[Bcma-l] FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday Jan. 29, 2008

[bcma-l@museumsassn.bc.ca]

Media Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday Jan. 29, 2008
ATTENTION ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITORS

*The Alternator Gallery Philosophers’ Café and Okanagan College present:*

LIT@ALT: A Reading and Discussion Series
With participant Christian Bök

KELOWNA, BC – On Saturday, February 16, 2008, at 8:00 p.m., the 
Alternator Gallery and Okanagan College will present award-winning poet, 
literary scholar, and sound artist, Christian Bök, at the Mary Irwin 
Theatre (Rotary Centre for the Arts).

Bök, a professor of English at the University of Calgary, is the author 
not only of Crystallography, a pataphysical encyclopedia nominated for 
the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, but also of Eunoia, a bestselling 
work (now over 20 print runs) of experimental literature, which has gone 
on to win the prestigious 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.

Most recently Bök has been causing controversy—and excitement—with his 
new project, “The Xenotext Experiment.” He, and his fellow researcher, 
geneticist Stuart Kauffman, would like to “translate” a poem into a 
sequence of DNA for subsequent implantation into the genome of a 
bacterium. Bök and Kauffman then propose to document the process of this 
radical literary “genetics.”

Bök will be performing his poems and sound works, showing images of some 
of his conceptual art pieces, and discussing his current projects at the 
Saturday night event. Opening up for Bök will be vocal improvisational 
singers Kathleen Baker and Friends. Tickets for the event are free 
(suggested donation price of $5) and available at the door. A party—open 
to everyone—will follow Bök’s performance at the Alternator Gallery for 
Contemporary Art.

The Philosophers’ Café: LIT@ALT Reading and Discussion Series, a new 
program designed to enhance the community’s understanding of 
contemporary art/writing and stimulate discussion about cultural issues, 
is organized by the Alternator Gallery, an artist-run centre in the 
Rotary Centre for the Arts at 421 Cawston Ave. Admission is by donation.

Call (250) 868-2298, check www.alternatorgallery.com or e-mail 
dir@alternatorgallery.com for information.

-- 


Alternator Gallery for Contemporary Art
#103-421 Cawston Ave.
Kelowna, BC
V1Y 6Z1
250-868-2298

www.alternatorgallery.com <http://www.alternatorgallery.com/>
info@alternatorgallery.com <mailto:info@alternatorgallery.com>


The Alternator Gallery is proud to present ON COMMON GROUND National 
Media Arts Festival & Conference, June 10-14 2008.

Exploring common visions while showcasing the history of Indigenous 
media art in the traditional territory of the Syilx Nation in beautiful 
Kelowna BC.
www.imaa.ca <http://www.imaa.ca/> or www.alternatorgallery.com 
<http://www.alternatorgallery.com/>