CALL FOR PAPERS – PRESENTATIONS – READINGS – BOOK LIVE! SYMPOSIUM – 8th & 9th June 2012 – London

BOOK LIVE! – DEADLINE EXTENDED to 13th february 5pm

Book live! International symposium and related live events  at London South Bank University 8th – 9th June 2012
a collaboration between the Centre for Media and Cultural Research (CMCR) at LSBU and bookRoom Research Cluster at UCA Farnham.

The event will bring together theorists, researchers and practitioners to stimulate a dialogue across disciplines  on the ability of the book to keep up with digital culture and the emergence of new modes of writing, of photographing, of reading, or archiving and of disseminating ‘on the page’ work. The purpose of this conference is to examine the current ‘transforming’ and ‘expanding’ of the book rather than its virtual disintegration.

The conference will include international guest speakers from the broader world of publishing, photography and experimental writing as well as short presentations of book works and a series of live experimental and durational ‘readings’.
The two keynote speakers are Joan Fontcuberta (photographer, artist and all-round critic of contemporary culture from Barcelona) and Sharon Helgason Gallagher (founder and director of D.A.P and ARTBOOK in New York). There will be a performance of the full twelve hours of John Cage’s Empty Words (first published in1979 by Wesleyan University Press) by Sylvia Alexandra Schimag (Germany), coinciding with the release of the complete recording by Editions Wandelweiser.

CALL FOR PAPER AND PRESENTATION max 25 minutes
Call for papers, presentations, panels and ‘readings’ dealing with (but not limited to) the following themes and research questions;

- How has digital technology allowed the book to expand its boundaries, both in space and time?
- Innovative convergence of traditional craft skills and advanced technologies in the making, reading, archiving or disseminating of books.
- Interdisciplinary experiments that addresses the cultural translations between traditional skills and advanced technologies.
- Explorations that reconsider the contemporary or future role of the book socially, culturally, politically.
- Innovative or disastrous explorations and transgressions of ebook readers.
- What do we gain and lose with on screen ‘reading’?
- How is conventional publishing adapting to fast changing digital economy?
- What has become of collecting in our digital culture?
- What is knowledge now that computers can provide and keep everything?
- High culture versus digital culture

Beyond the conference we will be bringing together papers and other contributions as a publication in its own right; an interesting survey of current thinking and innovative practice informed by both the themes and the findings of the conference. Edited and designed by bookRoom press, and published by RGAP.

Deadline for abstracts: 13th february 5pm
Please send abstracts to Emmanuelle Waeckerle (ewaeckerle@ucreative.ac.uk)
Submissions from doctoral students and early-career postdoctoral researchers are encouraged, as well as submissions from non-academic publishers, collectors, artists, writers and thinkers.

Conference Co-Chairs
Richard Sawdon Smith
Emmanuelle Waeckerlé

DOWNLOAD PDF WITH FULL RATIONALE and SUBMISSION GUIDELINES (Book-live-call-for-papers)

the artist book in slovenia: documentation

The exhibition The Artist Book in Slovenia 1966-2010 has been reviewed by Lara Gonzalez for the November 2011 issue of the Book Arts Newsletter and the video-documents shown in the exhibition  are now on youtube: both the 60′s and 70s episode and the 80s to now, available for scholarly (and other) research.

David Itzcovitz @ ItzDave Media has shared his photo documentation of the exhibition:

The Artist Book in Slovenia 1966-2010: an exhibition by Tadej Pogačar/ The P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute

Venue: Digital Art Gallery at the London South Bank University, 103 Borough Road, SE1 0AA, London, United Kingdom [01 on the map]

The exhibition continues until Friday 28th October
You can visit it: Thursdays and Fridays14:00-18:00

 

The artist book as a distinct medium in Slovenia is the subject of this exhibition organised by Tadej Pogačar/ The P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute.

  • The artist book emerged in Slovenia with the OHO Group, in the context of the neo-avant-garde art scene of the 1960s, in an atmosphere permeated with social and political activism.
  • It developed in the 1970s with the production of the Westeast anthologies. Compiled by Franci Zagoričnik, they included around 700 original works by artists from Eastern and Western Europe and Asia.
  • The 1980s and early 1990s were marked by the production of fanzines from the alternative scene, which was particularly active in the larger cities of Ljubljana and Maribor.
  • In the past decade, artist books in Slovenia have been characterized by the hybridization of different genres, original neo-conceptual approaches, and the use of electronic formats, such as CD ROMs and digital archives.

 

The project, curated by Tadej Pogačar will be presented in London as a gallery-based installation with a selection of artist books and a lecture about the artist book in Slovenia from 1966-2010.

The P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute is a non-profit-making institution that works in the area of contemporary art through programmes for production, education, and exchange. It is the leading independent producer and publisher of artist books in Slovenia. In 2007, it developed the Artist Book Seminar, which featured lectures, exhibitions, and workshops devoted to the topic. Since 2008, the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute has taken part in artist-book fairs in Paris, Berlin, Brussels, London, Ljubljana, and New York.

The exhibition and lecture are part of the photobook module, facilitated by paula roush in the Digital Photography programme at the London South Bank University.

Further information

The exhibition has received the financial support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana, Department of Culture