CRAIG DWORKIN



Striefen blauer Lilien triangulates a variety of proper names (place names, personal names, and registered commercial names) through classical German poetry. The project consists of compiling databases of telephone numbers linked through a given poet’s name and then facilitating connections between those numbers by way of a relevant poetic text.

For example: individuals with the surname “Hölderlin,” those living on Hölderlinstraße or Hölderlinplatz, and franchises of the eponymous apothecary chain were all called. Those who answered were read a few lines from a poem by the late 18th century poet Friedrich Hölderlin and given the phone number of another participant. No further information was supplied.

Taking advantage of what Friedrich Kittler has called aufschriebesysteme [discourse networks], this project hopes to chart new social networks through pataphysical logics, and to explore the fragile human connections at the intersection between the planes of geography, commerce, literature, and onomastics.



HOW TO LOCATE

By chance, as a resident on one of the project streets.



ABOUT THE ARTIST

Craig Dworkin teaches at Princeton University. His chapbook "Index" has just been published by housepress; "PARSE" is forthcoming from Atelos Press; and his artist's book Signature-Effects is available from Small Press Distribution. A critical volume, Reading the Illegible, will be published later this spring by Northwestern University Press.



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