

http://ww2.rediscov.com/sacknerarchives/Welcome.aspx
The Sackner archive

www.Poemsthatgo.com
Archives

http://www.fluxus.org
Fluxus