E-POETRY [ 2013 ] LONDON-KINGSTON : NEW WORKS, NEW FRAMES
Proposals for Scientific/Scholarly Papers (15 minutes) or Creative (Performances/Readings/Hybrid Talks of 15 or 30 minutes) should consist of a 250 word description of the aims, content, methodology (or artistic frame), and conclusion (or artistic goals) of your presentation. Of greatest interest are alternate paths of thinking, new works to ponder, open frames, direct impressions, a sense of what we see. Whether strictly scholarly rigor, poetic inspiration, or interwoven critical and artistic experimentation, we seek your views. Send your proposal, with the subject line “E-Poetry 2013 Proposal” to emerginglanguagepractices [at] gmail.com with a cc: to Laura Shackelford, E-POETRY [ 2013 ] Proposals Coordinator (lxsgla [at] rit.edu) by deadline date. Early submission is encouraged due to the highly competitive nature of this festival.
DEADLINES: Proposals for Scientific/Scholarly Papers and Performances/Readings/Hybrid Talks will be due in December 1, 2012, with notifications of acceptance by January 15, 2013. Early registration
deadline: March 1, 2013.
The hour being still early, the whole view was exquisitely light and airy;
the blues and greens of sky and tree were intense but not sultry.
— Virginia Woolf
A VIEW FROM LONDON. Building on the successes of its TEN YEAR anniversary festival in Buffalo, E-Poetry [ 2013 ] will occur at Kingston University, London, UK. E-Poetry is a renowned biennial international artistic gathering founded on dialog over emerging issues in digital, visual media arts, sound, and language-based arts. Its emphasis is on literary practice in an encompassing sense, i.e., the practice of thinking through engagement with the material aspects of media forms, the building of community, and the exchange of ideas across languages, borders, and ideologies. Rather than considering “new form” a qualifying criterion, it seeks to locate innovative artistic practice in its cultural, conceptual, and media milieu. Hence, if “E-Poetry” is going to point to emergent artistic processes in a New Media age – inasmuch as they inform the digital – e-poetry can exist in any number of formats, including programmable, performance, visual, sound-based, conceptual, book art, hand held, tablet, immersive environments, game-based, and more.
E-Poetry normally meets every two years, in spring or early summer, in various locations worldwide. Recent gatherings have occurred in Buffalo, West Virginia, London, Paris, and Barcelona. A festival archive-in-progress can be found at the Electronic Poetry Center (http://epc.buffalo.edu/e-poetry).
E-poetry is an artist-oriented gathering, in the tradition of the historic poetry festivals of the 20th century that influenced and advanced literary and arts communities in the past. Its community encompasses countries across three continents, and it seeks to advance a collective spirit of poetics, literary, and media arts practice into the digital present.
Such a concept suggests a supportive environment, where all participants participate in all events. In an effort to foster collegial dialog, parallel sessions and keynote speakers are not presented. Teleconferencing and other forms of virtual participation are deemphasized. For the most part, installations, without the presence of the artists themselves, are less useful in this context. E-Poetry’s focus is on the in-person social exchanges that flourish in collective artistic conversation.
Format of events is open and is meant to creatively engage dialog. Ideally, along with more traditional papers, diverse and innovative event formats will be scheduled to offer the chance for artist talks, for longer presentations, for conversations, for debate, and for artistic performances in a variety of forms. Art itself is to be celebrated and to be advanced through the attentive participation of peer artists, scholars, performers, and commentators in divergent media. As was seen in E-Poetry 2011, Buffalo, the field is in the midst of growth in multiple directions; the field is not defined solely by media terms, but culturally, in performance, by new voices, and by the growth, multiplication, and interchange of language forms. E-Poetry’s activities are directed by the E-Poetry Advisory Board:
Yves Abrioux (France) Amaranth Borsuk (USA)
David Jhave Johnston (Canada) Leonardo Flores (Puerto Rico)
Claudia Kozak (Argentina) Manuel Portela (Portugal)
Laura Shackelford (USA) Maria Mencia (Local Convener, UK)
We encourage artists from developing countries and emerging artists in the field, that is, younger practitioners who are making literary objects in various media (including programmable objects), working as artists without any specific genre attachments, exploring relevant/divergent technologies or who share any number of poetic interests.
Aside from the EPC, E-Poetry is not affiliated with any other literary organization. To foster a climate of mutual support among cultural entities, other organizations wishing to co-situate events with E-Poetry, directly or indirectly, are asked to coordinate such activities in advance with the E-Poetry Director.
E-POETRY [ 2013 ] LONDON-KINGSTON: Four days of festival performances, exhibitions, artistic presentations of poetics statements, scholarly papers, talks, visual media arts, and celebration of creative, visionary, and imaginative poiesis at the cutting edge of the triumphant spirit of the arts in the digital age. The festival presents world class E-Poetry, digital and media arts, multilingual poetics, dance, music, and other forms of avant-garde language, media and scholarly practice. Also included will be a number of special pre-conference events, to be announced.
We invite you to enjoy the unique resources of the festival, one that has defined, given shape to, nurtured, and energized the digital literature arts community since its inception in 2001.
E-POETRY [ 2013 ] LONDON-KINGSTON
LOCAL CONVENER Maria Mencia, Ph.D.
Artist/Senior Lecturer in New Media Theory & Practice
School of Performance & Screen Studies
Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, Penrhyn Road
Kingston upon Thames KT1 2EE
(m.mencia [at] freeuk.com)
PROPOSALS COORDINATOR Dr. Laura Shackelford
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Rochester Institute of Technology
Rochester, NY 14623
(lxsgla [at] rit.edu)
FESTIVAL DIRECTOR Dr. Loss Pequeño Glazier
Professor, Dept. of Media Study
Director, Electronic Poetry Center
University at Buffalo
Buffalo, New York 14260
(glazier [at] buffalo.edu)
E-POETRY is presented by the Electronic Poetry Center (http://epc.buffalo.edu)
Dept. of Media Study, State University of New York, Buffalo