Beyond GRAMMATRON: 20 Years into the Future

Announcing the Beyond GRAMMATRON: 20 Years into the Future Symposium and Exhibition

June 26, 2017
London

20 years ago today, artist and novelist Mark Amerika released GRAMMATRON, one of the pioneering works of internet art and electronic literature. The work has since been exhibited in many venues including the Whitney Biennial of American Art, the Walker Arts Center, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, and just this year as part of the Glitchmix exhibition at the Norwegian Embassy to Cuba in Havana. Celebrated as both a significant work of late 20th century American art as well as a prototype for future forms of digital writing, "GRAMMATRON is grappling with the idea of spirituality in the electronic age" (New York Times).

The British Computer Arts Society in collaboration with Ravensbourne and the Electronic Literature Organization are happy to announce the Beyond GRAMMATRON: 20 Years into the Future symposium and exhibition. The all-day symposium will take place on Friday, September 15 starting at 10:00 at the British Computer Society in Covent Garden. The symposium will feature an international group of guest speakers including Christiane Paul (Whitney Museum of American Art and New School), Frieder Nake (University of Bremen), Ruth Catlow and Marc Garrett (Furtherfield Gallery), Dene Grigar (President, Electronic Literature Organization and Washington State University-Vancouver) Arnaud Regnauld (University of Paris 8), Beryl Graham (University of Sunderland), Sue Thomas (Bournemouth University), Cristina Figueroa-Vives (Casas de las Americas in Havana) and Kerry Doran (Postmasters Gallery). The event is chaired by Dr. Nicholas Lambert, Head of Research at Ravensbourne and will include a rare spoken word performance of GRAMMATRON by artist Mark Amerika (University of Colorado).

The "Beyond GRAMMATRON" pop-up exhibition is curated by artist and scholar Dene Grigar and features GRAMMATRON alongside the work of other artists that were gaining prominence in the mid-late 90s net art and electronic literary culture.

Event location:

British Computer Society, 5 Southampton St, London WC2E 7HA

All events are free and open to the public.

For more information on the Beyond GRAMMATRON event, visit the website at beyondgrammatron.com

To experience the original 1997 version of GRAMMATRON, visit grammatron.com

In celebration of the 20 year anniversary of GRAMMATRON, Mark Amerika has created a new work of art - “Detail(s) from GRAMMATRON (Animated GIF Remix)” - opening on July 1, 2017 at the Upfor Gallery’s online exhibition space located at upfor.digital