Tan Lin, author of Seven Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004. The Joy of Cooking, wrote the other day, with much good news. Here’s an update on his imaginative projects.
The poet, novelist, and filmmaker, has two new works, Bibliograpic Sound Track and Ph.D Sounds, that explore the role of reading in various communication platforms. You can view the projects here. The works were commissioned by Artists Space. Lin also presented his work at the Walker Art Center. In both works, Lin assembled pieces from various sources such as SMS, IM chats, video game walk-throughs, Tweets, Tumblr entries, PowerPoint bullet points, photographic slides, the overhead transparency, the text box, the couplet, the book page, the fainting film titling sequence, etc., encompassing various platform specific reading or communications functions. The Powerpoint pieces bracket reading in a larger perceptual and social field that include smells and sounds. Lin reminds people that reading is a kind of all-over experience, but not be confined to a particular object (book) or social platform. To hear more about the two works, check out Lin’s talk at the Walker Art Center, where he discussed the commissioning of his works, and implementation on web based and installation-specific site.
Over the past 15 years, Lin has been interested in creating an “ambient” mode of literature that engages a set of practices including sampling, communal production, and social networks. He continues to embrace new modalities of reading such as Skype, email, Google Drive, etc. and explore their implications for the future literature.
Lin’s work is included in Postscript: Writing After Conceptual Art, an exhibit up at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver from June 22 through September 2, 2013. More information can be found here: http://www.thepowerplant.org/Exhibitions/2013/Summer/Postscript.aspx
You can check out Lin’s forthcoming book, An Anootated Index to the Photographic Work of Diana Kinsley here, and read an interview, with Angela Genusa, in Rhizome, here.
Lin’s work has been included in two exciting new anthologies as well: Kindergarde: Avant-garde Poems, Plays, Stories, and Songs for Children and Sonnets: Translating and Rewriting Shakespeare.
