7 April – 5 May
Automated poetry machines, future libraries, the Fat Tail theory of economics, tobacco, insecure robots and ladies wrestling men.
London Word Festival IV. Fuller than ever before. Portioning out a rich collision of literary culture with the pop.
New for 2011, programmes within programmes, two major strands of work that explore a particular area of words in performance:
Libraries and books in public life, lending, learning and reading as a social pursuit:
- UK première of book-diving library-set audio mystery The Quiet Volume by Tim Etchells and Ant Hampton
- Emmy the Great, Jack Underwood and friends rattle through the Dewey Decimal system lamenting the feelings and emotions growing dusty on the shelves of the Goodbye Library
- Orwell’s bean-counting pro-literary essay Books vs. Cigarettes gets a run out as Robin Ince, Stuart Evers and others riff on wordy vices
- Brainstorming the future of the library with cross-spectrum artists and writers for No Furniture So Charming
Exploring the very nature of the artists in digital post-modernity, technology, dystopia and JG Ballard:
- Debut London appearance of Cybraphon, the anxiety-ridden band-bot voiced by Aidan Moffat
- Ross Sutherland, FOUND and others consider the Cyborg as artist in a night of mad science: Man/Machine
- A gathering of artists Speedlearn you at Be Seeing You, a night of micro-obsession and delight in all things The Prisoner
All supported by a wider programme from artists we’re proud to be working and who represent the best working with words today:
- The Don King of performance art, Mel Brimfield brings the Intergender Wrestling World Championship to Balls Pond Road
- A perambulation through conspiracy, moral hazard and stolen human capital in The Crash
- Alan Moore gathers a cadre of artists from the Dodgem Logic stable for a night of neo-zine comedy-art glory
- Join in a messy mixed-media 400th birthday party at the King James Bible Bash with the Henningham Family Press
- A rare UK performance by Canadian extreme poet Christian Bök
- Keep Breathing is a brand new work from Chris Goode, looking at the rhythms in air and between people
- Debbie Pearson’s memory retrofit via video-cassette theatre piece Like You Were Before
- Hannah Silva and Lara Clifton explore the striptease trade through sound, poetry and performance in an East End stripjoint
- Hannah Jane Walker invites you to join her on a remorse and wine binge in her ingenious, intimate This is Just to Say
More details at www.londonwordfestival.com