a, A Novel /
Beaulieu, D. A.(Derek Alexander),1973-
Planquelle, Hélène,translator.
Container of (work):Williams, Gilda.Breaking up is hard to do.
Container of (work):Williams, Gilda.Comme il est dur de rompre.
Adaptation of (work):Warhol, Andy,1928-1987.a, A Novel.
"Derek Beaulieu's 'a, A Novel' is an erasure-based translative response to Andy Warhol's eponymous novel. Beaulieu carefully erases all of the text on each page of the original work, leaving only the punctuation marks, typists' insertions and onomatopoeic words. The resultant text is a novelistic ballet mécanique, a visual orchestration of the traffic signals and street noises. This visually powerful half score/half novel highlights the musicality of non-narrative sounds embedded within conversation. This 451-page visual poem is accompanied by an essay by Gilda Williams. Her deep knowledge of both Andy Warhol's work and the history of contemporary art explores the complicated history of the original novel and highlights the urgent and precise spirit of Derek Beaulieu's work - the work of an artist who situates Uncreative Writing at the core of contemporary literature and artistic labour. Uncreative Writings is a collection of conceptual poetry, unwritten writing and literary ready-made. This collection gathers a range of authors and artists who focus on language in the digital age : its quantity, its fragmentation, its visual dimension, its accessibility and its almost unlimited disposability. These conceptual writings and experimental texts draw on a secular history : that of exchanging, commenting, selecting, reusing, recycling, adapting, updating, quoting, extracting, duplicating, giving, propagating, appropriating, pirating ideas in literature, and so, since its start. A literary revolution is on its way."--publisher's website, viewed 21 March 2018.
Essay translated from English into French by Hélène Planquelle.
Visual poetry, Canadian.