An eerie twist to a child’s matching game puts the reader in the minds and hearts of both the Alzheimer’s patient and his fading loved ones.

The four works in this issue “were chosen for their duality” and in her note from the editor, Khalilah Boone goes on to say:

Developed to entertain and make the reader think deeply, the creative works we’re presenting invite the reader to ponder the origins of scholarship, question definitions of human identity, reflect upon who we are as patients or relatives of the ill, and carefully ruminate on the nature of our cultural belonging.

The other works are by Eric Lemay, F.J Bergman and Nanette Wylde.

screenshot: R3/\\/\\1X\\/\\/0RX - selected works

remixworx launches a gallery page of selected works from 5+ years of remixing

R3/\/\1X\/\/0RX is a collaborative creative space for remixing digital art, digital poetry, spoken word, audio, text, animation and playable media. It’s a micro-community of recombinant artistic practice that I’ve been involved with since January 2007. The R3/\/\1X\/\/0RX blog is where the remixing takes place and WordPress, our chosen software, provides a great social platform for remote creative collaboration. But the front page only displays the latest handful of works so the vast mass of the creative project tends to be hidden in the archives. Our new gallery page opens out the remixworx collection in a browsable interface of thumbnails where you can see, at a glance, relationships between remixes and have access to the works at your fingertips.

Many thanks to Randy Adams, who initiated the R3/\/\1X\/\/0RX project in 2006, for pulling together the selected works page. It currently contains 183 pieces, which represents about one third of the total number of remix works on the blog.

R3/\/\1X\/\/0RX is always open to new members – you should be media savvy and experienced with online publishing software. If you would like to join, let me know. Also, you may find interesting, my personal perspective on remixing with R3/\/\1X\/\/0RX.

In this special issue of Studies in the Maternal, Kate Pullinger reviews Underbelly, which won the MaMSIE Digital Media Competition last year:

‘Underbelly’ is a highly original work that makes great use of the multimedia potential provided by computers. It blends text, sound effects, voiceover, archive drawings, and photographs to create a rich meditation on reproductive rights and dilemmas in both twenty-first century, and nineteenth century England.

I first met Christine Wilks when she was a student on a MA in Creative Writing and New Media that I helped run. She began working on ‘Underbelly’ for her MA thesis, and I’ve been fascinated to watch the work develop since that time. It was clear then that Christine was creating something extraordinary, an important work in the newly emerging field of digital fiction, one that shines a light on a little known part of the history of the mining industry, while illuminating a contemporary story of a woman artist at the same time.

Studies in the Maternal is an international, peer-reviewed, scholarly online journal. In addtition to the papers and reviews (listed below), this special issue also includes visual media art, on the theme of Maternal Subjectivities, Care and Labour, and Kate Pullinger writing about her novel, The Mistress of Nothing.

Papers:

• Stella Sandford What is Maternal Labour?
• Lucy Delap “For ever and ever”: Child-raising, domestic workers and emotional labour in twentieth century Britain
• Daniel Miller Getting THINGS Right: Mothers and Material Culture
• Rosie Cox Competitive mothering and delegated care: Class relationships in nanny and au pair employment
• Rachel Thomson Making motherhood work?

Reviews:

• Maria Papadima: Joan B Wolf, Is breast best?
• Laura Seymour: Rita Ann Higgins, Ireland is Changing Mother and Jackie Kay Fiere

In his article, Stefans draws a comparison between Out of Touch and  ”a very early piece of internet poetry by the graphic designer Juliet Martin called ‘oooxxxooo,’ …which took as its subject the apparently desperate need of the artist-protagonist for the computer to ameliorate her loneliness.” About my piece, he goes on to say:

Her use of video, particularly the manipulations that reduce reality to iconic or cartoon-like (which I read as linguistic) simplicity, accentuates some of the horror at the base of this piece, which has a quasi-Expressionist element — I can’t help but see echoes of “The Scream” in here, or perhaps, with a very different valence in relation to time and experience (it doesn’t happen in Wilks’s piece), the blurred faces in the work of Christian Boltanski.

Making Out of Touch

Despite my background in film-making and scriptwriting, I rarely set out with a written script, storyboard or a wireframe design, a blueprint that I execute. I start with a collection (or network) of ideas that I want to explore. Then I experiment; manipulating text, code, images, sounds, video fx, animation, narrative elements… until something meaningful emerges.  To me, it seems a very hands-on, even tactile approach, like that of a sculptor or collage artist – although what is there to actually touch? A keyboard, a mouse, a digital drawing tablet. It’s a far cry from handling messy art materials or tussling with camera, tripod, lights on location and reels of celluloid in the cutting room. And yet there’s a strong sense of the haptic in what I do. This preoccupation with touch and its absence is a recurring feature in my work – e.g. the handiwork of the dressmaker in Fitting the Pattern and the sculptor in Underbelly – so I find it interesting that, in relation to Out of Touch, Stefans describes Juliet Martin’s oooxxxooo piece as “linguistic sculpture.” It also highlights how digital synaesthesia is a key expressive quality of digital media arts. And while I’m on the subject of cross-wiring… from crissxross to R3/\/\1X\/\/0RX and more xxxooo…

More Third Hand Plays

See my last post for a list of the previously published works of e-literature in the Third Hand Plays series and Brian Stefan’s accompanying articles. Also keep checking the SFMOMA blog throughout August for more posts in the series.

Throughout July and August, e-lit author and poet, Brian Kim Stefans is guest-editing a column for the SFMOMA Blog, entitled Third Hand Plays, ”describing concepts that can be used to understand and appreciate the varied and inchoate meta-genre known as ‘digital literature.’” To accompany his series of articles, Brian has commissioned a suite of new works of e-literature fron nine digital artist/writers worldwide – Jason Nelson, David Clark, Erik Loyer, Alan Bigelow, Jhave, Alison Clifford, Christine Wilks, Benjamin Moreno Ortiz, and joerg piringer. Yes, I’m thrilled, that’s me included “among the best of the digital writers out there.” My new piece, Out Of Touch, will published by SFMOMA shortly.

Here are links to the articles by Brian Stefans and the splendid new works of e-lit that have been published so far:

Third Hand Plays: An Introduction to Electronic Literature

Third Hand Plays: “Scrape Scraperteeth” by Jason Nelson

Third Hand Plays: The Comedy of Subjection

Third Hand Plays: “Repeat After Me” by joerg piringer

Third Hand Plays: The Comedy of Dysfunction

Third Hand Plays: “Something” and “Telescopio” by Benjamin R. Moreno Ortiz

Third Hand Plays: The Comedy of Reduction

MaMSIE* Study Day

Birkbeck, University of London, 20 May 2011

My playable media fiction, Underbelly, will be exhibited throughout the Study Day, which concludes with the presentation of the winners of the Digital Media Competition 2011: Maternal Subjectivities, Care and Labour - and I’m delighted to announce that Underbelly is the overall winner!

The other winners are:

• Marie-Josiane Agossou and Esther Jones for ‘The Order of Things‘, an 8 minute video
• Hester Jones, ‘Call Yourself a Mother’:  2 photos
• Hollie McNish – ‘Push Kick‘ audio poetry collection
• Marina Velez – two photographs, ‘My Family 1′ and ‘Strowis Motherhood’.

About the Study Day

MaMSIE is an international network of scholars, artists and activists working in the emerging interdisciplinary field of maternal studies. Our 6th event focuses on the interrelations between labour, capital, care and the maternal. In particular, it will consider the diverse ways ‘maternal care’ has been, and continues to be delegated and shared, and the implications for our understandings of maternal subjectivities and the labour of care.

The study day will open up ‘maternity’ as a term that includes the paid and unpaid work of a diverse range of social actors. It aims at generating a dialogue between two rich and substantial bodies of feminist scholarship; work on the social histories of domestic labour, service and servitude and current debates about globalism, migration and the care industries, recasting existing scholarship through the lens of maternal studies.

The Keynote speaker is Stella Sandford. Other speakers include: Rosie Cox, Lucy Delap, Alison Light, Mirca Madianou,Daniel Miller, Jenny Mitchell, Kate Pullinger, Rachel Thomson, Imogen Tyler, and Helen Wood.

Many thanks to the MaMSIE network and the organisers of both the Study Day and the Digital Media Competition. For more information see MaMSIE events.

*Mapping Maternal Subjectivities, Identities and Ethics

Wednesday 4 May, 7.30pm

The Riverside, 1 Mowbray Street, Neepsend, Sheffield, S3

Signposts, South Yorkshire, presents the second in a series of performance experiments – three pieces in three different mediums.

The Shoebox Experiment (3 x 3)

Quint and Jow

Quint and Jow share a common goal: to prove that there’s more to the average pub quiz than meets the eye. Forming a team called The Venns, they spend improbable amounts of time in the pub… testing their theories, of course.  Through charts, graphs, and (their favourite) Venn diagrams, Quint and Jow will bring you exciting and unexpected findings from their not-entirely-serious research project. The Venns: A Quest for the Perfect Pub Quiz is created and performed by Chella Quint and Richard Jow

Underbelly

Underbelly is an award-winning work of digital fiction about a woman sculptor, carving on the site of a former colliery in Yorkshire. As she carves, she is disturbed by a medley of voices, from when women used to work underground mining coal. Created for the web, Underbelly is a playable story with multiple endings determined by choice and chance. Lurking within the dark regions of its map-like narrative terrain, are hidden voices, animated elements and grotesque imagery, which Christine Wilks will unearth in her live performance of the work.

The Nose!

Gogol’s “The Nose” represents one of the pioneering triumphs of the early absurdist movement; transcending satire, narrative and common sense. Locally  based storyteller Tim Ralphs transports the Shoebox to St Petersburg’s prospects in this hilarious and enticing re-imagining of the tale as a live performance. A drunkard barber, a womanising Major, a buzz of rumours and the inconceivable disappearance of The Nose!  Originally conceived as a series of podcasts, ‘The Nose’ is recomposed for the Shoebox Experiment.

Audience Feedback from the First Shoebox Experiment:

“Was brilliant. So different to anything I’ve seen before!

“Stunning”

“I enjoyed the atmosphere, mellow attentiveness, intimacy, surprise, voices, passion, stories, HEART, writing!”

Tickets: £4 (£3 concessions) are available at the Shoebox on the night and can be reserved in advance by email. Plus a fully stocked bar to whet your whistle and the company of a warm, welcoming audience ready for something new! Contact naomi.wilds@ntlworld.com or 0775 352 8919 to reserve your space. Map and directions.

See you there!

Underbelly

A splendid new edition of Hyperrhiz, the peer-reviewed online journal specializing in new media criticism and net art, is now published. And I’m delighted to announce that Underbelly features in the Gallery. Here are the full contents:

HYPERRHIZ.08

Issue 8
Spring 2011

Essays

Century of change? Media arts then and now
Darren Tofts

The Avant Garde Doesn’t Give Up
McKenzie Wark

The Brautigan Library: Questions and challenges of archiving electronic literature
John F. Barber

This is not that kind of library. This is another kind of library.
Nicholas Schiller

Computational Narration of Inner Thought: Memory, Reverie Machine
Jichen Zhu and D. Fox Harrell

Gallery

Underbelly
Christine Wilks

Speak Far and Wide
Hazel Smith and Roger Dean

Narrative Multiplicities + Pack Media: re-reading the reader into Dracula
Whitney Anne Trettien

Review

Mark Bernstein and Diane Greco, Reading Hypertext
Marvin E. Hobson

Read more at www.hyperrhiz.net

So much history is buried beneath our feet, and histories buried in other ways, by forgetfulness or disregard. If you live in a former mining area in Britain, that history is deep underground. Evidence of the coal mines have been erased from the landscape, swept away in less than a generation. Deeper still in the past there’s a buried history of women working underground too. When I found out about the women miners, I thought of my sister, the sculptor, Melanie Wilks, working on the site of a former colliery turned into parkland, hand-carving stone on the very ground above where those pasts are buried.

Such fragments of contemporary life and shards of history I hauled together to build Underbelly in digital media, collaging a rich and often grotesque mix of imagery, spoken word, video, animation and text. It’s an interactive story about a woman artist who, while sculpting on the site of a former Yorkshire colliery, is haunted by a medley of voices.

Melanie Wilks carving on site of former power station, picketed during 1984 Miners’ Strike

It includes video of my sister carving and the voices are performed by me. The historical content is drawn from the testimonies of 19th Century women miners collected by Lord Ashley’s Mines Commission of 1842, which exposed working conditions in the pits.

Sisters

My sister and I were raised in Morley, a Northern industrial town, whose prosperity in previous centuries was built on shoddy mills, coal mining and quarrying. Our family has lived in this area for generations and, although we both moved away, we found ourselves returning to Morley to live.

When we were growing up here, the place was black, black with soot from the mill chimneys and heavy industry. Pollution clings to carboniferous sandstone and almost everything, apart from the modern housing estates, was built from the local sandstone. It felt like the coal-black of the pits had risen above ground, as if the back-to-back houses, the chapels, the pubs, the civic buildings were built from coal. I even remember, as a baby, my sister used to like eating the stuff. We had coal fires, of course, and there was warmth, but I wanted to escape all that blackness and the weight of the Victorian heritage bearing down on us.

'The Miner' in Woodkirk Quarry where Melanie carved it in 2007

So it’s ironic that I ended up back in my old hometown, Melanie too, both of us creating artworks that are rooted in the locality, which Underbelly clearly is if not my other works. As for my sister, well, most of her creative output is located in the area. She carves it from the local sandstone, often working in the local quarry (where she met her husband, Neil, an ex-miner). She is quite literally a local artist. Whereas, in some sense, I’m not really present in Morley. I’m in my computer most of the time, in virtual space, roaming the internet, connecting, conversing and often collaborating with other people, geographically far away, in other countries.

And where does my work exist? It’s digital, conjured up out of code – just zeros and ones when you get down to it – it’s nowhere and anywhere and all over the place, scattered or drifting, packets of data being pulled and pushed in cyberspace. Whereas Melanie’s stone sculptures are unequivocally present, rock solid in a geographical location. We’re at opposite ends of the scale – sisters, so similar and yet so far apart in terms of the materials and processes we work with. But both of us, in our different ways, working with the past in the present.

Neo-Victorian Art and Aestheticism

'The Miner' being installed outside Morley Town Hall

Recently I gave a talk about Underbelly, and performed it too, for the Neo-Victorian Art and Aestheticism Conference at Hull University. My aim was to explore the connections between the digital fiction’s vernacular Victorian representations and its 21st Century sculptor, whose art practice is based on that of my sister, hand-carving in what could be viewed as a traditional and vernacular figurative style. It’s no coincidence that Melanie’s work is often commissioned by local communities in West Yorkshire to commemorate the passing of their traditional industries or, more particularly, the passing of those working lives. There’s a poignancy to the sculptures but they also evoke a strong sense of Neo-Victorian civic pride – for example, The Weaver and The Miner, two sculptures by Melanie sited in front of Morley’s grand 19th Century Town Hall.

The unveiling of 'The Weaver' outside Morley Town Hall, 2007

For my presentation, I tried to unearth some of the rich ironies, contradictions and correspondences between our almost diametrically opposed art forms, our experiences as working women, our uses of the past, and also how and where our artworks are situated in the (past)present. You can see the images I talked about and draw your own connections in my Underbelly Cabinet of Curios, which is a digital collection of some of the sources, influences and catalysts that gave rise to Underbelly. There’s also a peek at one stage of the process of writing and structuring the digital story. In another compartment of the ‘Cabinet’, I’ve collected some creative works by others that struck a chord with me in relation to the themes I explore in Underbelly. Speaking of which, here’s another…

Neo-Victorian Folk Song

Another instance of a vernacular Neo-Victorian aesthetic in a traditional artform, The Unthanks sing the testimony of a girl miner. I used some of Patience Kershaw’s testimony in Underbelly too.

Thanks to James Pope, one of the judges for the New Media Writing Prize 2010 (which was awarded to Underbelly) for drawing my attention to this moving Neo-Victorian folk song (originally by Frank Higgins) on The Unthanks album, Here’s The Tender Coming.