dear all
I wanted to share the "Kafka's Wound" project with you, as I believe it raised, from its inception, some interesting questions about curating new media art in/with a literary context, and
since the "publication" was intended for The Space (BBC web platform: www.thespace.org), I now also begin to wonder, after the fact, whether the collaboratory could at all be transfered/translated into a real exhibition site and whether that would be interesting or worthwhile, and how different?
here the background:
The writer Will Self, recently having joined Brunel University as a professor for contemporary thought, was commissioned to write a literary essay, a Kafka project for London Review of Books titled "Kafka's Wound,"
and BBC joined in to offer/create a web platform for the literary essay Mr Self was to write.
This is how The Space announced the emergent collaboration:
>>
Author Will Self has reimagined the literary essay for the digital age in a project by the London Review of Books. Kafka’s Wound examines Self’s personal relationship to Franz Kafka’s work through the lens of the 1919 story A Country Doctor and in particular through the aperture of the wound described in that story. In a pioneering first, music, animations, films and texts inspired by the Kafka story are interspersed throughout the essay.
>>
How did it come to the "interspersing" (The BBC does not specify what it means here)?
Back in March 2012 Mr Self, in cooperation with the London Review of Books, thought it would be challenging to imagine the literary essay in a new digital/new media contexture. He then invited other artists and researchers at Brunel University to meet him, laid out his plan, and invited others to contribute, free-associate, compose or invent something for the platform within the nexus of Kafka's short story "Ein Landarzt"/"A Country Doctor" -- the essay itself had not been written yet; nor did Mr Self think it was necessary that we knew the writing to come. About ten to twelve artists agreed to participate, proposing to make some creative of documentary projects involving music, film, writing, performance, animation, games, etc. (I am reporting this as I took part in the collaboration).
It first seemed to me a most peculiar undertaking. And I wondered how the website would be constructed and what interface design be evolved, and how audiences or users would engage the literary along with the other audiovisual components (there are also archival documents, photographs, and several radio interviews.....)?
Well, I would be interested in your feedback and criticism, either on the concept for the commission or the current online manifestation.
The KAFKA's WOUND is now released:
http://thespace.lrb.co.uk/
There is the literary essay by Mr Self, and there are the links, the dotted spots {side note icons] on the margin where you can enter other media.
There is a floating diagram or visual map at the top (about the paths), and instructions for navigation, there are credits, there is also a blog by the writer, etc etc.
and i am still looking/listening through it, it's like a day at the museum, one needs many hours, raising interesting questions about the reception and such frameworks for reception.
The site has some amazing music by Peter Wiegold (five or six smaller works, interlinking his klezmer theme),
and also a remarkable cosmic wound animation by physicist Akram Khan with artist Jayne Wilton set to music
by Peter Wiegold's group notes inégales...;
also the interview with Akram on physics is weirdly interesting in the first part;
Judith Butler's lecture on "Who owns Kafka" is included as well and is ferocious....
I contributed a film, "Leben in seiner Wunde" (they chose the English version, not the German one which is better; one might have linked both and left users a choice?);
there are also two performances included.
Perhaps you can share this with those amongst your colleagues who might be interested in such a digital-literary project.
regards
Johannes Birringer
dap-lab
http://www.brunel.ac.uk/dap
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