Poetry Reading | Barefoot in the Head: Futurological Poetry Reading

Organized by UK artists, curators, and lecturers Dr. John Russell and Alun Rowlands, and Performa Curator Mark Beasley, "Barefoot in the Head: Futurological Poetry Reading” is a curatorial response to the work of British science fiction writer Brian Aldiss and Reading University’s collection of Aldiss’s literary papers. Barefoot in the Head (1969) was perhaps Aldiss’s most experimental work, the narration and dialogue reflects the shattering of language under the influence of the drugs, in mutating phrases and puns and allusions, in a deliberate echo of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake.

Russell and Rowlands have invited a number of international artists and musicians to consider the original text and create a poetic textual work in response to the original texts. Experimental in nature, the event suggests the re-imagining of the poetry reading event, through the hallucogenically charged future vision of Aldiss. The final destination of all the material solicited will be the publication of a book and the creation of a tenth box, to be held at the Brian Aldiss archive in perpetuity.

Invited artists include: Barry Macgregor Johnston, Ewin Burdiss (aka Laliq), Mark Titchner, Mark von Schlegell, Stephen G Rhodes, Kosten Kopper, Mark Aerial Waller, Christine Ellison, Szuper Gallery, Reza Negrestani, Dennis Cooper, Seth Price, Nick Land, Pierre Guyotat, Linder, Future Fiction, Gareth James, Collapse Magazine, The Mock, Adam Pendleton, Trinnie Dalton, Michael Portnoy, Dina Seiden, Bruce High Quality, Nick Relph, Dexter Sinister, John Menick, Sina Najafi, Rose Kallal, Frank Haines, Art & Language & Kevin Killian.

Brian Wilson Aldiss was born in 1925 in East Dereham, Norfolk, England and is a prolific English author of both general fiction and science fiction. Greatly influenced by SF pioneer H. G. Wells, Aldiss is a vice-president of the international H. G. Wells Society. He is also (with Harry Harrison) co-president of the Birmingham Science Fiction Group. His writings have been compared to those of Isaac Asimov, Greg Bear, and Arthur C. Clarke.
,/br> Dr. John Russell is Reader in Contemporary Art and Theory and Director of Research at Reading University, UK. Russell’s has had recent exhibitions at the ICA, London, the South London Gallery, London, and Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto. Russell was a founder member of the seminal London based art group, BANK.

Alun Rowlands is Head of Department and Senior Lecturer in Art Theory & Practice at Reading University, UK. His research focuses upon curatorial, publishing and exhibition paradigms that acknowledge the different rhythms and narratives demanded by critical practices. This research has coalesced within a number of recent publications.