Critical Essays on trAce: call for abstracts

Deadline for proposals 1st October 2004

http://www.trace.ntu.ac.uk/Process/index.cfm?article=112

Since 1996 the trAce Online Writing Centre has published a wide range of new media writing projects, critical articles, conference presentations and the frAme Journal of Culture and Technology. It has also hosted a series of message boards, first a webboard and more recently a forum, plus chat and MOO events logged on the site. The website is an extensive repository of valuable materials dating back almost ten years and includes projects such as The Noon Quilt, Migrating Memories, Speedfactory, Lost, and Home, and work by many writers and artists including Randy Adams, Mark Amerika, Michael Atavar, Belinda Barnet, Catherine Byron, Linda Carroli, Nicholas Clauss, Claire Dinsmore, Matthew Fuller, Teri Hoskin, Deena Larsen, Geert Lovink, Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink, Mez, Simon Mills, Millie Niss, Kate Pullinger, Melinda Rackham, Lehan Ramsey, Scott Rettberg, Francesca da Rimini, Christy Sheffield Sanford, Alan Sondheim, Reiner Strasser, Eugene Thacker, Sue Thomas, Helen Whitehead, and Tim Wright.

The planned volume represents a timely contribution to the emerging discussion of the development of digital writing and of the creative transitions experienced by both print-based writers experimenting with the new medium, and by artists and programmers coming to it by other routes. We envisage that the book will be read in conjunction with the trAce website and be complementary to it.

We encourage essays that examine the materials publicly available on the trAce site and place them within a critical and cultural context. Discussions of the development of the trAce community would also be of interest, and it may be possible to arrange private access to the archived trAce webboard for research purposes. The trAce community has been very instrumental in the development and support of many emerging and established new media writers and artists, and accounts of those experiences would be of interest, as would be interviews and studies of those artists.

Essays selected for this collection will be intended for both scholarly and educated general audiences. We aim to take a multi-disciplinary approach and welcome contributions from writers and artists, new media and literary critics, and scholars of digital culture.

Initial brief indications of interest would be welcome. Please contact Sue Thomas at sue.thomas@ntu.ac.uk to discuss your idea.

We have already received a number of very interesting proposals but there is still time to make further suggestions. We would especially welcome proposals for essays about the trAce Writers’ Studios; trAce’s mentoring and attachment schemes; technical and practical issues related to new media writing, and the three Incubation conferences/symposia, but if you have other ideas which do not fit into this list, please feel free to propose them too.

Since time is now short, we would appreciate adherence to the word length of 200-300 words. Overlong proposals will be rejected, as we cannot take responsibility for precising them. Do make sure you include a current CV.

If you have already approached us and been asked to develop your proposal, please ensure it reaches us by the absolute deadline of 1st October.

Many thanks,
The trAce Team

the trAce Online Writing Centre
trace@ntu.ac.uk
http://trace.ntu.ac.uk
The Nottingham Trent University
Clifton, Nottingham NG11 8NS, UK
Tel: + 44 (0) 115 848 6360
Fax: + 44 (0) 115 848 6364

Chinese try out text msg novel

If you are a Chinese mobile user, you will be able to read an entire novel via text messages. Chinese author Qian Fuchang has cut down his original novel into bite-sized chunks for transmission by text message.

Called Outside the Fortress Besieged, it tells of the effect of an extra-marital love affairs on relationships.
The rights to the novel have been sold for 180,000 yuan (£11,100), reported the Chinese state news agency, Xinhua. ... The work has been cut down to 4,200 characters and will be distributed as 60 chapters of 70 characters each.

As well as getting the novel in SMS chunks, Chinese mobile phone users can choose to have it read to them over the phone or they can read it themselves on a webpage for mobiles.

Info:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3548388.stm

Publishing Without Limits

Publishing Without Limits: New Directions for Art Magazines
Saturday, September 18th, 2004 at 5:30 p.m.

Rattling the chains of art magazine publishing recently has been the advent of a number of new publications whose innovations and experiments are reinventing the idea of the art magazine. Of these new journals, some have been initiated by artists in places with little access to mainstream magazines - Version from Bucharest, for example, while others, such as Charley, digest and process images, artworks, articles and previously published materials, in order to reshuffle and re-interpret information, change content and format at each and every appearance. Still others, resolved not to concern themselves with alienating readers, provide challenging theoretical content - SITE, from Stockholm, is a good example - or deconstruct the magazine format entirely - as it is with Kaspar, from Mexico City.

What all these new ventures have in common is their desire to bypass the limitations of conventional art publishing - distribution, circulation, structure, content complexity and nominal intellectual demands made on the readers, among them - by re-envisioning and reinventing the hidebound practices of the mainstream art magazine. The Publishing Without Limits panel will take a close look at these new publications, and engage their editors in a critical discussion.

Panel participants:
Gabriel Kuri - Kaspar magazine, Mexico DFPower Ekroth - SITE magazine, StockholmMircea Cantor - Version Magazine, Bucharest

Massimiliano Gioni - Charley, New York/MilanAnton Vidokle - e-flux, moderator

For more information please contact Angelika Wieland at ART FORUM BERLIN TALKSE: angelika_wieland@web.de
T. 0176-21124094
(In Zusammenarbeit mit und unterstutzt von e-flux und Bundeszentrale fur Politische Bildung / In cooperation with and supported by e-flux and FACE, the Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn)
ART FORUM BERLIN, Messe Berlin GmbH, Messedamm 22,14055 Berlin
t:+49-30-30381833
f:+49-30-30381830
http://www.art-forum-berlin.de

Revolver presents 15 new books

Revolver presents 15 new books including

Mark Kremer / Maria Hlavajova / Annie Fletcher (eds.)
Now What? Artists write

BAK - basis voor aktuele kunst;
eds. Mark Kremer, Maria Hlavajova & Annie Fletcher;
with contributions by Pawel Althamer, Tiong Ang, Ansuya Blom, Phil Collins, Flying City (Jeon Yongseok), Liam Gillick, Marina Grzinic, Sigudur Gudmundsson, Thomas Hirschorn, Hans van Houwelingen, Daniel Jewesbury, Job Koelewijn, Boris Ondreicka, Anatoly Osmolovsky, Maria Pask, Jan van de Pavert, Marko Peljhan, Manfred Pernice, Paul Perry, Willem de Rooij, Tino Sehgal, Fiona Tan, Thorvaldur Thorsteinsson and Sarah Tripp
(English); 20 x 15 cm, ca. 160 pp., paperback
ISBN 3-937577-45-9

'"Now What? Artists Write" presents a collection of texts written by artists. Over twenty international artists have been invited to engage with the subjects they deal with in their artistic practice on one hand, and the themes that permeate the project "Now What? Dreaming a better world in six parts"(of which the book is part six) on the other.As we learn from art history, including the history of contemporary art, artists' writings have been a valuable resource for knowledge about art and its context(s). Texts by artists reach a level of accuracy that would otherwise remain undisclosed to us. As such, they have the capacity to fill discursive gaps between artistic thought and critical writing about art's manifestations."Now What? Artists Write!" is a document that presents the reader with an urgency to respond to the current momentum. It is meant to become a specific forum to voice the artists' (day)dreams as visions for the future. The book is a space for articulating, negotiating, or even testing ideas by involved artists not only about the world we know, but also about the world we strive to envision.

Some beautiful arts books and artists writing.
REVOLVER
Archiv fur aktuelle Kunst
Christoph Keller
Jacobystrasse 28D - 60385
Frankfurt am Main
Germany
Tel.: +49 (0)69 44 63 62
Fax: +49 (0)69 94 41 24 51
revolver@naiv.de
http://www.revolverlag.de

Negotiating the Intersections of Art and Text

The Society for Art History and Archaeology at the University of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign will sponsor a graduate student symposium entitled "Negotiating the Intersections of Art and Text." Linda Seidel
(University of Chicago) will be the keynote speaker. Session topics include: New Media; Hybrids of Art and Text, Powerplay: Intersections of Art and Text, Text vs. Image/Image vs. Text, Pictorial/Textual Representation in the Twentieth Century, and From Text to Image. The symposium will take place September 17-18 at UIUC. For more details, including a list of speakers and papers, see the contact information and
website below.

Jordana Moore (jemoore2@uiuc.edu) or Charlotte Bauer-Smith(bauersmi@uiuc.edu)
Visit the website at:
http://www2.uiuc.edu/ro/saha