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DIRTY LITERATURE
Tim Etchells and Tony White
National Portrait Gallery, London
Thursday 17 March 2011, 7.30 PM
Tim Etchells, Eyes, Mud and Unclarity
Tim Etchell's specifically commissioned text-work
Eyes, Mud and Unclarity draws on texts from the National Portrait Gallery archive including
portrait acquisition notes, historical guidance for invigilators and texts concerning the Gallery closure during the World Wars. Pitching these against
his own fragmented notes on pictures in the collection along with badly translated internet guides on how-to-draw amongst other materials Etchells builds
and dissolves worlds and pictures in language, working at the edge of narrative coherence. In the second part of his contribution Etchells will read an
existing text
Now Not Moving, invoking the now-familiar landscape invoked in his work with dystopian urban adventures, science fiction and distorted fairytales.
Tony White, Charlieunclenorfolktango
Tony White is a writer best known for his novel Foxy-T (Faber, 2003) which maps the migrant economies and street slang of contemporary Whitechapel.
Responding to the 'Poll Tax riots' and recent protests in Trafalgar Square, White will read from Charlieunclenorfolktango, his satirical 1999 novel about
an alienated police force, before being joined by musician Simon Edwards to exclusively preview a new short story commissioned by digital arts agency SCAN
for their Digital Transformations project.
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About the Artists
Tim Etchells is an artist, writer and founding Director of Forced Entertainment. His work spans video, photography, text projects, performance, installation and
fiction. His first novel
The Broken World was published by Heinemann in 2008 and his monograph on contemporary performance and Forced Entertainment,
Certain Fragments (Routledge 1999) is widely acclaimed. In recent years Etchells has exhibited widely in the context of visual arts, with solo shows at
Gasworks and Sketch (London) and Künstlerhaus Bremen as well as in biennales including Manifesta 7 (2008), Goteborg Bienale (2009) and October Salon Belgrade (2010).
Tony White is the author of novels including
Foxy-T (Faber and Faber). A number of recent short stories are available for free download from
www.artistsebooks.org.
Formerly writer in residence at the Science Museum, London, White has also been Leverhulme Trust writer in residence at the UCL School of Slavonic and East European
Studies (SSEES). In 2010 he wrote the interactive drama Ivy4Evr for Blast Theory and Channel 4. White is currently acting chair of the board of directors of London's
art radio station Resonance 104.4fm and blogs at
http://pieceofpaperpress.wordpress.com.
Image credit: Tim Etchells,
Rotten Days, 2006
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