&NOW 2018

A reading featuring poets and fiction writers working with found material from social media, websites, TV reality shows, video games and more. . . How can innovative writing intervene in the constant flow of likes, posts, images, information and commodities that algorithmically fills our lives under late capitalism? Where is meaning to be found in this context – or generated? From Facebook to Hoarders to Koko the Gorilla and mass shootings, panelists present new ways of looking at our everyday media landscape in all its splendor, kitsch and horror. Reading will be followed by a discussion that teases out the subversive formal and political dimensions of the work, with special attention to questions of satire, pastiche, polyvocality, digital excess, overconsumption, environmental collapse and gun violence.