For our upcoming issue, Runway Journal invites artwork and writing proposals that respond to the notion of ▂▃▅▇█▓▒░𝙰𝚜𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚌░▒▓█▇▅▃▂.
Applications open on Wednesday, 16 February and close Saturday, 12 March, 2022 at 11:59pm AEDT
Get in touch with any questions about your proposal via runway@runway.org.au.
“Highly wrought and so covered over with accretions of matter…hubble-bubble, swarm and chaos. We are peering over the edge of a cauldron in which fragments of all shapes and savours seem to simmer; now and again some vast form heaves itself up and seems about to haul itself out of chaos.”
– Virgina Woolf (1926)
“How it is made becomes a question not only for the poetics but also for the politics of letters…If poetics lays the groundwork for interpretation, we must acknowledge that today such grounds lie past the visible simulacrum of a digital page.”
– Dennis Tenen (2017) Plain text : the poetics of computation
The Internet is a vast communal realm, a cauldron of happenings, a host for inexplicable asemic brews. Asemic writing is often illegible, vivid and open-ended; it has no fixed meaning — evidenced in the concrete poetry of Mallarmé, Luigi Serafini’s Codex Seraphinianus, the mystic abstractions of Hilma af Klint, or the unruly dynamics of pioneering net artists like Jodi.
A site where the rogue agent (artist/coder/reader/dancer/writer/poet/medium/.*/) is called to think not of communication, first and foremost, but rather performances with materialities in collaboration with the paraphernalia of writerly technologies. Veering away from linear and deterministic communication processes and instead thinking along the curvatures of a matrix, these sequences of poetic computation are a choreography of visceral compositions devised from algorithmic rituals. Where the kerning transpires in the cells, the blank spaces, the interstices between the letters and/or markings. This harbour of aesthetic ambiguity stretches across temporalities, enabling nuanced enunciations to flourish.
These textual processes may be understood as tacit extra-terrestrial languages that are meaningful, (especially) if not entirely assimilated into imperialist knowledge systems.
For Issue 45: Asemic, Runway Journal is seeking proposals that respond to this theme. We are open to proposals that engage with the construction of meaning beyond formal syntax, beyond the norms of Internet culture.
Contributors will engage with asemic writing as a fertile repository for infinite imaginings, where obscure symbolic elements and indeterminate offerings give rise to wayward strategies that transmit us elsewhere.
- Nancy Mauro-Flude
Optional: Bundanon Residency Opportunity
Runway Journal will cover the following costs for attendees:
– Accommodation at Bundanon
– Travel to and from Bundanon
– Per diems for attendees
Participants will be selected based on:
– Availability of contributors over the residency dates
– Alignment of the proposal with the overarching ideas within the issue
– Digital innovation of the work proposed
– How the residency would benefit their practice and the development of the proposed work.
Contributors who don't attend in person will have the opportunity to join a number of residency activities digitally.
Dr Nancy Mauro-Flude is a performance artist and theorist. Her experiential pedagogy and research focuses on core questions relating to machine learning, embodied cognition, and ecological systems theory. Research Fellow at the Institute of Network Cultures, she leads the ‘Engineering Flora Fiction and Data Fauna’ studio, at the College of Design and Social Context, RMIT University. Represented by Bett Gallery, her work has been featured at: Transmediale; ISEA, Ars Electronica, Museum of New and Old Art, Kunsthall Vienna, Contemporary Art Tasmania, Tasmania Museum and Art Gallery, Artspace, WORM and most recently was recently recognised with a shortlisting for the Tasmanian Women’s Art prize.
Nancy devises projects that demonstrate how transdisciplinary methods and artistic practice can establish a dynamic conversation about the interaction between local cultures and decision-making infrastructures, based on complexity, and situational need. Founder of Desponias Coven, a feminist led web server, atelier and science fiction mothership, her contributions comprise of art making, dancing, curating, citizen science enquiry, nonfiction and scholarly writing.
If you’re in a flood-affected area and need additional time to submit your application, please contact us via runway@runway.org.au
FAQ
We welcome submissions from artists, coders, dancers, writers, poets, mediums, cross-disciplinary practitioners and more!
In the lead up to the issue, we have compiled some definitions of asemic:
1) Asemic (adjective): from the Greek for ‘sign’ - sema. The prefix ‘a’ negates the ‘sign’.
2) In asemic art and writing, meaning is made beyond signs or symbols. The artist/author employs non-established signs and forms.
3) The asemic has the potential to neutralise dominant systems of meaning-making. In this process, new thought arises between artist/author and their audience.
4) The asemic—resembling but not using fixed, ‘official’ signs—is incomparable, unique to its author.
You can view these definitions here
We offer:
A number of issue contributors will have the opportunity to participate in a regional residency with Nancy Mauro-Flude at Bunanon, Illaroo, NSW, from 11 – 15 April 2022. Contributors can attend for some or all of the residency dates.
Runway Journal will cover the following costs for attendees:
During the residency, we will host a series of activities and offer time to develop your work for Issue 45: Asemic.
Contributors who don't attend in person will have the opportunity to join a number of residency activities digitally.
We are open to a variety of proposals, including cross-disciplinary works across mediums and genres. This includes critical essays, experimental texts, artworks, audio recordings, videos, poetry and other works that can be presented online.
You can see examples of works we’ve previously commissioned on our website.
We encourage applicants to experiment with form and consider innovative ways of presenting their works on our digital platform.
You will have 8 weeks to develop your new commission, with final content due mid-May, 2022. During this time you will have support from members of Runway Journal’s Editorial and Digital teams and guest editor Nancy Mauro-Flude.
For our upcoming issue, Runway Journal invites artwork and writing proposals that respond to the notion of ▂▃▅▇█▓▒░𝙰𝚜𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚌░▒▓█▇▅▃▂.
Applications open on Tuesday, 15 February and close at midnight Saturday, 12 March, 2022.
Get in touch with any questions about your proposal via runway@runway.org.au.
“Highly wrought and so covered over with accretions of matter…hubble-bubble, swarm and chaos. We are peering over the edge of a cauldron in which fragments of all shapes and savours seem to simmer; now and again some vast form heaves itself up and seems about to haul itself out of chaos.”
– Virgina Woolf (1926)
“How it is made becomes a question not only for the poetics but also for the politics of letters…If poetics lays the groundwork for interpretation, we must acknowledge that today such grounds lie past the visible simulacrum of a digital page.”
– Dennis Tenen (2017) Plain text : the poetics of computation
The Internet is a vast communal realm, a cauldron of happenings, a host for inexplicable asemic brews. Asemic writing is often illegible, vivid and open-ended; it has no fixed meaning — evidenced in the concrete poetry of Mallarmé, Luigi Serafini’s Codex Seraphinianus, the mystic abstractions of Hilma af Klint, or the unruly dynamics of pioneering net artists like Jodi.
A site where the rogue agent (artist/coder/reader/dancer/writer/poet/medium/.*/) is called to think not of communication, first and foremost, but rather performances with materialities in collaboration with the paraphernalia of writerly technologies. Veering away from linear and deterministic communication processes and instead thinking along the curvatures of a matrix, these sequences of poetic computation are a choreography of visceral compositions devised from algorithmic rituals. Where the kerning transpires in the cells, the blank spaces, the interstices between the letters and/or markings. This harbour of aesthetic ambiguity stretches across temporalities, enabling nuanced enunciations to flourish.
These textual processes may be understood as tacit extra-terrestrial languages that are meaningful, (especially) if not entirely assimilated into imperialist knowledge systems.
For Issue 45: Asemic, Runway Journal is seeking proposals that respond to this theme. We are open to proposals that engage with the construction of meaning beyond formal syntax, beyond the norms of Internet culture.
Contributors will engage with asemic writing as a fertile repository for infinite imaginings, where obscure symbolic elements and indeterminate offerings give rise to wayward strategies that transmit us elsewhere.
- Nancy Mauro-Flude
Dr Nancy Mauro-Flude is a performance artist and theorist. Her experiential pedagogy and research focuses on core questions relating to machine learning, embodied cognition, and ecological systems theory. Research Fellow at the Institute of Network Cultures, she leads the ‘Engineering Flora Fiction and Data Fauna’ studio, at the College of Design and Social Context, RMIT University. Represented by Bett Gallery, her work has been featured at: Transmediale; ISEA, Ars Electronica, Museum of New and Old Art, Kunsthall Vienna, Contemporary Art Tasmania, Tasmania Museum and Art Gallery, Artspace, WORM and most recently was recently recognised with a shortlisting for the Tasmanian Women’s Art prize.
Optional: Bundanon Residency Opportunity
For the development of Issue 45, we are pleased to offer an optional regional residency opportunity with Nancy Mauro-Flude at Bundanon in Illaroo, NSW, from 11 to 15 April 2022. Contributors can attend for some or all of the residency dates. Please note this residency has a limited number of places available.
Runway Journal will cover the following costs for attendees:
– Accommodation at Bundanon
– Travel to and from Bundanon
– Per diems for attendees
Participants will be selected based on:
– Availability of contributors over the residency dates
– Alignment of the proposal with the overarching ideas within the issue
– Digital innovation of the work proposed
– How the residency would benefit their practice and the development of the proposed work.
Contributors who don't attend in person will have the opportunity to join a number of residency activities digitally.
FAQ
We welcome submissions from artists, coders, dancers, writers, poets, mediums, cross-disciplinary practitioners and more!
In the lead up to the issue, we have compiled some definitions of asemic:
1) Asemic (adjective): from the Greek for ‘sign’ - sema. The prefix ‘a’ negates the ‘sign’.
2) In asemic art and writing, meaning is made beyond signs or symbols. The artist/author employs non-established signs and forms.
3) The asemic has the potential to neutralise dominant systems of meaning-making. In this process, new thought arises between artist/author and their audience.
4) The asemic—resembling but not using fixed, ‘official’ signs—is incomparable, unique to its author.
You can view these definitions here
We offer:
A number of issue contributors will have the opportunity to participate in a regional residency with Nancy Mauro-Flude at Bunanon, Illaroo, NSW, from 11 – 15 April 2022. Contributors can attend for some or all of the residency dates.
Runway Journal will cover the following costs for attendees:
During the residency, we will host a series of activities and offer time to develop your work for Issue 45: Asemic.
Contributors who don't attend in person will have the opportunity to join a number of residency activities digitally.
We are open to a variety of proposals, including cross-disciplinary works across mediums and genres. This includes critical essays, experimental texts, artworks, audio recordings, videos, poetry and other works that can be presented online.
You can see examples of works we’ve previously commissioned on our website.
We encourage applicants to experiment with form and consider innovative ways of presenting their works on our digital platform.
You will have 8 weeks to develop your new commission, with final content due mid-May, 2022. During this time you will have support from members of Runway Journal’s Editorial and Digital teams and guest editor Nancy Mauro-Flude.
If you’re in a flood-affected area and need additional time to submit your application, please contact us via runway@runway.org.au
Runway Journal acknowledges the custodians of the nations our digital platform reaches.
We extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations artists, writers and audiences.
Runway Journal is produced by a voluntary board and pay our contributors above industry rates. If you have found some delight in this content, please consider a one-time or recurring monthly donation.
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Runway Journal is produced by a voluntary board and pay our contributors above industry rates. If you have found some delight in this content, please consider a one-time or recurring monthly donation.
Runway Journal acknowledges the custodians of the nations our digital platform reaches.
We extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations artists, writers and audiences.
Runway is supported by