Out and About with Book Pirates
Reading and Discussion on Topic of Piracy in Literature and Art: December 6, 2014, 5 p.m. in Literaturwerkstatt Berlin
№ 414/2014 from Nov 27, 2014
Pirates enter, conquer, and take possession. Book pirates enter foreign books. More and more authors are using the literary tradition in this sense: works of world literature are being written down, abridged, sorted alphabetically, or simply copied and published under a person's own name. These forms of appropriation will be addressed at a meeting on December 6, 2014, at 5 p.m. in the Literaturwerkstatt Berlin. "In the meantime, the number of pirate editions has exceeded the critical mass," says Annette Gilbert, a literary scholar at Freie Universität and the editor of the recently published anthology Reprint. Appropriation (&) Literature (luxbooks, 2014). Gilbert will give the introductory talk at the meeting. She will be followed by artists from Germany and abroad who will present their works, which they designate as original pirate material. The discussion will be moderated by the Berlin literary scholar Maria Zinfert. The foreign language parts of the event will be translated into German. The event at the Literaturwerkstatt Berlin is public. Admission is 5 euros, with reductions, 3 euros.
"With this event, we would like to show that it pays to read these appropriated texts," said Annette Gilbert. The artists who will present their works during the reading, represent different forms of appropriation. The British artist Simon Morris will use four of his experimental works – based on Freud, Kerouac, and Perec – to design a poetics of a different reading: Eating the Book. Jérémie Bennequin, an artist from France, will present his new book OMAGE à Broodthaers et Mallarmé. Michalis Pichler from Germany will present his versions of Mallarmé's Würfelwurf and Statements zur Appropriation as well as poems and other postnative manifestations. The Swedish soundpoet Pär Thörn and the Berlin dancer Takako Suzuki wil do an audio-visual presentation on the alphabetically ordered word material from Strindberg's novel Röda rummet (The Red Room).
This event of the Literaturwerkstatt Berlin is being supported by Freie Universität Berlin and the Volkswagen Foundation.
Time and Location
- Saturday, December 6, 2014, 5 p.m.
- Literaturwerkstatt Berlin, Knaackstr. 97 (Kulturbrauerei), 10435 Berlin. subway station: Eberswalderstraße (U2)
Links to Further Information
Further Information
Dr. Annette Gilbert, Peter Szondi Institute of Comparative Literature, Freie Universität Berlin, Email: annette.gilbert@fu-berlin.de