Where performance and digital literature meet…
Bristol will be the place to be for off the page, off the screen, and off the wall, digital, visual, and performance writing types this weekend. University College Falmouth (UCF) is hosting two back to-back events at Arnolfini Gallery – each featuring a dynamic mix of theory and practice through lectures, discussions, performance, workshops, and works from an impressive roster of authors, artists, and academics from near and far.
Both events are being co-ordinated by Jerome Fletcher , Associate Professor of Performance Writing at University College Falmouth, Award Leader for the MA in Performance Writing offered by University College Falmouth in partnership with Arnolfini in Bristol, a Principal Investigator in Electronic Literature as a Model for Creativity in Practice (ELMCIP), a collaborative research project funded by Humanities in the European Research Area, and author of seven print books, and countless artist’s books, digital and experimental texts, collaborations and performances.
The first event 3-4 May 2012 will be an ELMCIP seminar on Digital Textuality with/in Performance http://elmcip.net/event/elmcip-seminar-digital-textuality-within-performance. Participants attending this seminar will investigate the relationship between e-literature/digital text and performance. International speakers and practitioners and members of the ELMCIP project will discuss the function and understanding of performativity and its relationship to digital literature through a series of papers, presentations and practical engagements. The first day of the seminar will be devoted to papers and panel discussions by leading European academics in the field of electronic literature and performance. The second day will break from the traditional seminar model by focusing on artists presentations and works-in-progress. The first morning session will feature presentations by Martin Reiser, Helen Varley Jamieson, and New Media Writing Prize winner Christine Wilks. The rest of the day will be dedicated to workshop-style presentations of works in progress by practitioners who have been commissioned to create new works for the final ELMCIP conference and exhibition Remediating the Social http://elmcip.net/conference , to be held in Edinburgh in November 2012.
These sessions led by Annie Abrahams, cris cheek, Joerg Piringer, Donna Leishman, and me, J.R. Carpenter, will enlist hands-on input and offer insight into some of the background rationale and development processes involved in creating, performing, conceptualizing, and contextualizing hybrid digital literary performance works.
The seminar will lead directly into Performance Writing Weekend 4-6 May 2012. Pioneered at Dartington College of Art in the mid-1990s, Performance Writing is a set of cross-artform writing practices exploring the boundaries and intersections between different forms and media, and engaging with new possibilities and technologies for the production and dissemination of writing in the 21st century. The Performance Writing Weekend will comprise performances, readings, a workshop on Writing & Mapping, ‘events on the plinth’, an exhibition and discussions about multi- and inter-medial writing. Of particular interest to The Literary Platform readers, Performance Writing Weekend will consider how, as the printed book comes under threat, new writing will be made, displayed and talked about, with discussion on small press and experimental writing, digital dramaturgy, the future of multi-media writing…
Authors of digital literature presenting works-in-progress at an academic conference held in a major European art and performance space? Award-winning novelist Kate Pullinger and Dreaming Methods writer/programmer Andy Campbell discussing collaboration, writing and the relationship between page and screen? Poet/programmer Joerg Piringer discussing the performance of code? Multi-instrumentalist David Coulter performing short improvisations between readings? Really, what more could an off the page, off the screen, and off the wall, digital, visual, and performance writing type wish for?
Featured Events:
PERFORMANCE: IN THE THEATER
Friday: 6:30-8. Free, but booking is required.
Digital text and the Body – 5 International artist/writers will perform a series of live, multi-media, sonic and digital text works. Featuring Friday night performances by the afore mentioned Annie Abrahams, cris cheek, Joerg Piringer, Donna Leishman, and J.R. Carpenter
WORKSHOP: IN THE MEETING ROOM
Saturday: 10.00 − 5.00 & Sunday: 11.00 − 13.00
Writing & Mapping – This Performance Writing workshop examines the relationship between the mapping and space, memory, history, identity, the body and fiction.
Led by artist/writer Mel Thompson and writer/dancer Christos Polymenakos.
(£10. Maximum of 20 participants. Contact Arnolfini to sign up)
Event Programs:
ELMCIP Seminar – Digital Textuality with/in Performance – 3-4 May 2012
http://elmcip.net/event/elmcip-seminar-digital-textuality-within-performance
Performance Writing Weekend – 4-6 May 2012
http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/events/details/1325
Booking & Enquiries:
Arnolfini
T: +44 (0)117 9172300 / 01
16 Narrow Quay, Bristol BS1 4QA
Performance Writing on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/performancewriting