Christian Bök - - Mechanical Brides

Christian Bök is the author not only of Crystallography (Coach House Press, 1994), a pataphysical encyclopedia nominated for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, but also of Eunoia (Coach House Books, 2001), a bestselling work of experimental literature, which has gone on to win the Griffin Prize for Poetic Excellence. Bök has created artificial languages for two television shows: Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict and Peter Benchley’s Amazon. Bök has also earned many accolades for his virtuoso performances of sound poetry (particularly the Ursonate by Kurt Schwitters). His conceptual artworks (which include books built out of Rubik’s cubes and Lego bricks) have appeared at the Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York City as part of the exhibit Poetry Plastique. Bök is currently a Professor of English at the University of Calgary.


CHRISTIAN BÖK			*“ Odalisques* ”** - 2009
	CV	Christian Bök is the author not only of Crystallography (Coach House Press, 1994), a pataphysical encyclopedia nominated for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, but also of Eunoia (Coach House Books, 2001), a bestselling work of experimental literature, which has gone on to win the Griffin Prize for Poetic Excellence. Bök has created artificial languages for two television shows: Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict and Peter Benchley’s Amazon. Bök has also earned many accolades for his virtuoso performances of sound poetry (particularly the Ursonate by Kurt Schwitters). His conceptual artworks (which include books built out of Rubik’s cubes and Lego bricks) have appeared at the Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York City as part of the exhibit Poetry Plastique. Bök is currently a Professor of English at the University of Calgary.	“The “Odalisques” constitute one of my idle experiments (the kind of work that I might do when I need a distraction from a more lengthy, more onerous project). Each of these nudes has been created by rearranging the 21 components used by typographers to design the letterforms of the alphabet. Each figure represents a permutation of exactly the same set of curves and shapes, each scaled and turned, perhaps overlapped, but never repeated nor inverted. I am trying to evoke a nude form by drawing according to a constraint, using only a fixed array of strokes. I am trying to evoke the female figure as a kind of difficult, aesthetic potential, imminent within the beauty of a fractured alphabet. I have drawn these images with the online toy found at www.typeisart.com. I have included this set in the show, simply because they all make use of the X-height fragment in exactly the same way, and consequently they are all connected by the anchor of this single curve."
			Christian Bök reading at the Cultch for the Capilano Review. May 11 2010, Vancouver BC. Audio Video Photo
			CHRISTIAN BÖK Odalisque [#04] [Silkscreened ink on paper, 2009] 22”x30” [ - 4" image - ] edition of 20 $240 per print, $1000 set of 5
			CHRISTIAN BÖK Odalisque [#11] [Silkscreened ink on paper, 2009] 22”x30” [ - 4" image - ] edition of 20 $240 per print, $1000 set of 5
			CHRISTIAN BÖK Odalisque [#12] [Silkscreened ink on paper, 2009] 22”x30” [ - 4" image - ] edition of 20 $240 per print, $1000 set of 5
			CHRISTIAN BÖK Odalisque [#13] [Silkscreened ink on paper, 2009] 22”x30” [ - 4" image - ] edition of 20 $240 per print, $1000 set of 5
			CHRISTIAN BÖK Odalisque [#14] [Silkscreened ink on paper, 2009] 22”x30” [ - 4" image - ] edition of 20 $240 per print, $1000 set of 5

						-- SCALE REFERENCE -- CHRISTIAN BÖK [repeat] Odalisque [#14] [Silkscreened ink on paper, 2009] 22”x30” [ - 4" image - ] edition of 20 $240 per print, $1000 set of 5
						CHRISTIAN BÖK - Odalisques @ Gallery Atsui, Vancouver, Oct 2009.
OTHER KNOWN ODALISQUES and VISUAL POETRY:						*Print editions of images below are not made available through Mechanical Brides... ODALISQUE #1 CHRISTIAN BÖK
						ODALISQUE #2 CHRISTIAN BÖK
						ODALISQUE #3 CHRISTIAN BÖK
						Simplex Crystal CHRISTIAN BÖK
						S-Fractal CHRISTIAN BÖK
BOOKS						Mechanical Brides advocates for your local booksellers. For online-mail-order, we strongly recommend Apollinaire's Books which, like Art Metropole, also carry prints. Most Bök titles are available directly from Coach House Books.
						CHRISTIAN BÖK CRYSTALLOGRAPHY Coach House Books 1994 Upgraded Edition 2003 ISBN-10: 1552451194 ISBN-13: 9781552451199 160 pp, Paperback Apr 20 2003 $17.95 CAD
						CHRISTIAN BÖK EUNOIA Coach House Books 2001 - Upgraded 2009 ISBN-10: 1552452555 ISBN-13: 9781552452557 120 pp, Paperback Oct 1 2009 $16.95 CAD CHRISTIAN BÖK EUNOIA - CD 11 Tracks Audiobook, , 72 min .47 sec performed by Christian Bök recorded by Steve Venright, Torpor Vigil Industries published by Coach House Books 2002 ISBN-10: 1552451240 ISBN-13: 9781552451243 pp, Paperback Jan 1 2003 $16.95 CA
						CHRISTIAN BÖK 'PATAPHYSICS - the Poetics of an Imaginary Science Paperback: 133 pages Publisher: Northwestern University Press; 1 edition (Dec 26 2001) Language: English ISBN-10: 0810118777 ISBN-13: 978-0810118775 Product Dimensions: 22.4 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm Shipping Weight: 205 g $24.95 CA .

	VIDEO
	Flarf, Arf Arf Arf! - Christian Bök from Dimensions Variable on Vimeo. Christian Bök, reading at the Cultch, Vancouver, for the Capilano Review, May 11 2010. Full audio of the performance available here.	"Flarf: Arf Arf Arf" - by Christian Bök Reading at the Cultch, for the Capilano Review, Vancouver, May 11 2010. Below is transcribed the introduction to this passage, abbreviated by the video: "Some of you might know that there is a Cold War taking place between the two great superpowers of the twenty-first century avant-garde in poetry—Flarf and Conceptualism. You need not know what these two movements are in order to appeciate that this battle is being fought on your behalf. The two movements are trying to expunge each other from the face of the Earth. So far the only casualty is poetry itself…. My friend Kenny Goldsmith (one of the founding members of Conceptual Poetry) has actually written a little article about the similarities between Flarf and Conceptualism, noting that Flarf is a very Dionysian aesthetic, whereas Conceptualism is, by comparison, a very Apollonian aesthetic. I'm sure that you must have seen by now how Apollonian my aesthetic is. I have responded to this controversy by writing a little manifesto, based upon the essay produced by my friend Kenny Goldsmith - but I've actually used the procedures of Flarf in order to translate it, inputting each of the individual sentences of his essay into the Google search-engine with an overriding constraint, in order to determine what people on the Internet might have to say about this particular controversy. I have entitled this little eight-minute disquisition: 'Flarf, Arf Arf Arf!' . "
	Phonemes - Chrsitian Bök from Dimensions Variable on Vimeo. Reading at the Cultch, for the Capilano Review, Vancouver, May 11 2010.	Phonemes - Chrsitian Bök
	Voyelles - Christian Bök from Dimensions Variable on Vimeo. Reading at the Cultch, for the Capilano Review, Vancouver, May 11 2010.	Voyelles - Christian Bök
	The Cage Match of Canadian Poetry from Kit Dobson on Vimeo.	Watch Christian Bök and Carmine Starnino duke it out in their discussion of contemporary Canadian poetry. Filmed at Mount Royal University, Calgary, 26 November 2009. Moderated by Kit Dobson, organized by Kelly Hewson, Micheline Maylor, and the Department of English at Mount Royal.
	Audio Collection of Christian Bök recordings.	Christian Bök portrait by SCalvert

	ARTICLES: Times of London: The Good Bök Times of London: Vowel Play Utne Reader - 50 Visionaries who are Changing the World Wired Magazine - Recombinant Rhymer Encodes Poetry in DNA Globe and Mail - Bök vs Bug CBC radio: And Sometimes Y - Christian Bök and Darren Wershler-Henry - The Edge of Language - discussion - July 25 2006 Christian B ö k - UbuHubbub Christian Bök readings on Ubuweb Christian B ö k reads at the Whitney Millenial Pataphysics: The Postmodern Apocalypse of Science by Christian Bök and Darren Wershler-Henry EPILOGUE: from: 'Pataphysics: The Poetics of an Imaginary Science) by Christian Bök