Monthly Archives: March 2009

Torque Press Relaunch

This from Piers Hugill, regarding the relaunch of Torque Press:

I am very happy to be able to announce the re-launch of Torque Press, a small press dedicated to publishing contemporary poetry, which is supported by the University of Southampton. It has been a long time coming, but together with the news about the press we are also very pleased to announce the launch of a new book by Caroline Bergvall, Cropper, beautifully designed and constructed by Marit Münzburg, which in two articulating sections considers the experience of multilingualism, and the way bodies and language(s) interact across their many borders.

We are also now making available for purchase (while stocks last) the backlist of Torque Press, which published ten titles between 1984 and 1997. These are (with the number in the sequence and date of publication given in parentheses):

Allen Fisher (1, 1984), Boogie Break, pp. 12.

Wendy Mulford (2, 1985), The A.B.C. of Writing, and other poems, pp. 32. (sold out)

Alan Halsey (3, 1987), The Capitalist Twilight Revisited, pp. 18 (sold out)

Michael Carlson (4, 1988), By the Sound, pp. 22.

Robert Sheppard (5, 1988), Internal Exile, pp. 15. (sold out)

Johan de Wit (6, 1989), Spread Eagle, pp. 20.

David Miller (7, 1989), Messages, pp. 12.

David Marriott (8, 1991), Clouds & Forges, pp. 20.

Ken Edwards (9, no date), Lyrical Ballets, pp. 17.

Allen Fisher (10, 1997), Fish Jet, pp. 52.

I have listed the whole backlist, although, as indicated, some of the titles are no longer available. You can get copies of Caroline Bergvall’s book (Cropper, ISBN: 978-1-906851-01-9, pp. 15) for £7, plus 50p P&P, and any of the titles still available from the previous series of Torque Press at the price of £5 for each title, with a further 50p for P&P, from: Jane Glenn, 65/2063, English, School of Humanities, Avenue Campus, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ (J.Glenn@soton.ac.uk). Please make cheques payable to the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON.

Ideas on Oedipal Bitstreams

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Ideas on Oedipal Bitstreams is an exercise in kinetic field work, taking various languages of reportage as source materials, and offering several variations for each word on the screen. At the opening of each scene, there is a fixed arrangement of words, each with one of their textual variants randomly chosen. The words resist the cursor, arbitrarily choosing their next location, occasionally cycling through their variations and occasionally foregrounding themselves through enlargement. The reader must then carve through the text, using the resistance as an emerging reading strategy. The combination of the two randomised elements (spatial placement and word choices) creates a generative work whose readings are differently constructed and paced each time. The minimalist isolation of each word block, through spatial and temporal progression, form holistic readings when combined which are never stable – a condition foregrounded aesthetically in the physical surfaces of each scene.

Each scene is available in a fast version (running at ‘normal speed’ – approx 4 seconds for movement) and a slow version (approx 60 seconds for movement) to highlight performative differences created through the temporal aspects of the piece. Since movement in time is essential to the creation of meaning in Ideas on Oedipal Bitstreams, the slow version is designed as a performable version in which the in-between states and gradual transformations are areas for vocalisation.

Instructions for Use

Hover the mouse over words to have them resist the cursor and move to a new location. Three buttons in the top-right corner can be used: the first reorders the text to its original static state; the second dumps all text at the bottom of the screen, providing a literal base for new spatial creations (this can be pressed again to reshuffle texts across the x-axis when in a heap); the third button reshuffles the vocabulary for each word.

Technical Requirements for Use

Fairly recent operating system (Windows XP or Vista, Mac OS X) with fairly recent web browser (IE7+, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Camino)
Recent Adobe Flash plugin (and stand–alone Flash player if downloading and running locally)
Javascript enabled and the ability to open links in pop-up window ENABLED (check this if the work does not launch in a new window using the links below)