Print publication

Style Guide for Erasing Human Dignity responds to the current political climate in America through a facetious writing guide mixed with poetry. The images within it trigger more text when viewed through an augmented reality app.This “style guide” was inspired by a recent news article about the suggestion to modify language when applying for White House funding. This prospect is incredibly dangerous; what protections disappear when language is changed or erased? Spanish-language and LGBT resources were removed from WhiteHouse.gov, for example. Style Guide for Erasing Human Dignity comments on contemporary political issues (the current attack on immigration, environmental protections and journalism) with the proposal of new linguistic strategies. The guide suggests conflating words (Could ‘weather’ be the same as ‘climate’? Could ‘credible’ be replaced with ‘retweeted’?) and provides alternative definitions (Accountability: An account, and the ability to run it effectively. Also see: Social media).This satirical writing guide is mixed with poetry and images of burning books.This project was created for the ELO night of readings and performances at the Modern Language Association Conference in New York City in January, 2018. I propose creating a physical book for the gallery exhibition at ELO2018: Mind the Gap! Attention á la marche! Instructions will be included in the book so that readers can access the augmented reality content with their own smartphones/tablets.

(Source: ELO2018 description)

A collection of poetry and fiction by The Unknown, this anthology was purportedly the reason for the book tour described in the hypertext novel The Unknown.

AVA is an attempt, in the words of French feminist philosopher Helene Cixous, “to come up with a language that heals as much as it separates.” The fragments of the novel are combined to make a new kind of wholeness, allowing environments, states of mind, and rhythms not ordinarily associated with fiction to emerge. AVA‘s theme is the poignancy of mortality, the extraordinary desire to live, the inevitability of death—the things never done, never understood, the things never said, or said right, or said enough. Ava yearns and the reader yearns with her, struggling to hold on to all that slips away.

(Source: http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/product/ava/)

If David Markson is anything like Writer, a lugubrious fellow who pops up intermittently in ''This Is Not a Novel,'' his latest experimental outing, he seems to have written a book that's entertaining in spite of himself. Writer mopes around, feeling ''weary unto death of making up stories'' and ''equally tired of inventing characters.'' In an apparent bid to make his readers just as miserable, he wishes to ''contrive'' a ''novel'' without either. 

By: Laura Miller

(Source: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/01/04/01/bib/010401.r…)

Wittgenstein’s Mistress (1988) is Markson’s most critically acclaimed and well-known novel. Taking the style of Springer’s Progress even further, this novel is made of the one or two sentence paragraph thoughts of Kate (whose name also appears later in Reader’s Block), a painter who is, or believes herself to be, the last woman (or man, or animal) on earth. Amongst recollections of her travels (in search of any other people) and her life in a beach house, Kate struggles with the concept of language and how it can adequately represent our thoughts. The novel is brimming with references to art historical figures (more about the artists themselves, than their work), Greek drama, philosophers, writers, and the connections between (some real, some made up by the narrator), as Kate recalls things she has read or learned, sometimes inaccurately (though she does not always realize this). Throughout, an element of despair and loneliness pervades the text. Wittgenstein’s Mistress is a novel unlike any other, vast in its erudition and touching in its sadness.

(Source: https://madinkbeard.com/archives/david-markson-an-introduction)