Friday, May 11, 2007

Books (E-, DVD, and Otherwise)

The last two weeks this blog has been all about the hype. Sometimes that happens, especially when there are a lot of new releases, exhibitions, and events to be hyped.

In addition to my role as publisher of experimentally composed and designed ebooks like the new Illogic of Sense: The Gregory L. Ulmer Remix release via Alt-X Press, I am totally enthusiastic about my role as publisher of the electronic book review (ebr) too. ebr, edited by Joe Tabbi, who is now the president of ELO, has some new material out including an interview with Mark Danielewski, author of the books House of Leaves and Only Revolutions.

Also, for those wondering about what comes after last week's release of my new book META/DATA, there's a lot in the pipeline including my next novel 29 Inches now in press, another book that I'm just getting started on and that was seeded right here in the Professor VJ blog, a solo exhibition of my new mobile phone art work in London this summer, another mobile phone movie project in conjunction with my visiting artist residency starting in two weeks at iRes and co-commissioned by the Tate Modern where I'll be keynoting the "disrupting narrative" symposium in July, and then there's this new anthology from Litteraria Pragensia Books, a progressive theory joint out of Prague. Entitled Technicity, here's the blurb:
TECHNICITY
eds. Louis Armand & Arthur Bradley

This collection of writings explores the theory and praxis of technicity in contemporary thought. From the ground-breaking explorations of such figures as Freud, Heidegger, Deleuze/Guattari and Derrida to the work of more recent theorists like Bernard Stiegler, Friedrich Kittler and Katherine Hayles, it is becoming possible to speak of a new "technological turn" in contemporary continental theory. Yet despite the plethora of work in the field there has not been any sustained attempt to think through the larger philosophical, cultural and political implications of the new technologies.

In this collection, a group of internationally-known figures within the fields of philosophy, linguistics and cultural studies come together to consider the meaning of "technicity" at the beginning of the 21st century.

Contributors: Bernard Stiegler, Louis Armand, Arthur Bradley, Christopher Johnson, Hartmut Winkler, J. Hillis Miller, Belinda Barnet, Geert Lovink and Kenneth C. Werbin, Darren Tofts, McKenzie Wark, Niall Lucy, Laurent Milesi, Michael Greaney, Mark Amerika.
My contribution is called "Technicity, StyleTime, and the Loop: A Gertrude Stein Remix" and it's only a few pages long while all of the others are meatier essays and/or experiments in theoretical performance/design.

While we're talking books, the "Playall" DVD by The Books is awesome and it was great to see them jam with it as a live post-production performance at the Boulder Theater two weeks ago. For $15, it's a steal ...


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Wednesday, May 09, 2007

"ILLOGIC OF SENSE: THE GREGORY L. ULMER REMIX"

As both the publisher of this important new ebook as well as contemporary post-production artist heavily influenced by the work of Gregory L. Ulmer, I can't tell you how totally psyched I am to make this announcement. Please spread the word (of mouth, of mouse) on this one. Besides, it's available for free download!

ALT-X PRESS LAUNCHES "ILLOGIC OF SENSE: THE GREGORY L. ULMER REMIX" AS THE LATEST ADDITION TO ITS INFLUENTIAL EBOOK SERIES

BOULDER, Colorado, May 10, 2007 --The Alt-X Online Network, a space "where the digerati meet the literati" and on the Internet since 1993, announces the release of a new Alt-X Press ebook entitled "Illogic of Sense: The Gregory Ulmer Remix" edited by Darren Tofts and Lisa Gye, and designed by artist Joel Swanson of hippocrit.com.

Illogic of Sense: The Gregory L. Ulmer Remix
Edited by Darren Tofts and Lisa Gye
Design by Joel Swanson
http://www.altx.com/ebooks/ulmer.html

Contributors include Niall Lucy, Jon McKenzie, Linda Marie Walker, Craig Saper, Rowan Wilken, Marcel O'Gorman, Teri Hoskin, and Michael Jarrett, with an introduction by editors Tofts and Gye.

"Illogic of Sense: The Gregory L. Ulmer Remix" is an exciting new ebook publication that employs theorist Gregory Ulmer's invocation to invent new forms of electronic writing. As the ebook's editors, Darren Tofts and Lisa Gye, write in their brilliant introduction, "Ulmer has been at the forefront of thinking about new cultural formations as the paradigm of literacy converges with digital culture." Ulmer's work has been central to contemporary thinking on the future of writing and his international presence as one of the leading figures in media arts discourse has influenced a multitude of disciplines from electronic literature and Internet art to critical theory, communications studies, and art history. The ebook features a diverse group of artists, theorists, and creative writers who develop new forms of hybridized "digital rhetoric." Their inventive and audacious experiments take advantage of recent developments in the field of new media studies, and as part of Alt-X's mission to participate in the creative commons provided by the Web, are available for free download.

This provocative collection of multi-tracked writing puts into play many of Ulmer's breakthrough theories summed up in his most recognized hot-button terms: applied grammatology, heuretics, post(e)-pedagogy, textshop, mystory, and choragraphy. Encouraged by the example of Ulmer's own hyperrhetorical writing style, the authors incorporate collaged imagery, mp3 soundtracks, and QuickTime movies into their innovative multimedia mix while exploring how these same extensions of "writerly performance" explode the false barrier between academic discourse and spontaneous poetics, narrative and rhetoric, and autobiography and fiction. Positing an "illogic of sense" to reclaim what Ulmer calls an "anticipatory consciousness," designed to utilize the force of intuition as a way to invent emergent forms of knowledge, this grouping of hypermedia texts showcase how interdisciplinary writers can remix the methodological approach of an avant-garde philosophy propelled by Ulmer, one that prioritizes an ongoing process of discovery and media arts assemblage.

The ebook is beautifully designed by artist Joel Swanson of hippocrit.com, who crosses his visionary design sensibility with state of the art technology to produce an original work of ebook-art that many will view as finally fulfilling the long-promised potential of online publishing to use stimulating visual arrangement, media hybridization, and typographical ingenuity to blur the distinction between publication, exhibition, and design performance.

“Simultaneously celebrating and expanding on the writing performances located in Gregory Ulmer's rich oeuvre of totally remixable source material, the collection of essays in 'Illogic of Sense' adhere to an experiential approach to creative/critical writing and in so doing teach us how to write a theory of poetics that will help us invent a new field of study that I would call interdisciplinary digital humanities." - Mark Amerika, series editor, Alt-X Press; author of "META/DATA: A Digital Poetics" (MIT Press, 2007)

You can download "Illogic of Sense: The Gregory L. Ulmer Remix" ebook as well as other Alt-X ebooks for free at http://www.altx.com/ebooks/


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