ÉPÏKÂNÕVÀ
(The New, Definitely Post/Transnational,
Positively Polylingual, Palpably Ethereal, and Mostly Portable Open
Epic, as Rendered by The Elastic Circus of the Revolution)
(2007-present,
Elastic Circus of the Revolution and other publishers, entities and
organizations; plurilingual, multimedial and multiplatformal literary
epic)
ÉPÏKÂNÕVÀ is an ‘open epic’–the necessary poetic epic of our time–constructing the epic of its people… a polylingual total epic where prose and poetic fragments unfold on multiple platforms, in multiple arenas and spaces (private and public), and through various scriptural strategies—from the traditional (handwritten sheets and books) to the new (electronic, web). Narrative conventions are challenged, and poetic, stylistic and performative operations exploit possibilities unique to different languages and mediums. The overall experience is orchestrated through the creation of lasting artifacts as well as ephemeral events and monumental constructs. A theoretical apparatus and a critical enterprise engaged with the history and forms of literature and the reading phenomenon, this oeuvre also challenges traditional modalities of publication, exhibition, commodification, dissemination and interaction.
In the past fifteen years, cantos and ketabs have appeared and taken place in a host of spaces in various cities and locales across the world. At official festivals like the Dumbo Arts Festival in Brooklyn, New York; the Baroquissimo Festival in Puebla, Mexico; the Paris en toutes lettres festival in Paris. Through impromptu actions at public and private spaces: a plaza in Santo Domingo, a lake in Dorset, Vermont, the streets of NYC, again. Readings, readations, incantations. Performances. Publications–with Editions Caracteres in Paris, The Elastic Circus of the Revolution in New York. Through presentations and exchanges at residencies, such as the Bologna Museum of Modern Art and Marble House Project in Vermont. Writings across genres, fashioning new rituals and forms. Public literature, litpics, litclips, bookstills: new types of objects. An epic that fuses myths to create new ones, embraces rupture, presents the new body-poet: the neo-nomad, neo-derviche: a blend of the flaneur, the poete maudit, the dandy–a traveling troubadour, mystical Persian poet, underground punk rocker. A new epic–for a new people. A new epic: for a new world.