We are interested in creating the space for a collaborative experiment somewhere between book and journal, blog and conversation. We see TRACT / TRACE as a type of blueprint of investigations into poetics and poetic practice. We are looking to foster a space for conversation, writing, correspondence, a science laboratory and graphic design studio for writers: a site of experiment but also presenta
tion: a gallery space for linguistic alchemy. Writing towards the edge of what is both vital and unknown. We are sitting at a virtual table, tea in hand, to discuss:
We welcome everyone involved in this cycle of collaboration to talk, write, text each other: where is the pressure point in your writing? We feel that each of you operates within a space of writing that investigates: what are the limits of the body? How does identity resonate through writing? What is a phenomenology of the Other? How can we write that which cannot be written? What is the matrix of non-verbal communication, gesture, position? How does language orient? What is a sentence? We write towards a similar topography: let us survey these contours. We encourage you to expand/mutate/alter/shift the trajectories of this project. We support the exploration of conversational magnetism outside of the correspondents presented here. Are you going to have coffee with a painter or neuroscientist? Record that conversation on your phone. Take notes. Are you texting about muscle memory and desire? Transcribe: take screen shots: send them to us. TRACT / TRACE will be a multivalent work: through email, phone, blog, text, v-chat, and writing, we will begin to see the emergence of what motivates us, the facets that, in meeting, create a crystal, one that is constantly in motion: growing from all sides. TRACT / TRACE has a blog: right here! This will be our corner café, a place to put our ideas, our thoughts, time-lapse photographs and performance pieces: notes, scraps, two-line conversations: a space to gather, collect, archive, so that our work can refract in proximity. What could possibly happen? We have no idea: what we see is an opening, a petri dish for: mutation, disfiguration, infestation, shifts in color and light. A compendium, and through this unknowing something may emerge: a book, a journal, a physical body: radiant organ. This is the beginning: three months of inquiry. Our projected time map for this cycle is Feb 15th – May 15th, in order to cull, extract, expand, press upon our collective work to see: what happens. Think of us as nodes: points of reverberation. We are all incredibly busy: we understand and want to help. If you have a conversation that needs transcribing, we will do it. If you cannot post on the blog yourself, send us your raw materials, your substrates, and we will synthesize and present. We are superconductors: strike us with lightning! We don’t know what will happen. We move towards a space unknown, a linguistic topography we write into existence, in becoming: gesturing towards the future as emergent. We are open to suggestions, ways to make this experiment flower, grow, expand, fold. Let’s Begin
