Art/Conference Talk/Digital Humanities/Electronic Literature/Research

De mutantes y de museos

Posted on by Alex

En las últimas semanas he tenido la gran suerte de dar dos charlas que abarcan mis dos temas favoritos. Primero, tuve la oportunidad de retomar mi amor mutante, dando una conferencia plenaria en la Universidad de Bucarest durante el congreso “Alerta Mutante: Anomalías en los genes de la ficción”. La experiencia fue fabulosa, hacía mucho tiempo que no encontraba a tanta gente junta interesada en estos temas tan esotéricos que me gustan a mí. En esa charla, “Entre la página y la pantalla. Literatura mutante en el medio digital” hablé sobre la obra de Robert Juan Cantavella, Otro, y mi predilecta Crónica de Viaje de Jorge Carrión, buscando, sobre todo, la huella digital que la gestación electrónica de estas (y otras) obras deja en su cuerpo impreso. En realidad se trataba un poco de un juego para ver el impacto que nuestra relación con los ordenadores deja en nuestra creación literaria, que espero desarrollar de manera un poco más amplia en el libro que estoy escribiendo ahora (Crear con la máquina, le estoy llamando, pero si se les ocurre algo mejor, no duden en compartir).

Aquí les dejo el prezi:

Tras eso, me fui a Málaga al IV Congreso Internacional de Historia del Arte y Cultura Digital a hablar sobre literatura electrónica y exposiciones. En mi charla “Palabras, cables y museos. O cuando la literatura digital deja la pantalla” mostré algunas exposiciones recientes de literatura electrónica para tratar de vislumbrar el rol (y la naturaleza) que la literatura y lo digital tienen en el ámbito cultural. Y, cómo no, aproveché para hablar de mi queridísima No Legacy: Literatura electrónica, que me sigue dando regalos y alegrías: la exposición abrirá en enero del 2017 en el California College of the Arts de San Francisco y en la Northeastern University en Boston en septiembre de ese año.

Les dejo también el prezi de esa ponencia:

A ver qué más nos trae este 2017 (ojalá que venga con un pan bajo el brazo).

Creative Work/Electronic Literature/Performance/Poetry

Voces del extremo y la #selfiepoetry

Posted on by Alex

La semana que viene voy a dar un par de recitales de poesía (aunque hablar de recitales suena raro, porque yo no recito y la #selfiepoetry no se deja recitar) como parte de las jornadas Voces del extremo, que este año se llevan a cabo en Extremadura (qué más extremo que la sierra extremeña, por otro lado).2016-10-30-photo-00000020

El jueves 3 de noviembre, junto a David Trashumante y Ángel Calle mostraremos unos cuantos de mis poemas digitales en Las Claras en Plasencia, parte de un evento titulado “Polipoesía en tiempos revueltos”, y también participaré en un par de recitales colectivos el viernes 4 de noviembre en Navaconcejo y en El Torno. No sé si mis poemas son muy de sierra, pero ahí lo veremos. Y si están por la zona, pasen a vernos.

2016-09-28-photo-00000010

Art/New Media

Mis obsesiones online

Posted on by Alex

Hace unos días los majos de New Hive me pidieron que escribiera un pequeño artículo seleccionando mi top 5 de obsesiones internaúticas. Como persona obsesiva y atormentada que soy, el top obsesivo real es mucho más largo, pero aquí les dejo lo que escogí para ellos: el trabajo enciclopédico de Leo Flores, los juegos de Porpentine, el @MagicalRealismBot de Chris Rodley, los scrollbars de Jan Robert Leegte, los New Hives de Broken English y TextJockeys (y los de Horacio Warpola tb) y los bots de mi amada Élika.

El post completo aquí: http://blog.newhive.com/saum/

newhive_obsessions

 

 

Art/Creative Work/Electronic Literature

#SELFIEPOETRY: 24_7 on Show at Print Screen Festival

Posted on by Alex

My NewHive poem, 24_7, part of my ongoing, tongue-in-cheek series “WOMEN & CAPITALISM,” will be exhibited at Israel’s International Digital Arts and Culture Festival, Print Screen, this June 2016.

24_7 cover
24_7, detail

This e-poem is an exploration on the relationship between the body, as a biological entity increasingly depleted of its subjectivity, and its entanglement in the current network of capitalist ideas about progress and production. I am interested on how we turn our bodies into work-machines, and how that could be expressed by representing my own body (my face, my selfie) into a digital image looping continuously. Oh. I also like sparrows. They apparently never sleep.

The winning piece, Balance, by Taietzel Ticalos, together with the other finalist works (my 24_7 among them) will be will be exhibited in the Holon Cinematheque and Mediatheque, under the title “Relaxation Machine”. From the online description:

What is the relationship between technology and relaxation — between technology and sleep, even? How do our dreams relate to the divinations and future-looking inclinations of the technological landscape? What are the consequences of ‘always on’ digital culture? How does technology create new sources of pleasure and relaxation, while at the same time denying these in the name of productivity?

PRINT Screen-Save The Date

 

Digital Humanities/Electronic Literature/Teaching

End of the Semester

Posted on by Alex

culture of the trans spring16This semester I taught two wonderful classes that are now officially over. A graduate class on the culture of the Spanish Transition to democracy, where we had the opportunity of screening some of my favorite movies such as Zulueta’s Arrebato or López Cuerda’s Amanece que no es poco, as well as reading some beautiful novels like Llamazares’ La lluvia amarilla, and some poetry by my beloved Haro Ibars or the early Panero, among many, many others.

e-lit flyer

I also taught an exciting pilot DH class on electronic literature, this one at the undergraduate level, where students read and wrote about e-lit, but where they also created their own digital prose and poetry. The results of that class have well exceeded my expectations, as I explained in the blog of the class.

Now that summer approaches, I’ll keep working on my own research projects and new e-lit adventures… from Spain! I will be on sabbatical for the whole next academic year in Madrid… Stay tuned.

Art/Creative Work/Electronic Literature

#SELFIEPOETRY on Show at CODE/SWITCH

Posted on by Alex

codeswitch_insta

I am thrilled to share that my first set of #SELFIEPOETRY poems, part of my “Fake Art Histories and the Inscription of the Digital Self” e-lit project, will be on display at CODE/SWITCH, a multimedia art exhibition at Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, from May 27 to July 28, 2016.

cs_final3As described by the WMG team, “In linguistics, code-switching occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation. But beyond this connotation, code-switching is a phenomenon that references any way in which we subtly, reflexively change how we present ourselves. It becomes a means of expressing different parts of our individual identities, in different cultural and linguistic spaces. Highlighting this spectrum of code-based art, the work in code/switch will explore technology as subject as well as medium, and will offer a  survey  of  art  that  critically  reflects  on  the creative  use  of  tech, through a socio-cultural lens. This immersive and interactive exhibition seeks to bring together a range of artists, filmmakers, architects, designers, musicians and game developers, all pushing the boundaries of their fields using digital media.”

If you are around the Chicago area, or if you fancy a summer trip, please stop by Woman Made Gallery to see some cool digital art!!

Woman Made Gallery
685 N. Milwaukee Ave. Chicago, IL 60642
312-738-0400
Wed-Fri: 11a-6p
Sat-Sun: 12p-4p

selfiepoetry at codeswitch

Digital Humanities/Electronic Literature/Teaching

E-lit at the DH Faire 2016

Posted on by Alex

Last Wednesday I was happy to participate at the 3rd Digital Humanities Faire at Berkeley–and I am even happier to report that the Faire was a total success! Thanks to the Berkeley DH team for making this happen! (yay, Camille and Scott!)

Together with the talented Steph Lie, I talked about the making of No Legacy || Literatura electrónica, thinking particularly about this exhibit as a research project, one that should also be understood as process. If anything, I was interested in highlighting the radical nature of this claim when applied to literature, as this literary project involved the work of a huge network of experts in different disciplines, ranging from engineering to the digital arts. A type of procedural work that is intrinsic to the DH field, but not so much to literature. The talk was not recorded, but here are the Slides I showed:

…and this is more or less what I said: DHFaire1DHFaire2DHFaire3DHFaire4

Sharing our round table discussion, Lisa Wymore talked about her dance projects such as the Smith/Wymore Disappearing Acts company and their semi-intelligent computer system, and Rita Lucarelli talked about 3D modelling for Egyptian hieroglyph deciphering. It was fascinating to learn how all our three talks engaged with the idea of writing as an embodied experience, existing in ancient sarcophagus, the dancing human body, or the electric beauty of legacy computers and iPads.

After the talk, my e-lit undergraduate students participated at the Faire’s poster session where they shared their terrific work. They curated their classmates’ pieces, and they designed these beautiful posters: group 1poster poster group 2

It really was a terrific day celebrating DH and E-Lit on campus!


A

 

Art/Electronic Literature

Questions? Talk to Our Docent

Posted on by Alex

docentcardAlmost three weeks have passed since the opening of No Legacy || Literatura Electrónica, and while we wait for the second phase to be in place (we are working on having a website component that will expand the visitor’s experience via QR codes, by offering further curatorial and catalogue information), I am happy to announce that we have a new student docent to show you around the show!

SamLabelSam Hunnicutt will be on site at the gallery every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, from 2 to 3pm, ready to answer any questions you may have, or to guide you around the installations in our collection–which include works like Nick Montfort’s Taroko Gorge, Jorge Carrión’s Crónica de viaje, Eugenio Tisselli’s The 27th/El 27, Giselle Beiguelman’s O Livro depois do Livro, Amaranth Borsuk and Brad Bouse’s Between Page and Screen, and Judy Malloy’s its name was Penelope, among many more!

No Legacy || Literatura Electrónica runs through August, 2016, and is located at the Brown Gallery in Doe Library (UC Berkeley campus). Come visit! Check lib.berkeley.edu for hours.

concretoons
No Legacy || Literatura Electrónica. On photo: Concretoons by Benjamín Moreno, on top of No Legacy’s custom display inspired by Ana María Uribe’s Anipoemas
el 27
No Legacy || Literatura Electrónica. On photo: Poemas no meio do caminho by Rui Torres (left), Crónica de viaje by Jorge Carrión (center), and The 27th/El 27 by Eugenio Tisselli (right).
Olivro
No Legacy || Literatura Electrónica. On photo: Giselle Beiguelman’s O Livro depois do Livro/ The Book after the Book, nested in No Legacy’s custom made spiral bookcase
ethericocean,penelope,VG
No Legacy || Literatura Electrónica. On photo: Belén Gache’s WordToys & J.R Carpenter’s Etheric Ocean (left), Judy Malloy’s it’s name was Penelope (center) and Stuart Moulthrop’s Victory Garden (right), all under the guiding principles of No Legacy’s Aleph
Electronic Literature/Research

Alternativas a la (ciencia) ficción en España ||Alternative (Science) Fictions

Posted on by Alex

[ES] Tengo el gusto de compartir con vosotros un artículo que acabo de publicar en un especial sobre literatura electrónica en español en Letras Hispanas, “Paperless Text: Digital Storytelling in Latin America and Spain (1976-2016)”, bajo la edición de Osvlado Cleger y Phillip Penix-Tadsen.

Mi texto, “Alternativas a la (ciencia) ficción en España: dos ejemplos de literatura electrónica en formato impreso” busca delinear el origen digital de la literatura impresa, explorando dos manifestaciones de prácticas computacionales y literatura electrónica en formato impreso publicadas en España: las novelas de ciencia ficción Alba Cromm (2010) de Vicente Luis Mora y Cero absoluto (2005) de Javier Fernández. La primera parte del ensayo conceptualiza estas novelas como encarnaciones materiales de ficción digital, redefiniendo el concepto de “literatura electrónica” como uno independiente de la plataforma desde la que se consume—más allá de la producción born digital—incluyendo, por tanto, instancias de texto impreso. La segunda parte contextualiza estas prácticas narrativas dentro de su entorno español inmediato, proponiédolas como rechazo del canon literario de la post-transición.

Aquí podéis descargar el artículo completo.

[EN] I am happy to share with you my article “Alternative (Science) Fictions: Two Examples of Printed Electronic Literature in Spain”, published in the special issue “Paperless Text: Digital Storytelling in Latin America and Spain (1976-2016)” of Letras Hispanas, edited by Osvlado Cleger and Phillip Penix-Tadsen.

My article, written in Spanish (but that I will gladly share in English upon request) delineates the digital core of contemporary print literature, exploring two similar manifestations of computational practices and electronic literature in print from Spain: the science fiction novels Alba Cromm (2010) by Vicente Luis Mora and Cero absoluto (2005) by Javier Fernández. The first part of this essay conceptualizes these two Spanish novels as material embodiments of digital fiction, redefining the concept of “electronic literature” as independent from the platform from which it is consumed—rather than a “born digital” performance—including instances of printed text. The second part of the essay contextualizes these new material writing practices within their immediate Spanish context, proposing them as a rejection of the prevalent literary canon in Spain.

Full text here (in Spanish).