You are invited to submit to the Ticker Text project http://tickertext.concordia.ca
Submit an entry and become a contributor to this digital poetry installation.
THE TICKER TEXT PROJECT
historical and new media as literary constraint
an Espace recherche project created for Congress 2010 at Concordia University
28 May-4 June 2010
curated by Jason Camlot, Department of English
in collaboration with CEREV lab 6½
This project addresses the production and dissemination of new creative writing in relation to informing features of the historical stock ticker—text in motion, instantaneous telecommunication (transmitting messages across a distance), periodic updates and “telegraphic” brevity.
The Ticker Text Project is open for business. Here is how it works:
Content is being collected using a Twitter-like website interface that allows users to enter texts of 140 characters or less, including spaces. We’ve represented the shape of a horizontal piece of tape that does not allow for lineation (line breaks), paragraphs, or any tiered interruption of the text entered. Normal punctuation symbols are permitted.
To contribute, one need only log in, compose a ticker text within the frame of the composition box, and submit it. As of May 28th, your text will be reviewed by a project moderator, authorized, then relayed to the digital LED ticker in the Molson Building atrium at Concordia University In Montreal, for all to see.
The only formal constraint (apart from those of the interface itself) is that, in the spirit of Edison’s original Universal Stock Ticker system, every ticker text submission must in some way contain a mixture of letters and numbers. Thus, your poem or story can include numerals interspersed with the words. It can make reference to numbers, count things, evaluate experiences numerically. Or it can engage with this conceptual constraint in any other way you might dream up.