The International Literature Showcase in Norwich

An unbelievable week for me in Norwich, an incredible platform for my work and really another grand stage for the testing of my ideas, as an artist and a curator. I was very humbled to be there and lived it to the fullest. I wrote an in depth review of the whole experience here http://www.stevenjfowler.com/ilshowcase


ENTER+ Repurposing in Electronic Literature at Kingston Uni

Had a grand day at Kingston Uni with Zuzana Husarova, my fellow TRYIE collectivist, visiting from Bratislava and Maria Mencia, who teaches in the media dept with a focus on E-literature, sharing some found text poetry, and discussing reappropriation and technology. Most importantly this special seminar with Maria's students and the wonderful Mariusz Pidarski also presenting his work (an amazing adaptation of Bruno Schulz into videogame format amongst that), was the launch of a journal which seems to be a brilliant summation of much of the pioneering work Maria and Zuzana have done, exhibiting in Kosice as well as commissioning a myriad of articles. I read from Minimum Security Prison Dentistry and Recipes, couching my use of found text as a way of actualising my poetic engagement with the world of language around me, emphasising my work as the result of a refractive, reflective process, rather than an originary one, right to the roots of that thinking, and that the use of the language of the internet is a necessary engagement with the language world I live in. Moreover, it is a very specific language world, one that is founded on community and generosity but is in fact the ultimate example of the ethical notion that what a person does when no one is looking is who they are, morally, as people on the net are regularly awful en masse because they are relatively anonymous. So my use of net text is really an ethical injunction, attempting to show we need new tools of discussion to tackle new realms of language, and how throwaway it can be. I also emphasised how this wasn't a strict practise, but blended ambiguously with other writing methods and approaches. I finished by reading some trolling text, my poem Black Pepper Enchilladas, which finishes with fuck you, fuck you all.= We all then had crisps and a long pleasant chat about the potential of technology and spying and such. 

Syndrome season 2 for Mercy in Liverpool this August

Syndrome Season 2http://www.mercyonline.co.uk/who-we-are/what-we-are-up-to/article/syndrome-season-2 yeaaa, Im up for this going to Liverpool for a near week residency with the brand new amazing project from Mercy that is Syndrome going deeper in the realms of control under the watchful eagle eyes of Nathan Jones wherell Ill get to work with radical technologists and ideas people Jamie Gledhill  and Stefan Kazassoglouan who will help my create interactive space that responds visually and sonically to physical presence and movement in a similar way that a musical instrument responds to being played with, but in this case the instrument is my body, through the martial arts, voice and breath performance. Very good very good.

International Translation Day at the British Library

I would honoured to speak at this one day conference / summit / get together of translators and industry professional at the British library on technology, futurology and poetry. It was an embarrassment of riches in terms of the speakers, I actually looked like the child of most of the distinguised peoples in the programme, and I inhabited one of the afternoon breakout seminars with Maya Gabrielle, who is a serious digital programme industry leader, working with the National Theatre and others. She spoke really directly and powerfully about waste and direction in using social media and allowed me to be the good cop really, as I waffled on with my thoughts on the potentiality of the ether for writers, and how the internet is not a tool but a mode, and that its growth is inevitable, its use free and its engagements exponential. It went well, I was able to ramble without notes, feeling quite empassioned, and the people in the full room were knowledgable and positive about my positivity. Robert Sharp mediated us well too. All immensely clever people involved, and great to see friends like Dan Gorman, Sarah Hesketh, Alexandra Buchler amongst new connections I will no doubt benefit from meeting. Also to speak at the British Library is a proud first.