The Operating System

PRINT! Vol. 2 :: UPDATES AND GENERAL AFTERGLOW

Oh, Exit Strata family. What an amazing journey it’s been! and what an incredible experience we shared just a month ago at our launch party for PRINT! Vol. 2, at the aptly named Launchpad in Brooklyn.

We’ve been busy as little bees, getting the issue out to Bookstores (and available everywhere online Print on Demand), getting our first chapbook series ready to print in time for AWP in Boston in March, and the Chapbook festival here in NYC (more on on that soon), getting our second annual Poetry Month series ready to go, and reviewing submissions for PRINT! Vol. 3 (through March 15th)but time waits for no… er, arts organization staff… so before more time goes by we wanted to share with you these beautiful pics of the launch, shot by Eric Medsker, photographer-friend of the great Launchpad team.

readers included:
Daniel Owen (suns’s skeleton)
with 
video/conceptual art from Eliza Swann (http://www.elizaswann.com/); fyi: Eliza is also one of the curators of Heliopolis Project, with whom we have a wonderful ongoing relationship of inspiration and support
and
music from Bob Goldberg / Famous Accordian Orchestra (www.reverbnation.com/famousaccordions)
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A little about volume 2:
Our second print issue of Exit Strata includes an incredible collection of poetry, fiction, play excerpts, prose, and conceptual work from artists in a wide range of mediums and from all over the world.—
At Exit Strata — in our community, in our publication, in our collaborative content process — we strive to conjure something that is more than the sum of its parts.  Perhaps what we seek can be called hive mind or collective consciousness or we can find its roots in surrealism and dada – or perhaps its better to leave the defining aside, grateful as we are for the traditions that have come before.I believe that I good curator/editor wants to be invisible, toeing the line between control and acceptance. Allowing and encouraging the work to be made more itself by its surroundings. And in our sophomore publication, I can with great gratitude and pride say that our editorial team and community truly came together to make such a process possible.This issue is equal parts unsolicited submissions and solicited work — a confluence that allowed certain themes to come more fully to the fore. As submissions came in, they invited and suggested a relationship with other artists and writers that had come into our orbit. We worked both with our new contributors and existing community members, in particular drawing from our awesome creators participants, nurturing the volume that appeared to wish to come into being: a play, in three acts.William Considine had sent us a classical, greek style play, which we loved but which was lengthy. I immediately considered if it wouldn’t be possible to run the dialogue through as a “Greek Chorus,” something the editorial staff quickly agreed to. It just so happened that we had received, in this case, multiple submissions from a number of artists and writers that we felt strongly about, as well… it just so happened that these came in threes.The play emerged, as we realized that our “characters” / the voices in these pieces spoke to similar themes: self analysis, process, instructions/somatics, existential crisis and query, all themes that we had seen emerge repeatedly in conceptual work, field notes, and other web contributions over the course of two seasons. Artists we were already in dialogue with like Eliza SwannChloë Bass, and Sara Shaoul fit perfectly with the texts we found ourselves throwing, like an I Ching, into relationship with each other.We worked as much as we can to allow the textual content to show us what it wanted to do and be, playing with visual work that enhances, supports, and plays off its intangible qualities without being immediately referential.

PRINT! Vol. 2 also demonstrates a rigorous relationship with our ongoing online projects, intending from even before its solicitation to be deeply engaged with our web platform, which has grown so much since the publication of PRINT! Vol. 1 in May. It supports and invited web content — which encouraged video art, longer submissions, and more thoughtful relationships with contributors who were aware of this extended possibility.
It demonstrates a commitment to our contributors as new members of a community of support and collaborative inspiration — of a family.
And that family was certainly in attendance at our launch! We’re just so tickled to have you talented, beautiful, dedicated folks around us. We love you! Thank you for all your support.
 

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