Tell us about the conceptual text [+!]. What is it? Why is important.[+!] is perhaps as much an example of conceptual art as it is a satirical poke at the very idea of conceptual art which is generally powered by its process documentation. One of the buried or nested themes of the text has been in threading the documentation within it to blur the distinction between process and product, letting each absorb and consume the other. Generally, creative work is perceived as possessing two complementary halves that enter into a synthesis. In this case, the two halves - process and product - are not merely totaling that synthesis, but something where the two articulations equal more than the sum of their parts. There is in this a nod to a kind of Gestalt poetics.
The text itself is a rabid experiment in poetry and poetics, ambitiously charting its course beyond both code poetry and visual poetry. When this project was in its nebulous and incipient stage, I was intrigued by the use of various formatting marks in code poetry and wondered what it would be like to fuse or thread this method with some of my more playful translinguistic punning and flurry of neologisms. Essentially, I wanted a frame in which to push my tendency for making neologisms that would encourage others to do the same. Given my somewhat obsessive predilection for etymology, those who read any of my work - academic or literary - can observe my trend of constructing new words through a grafting of prefixes, suffixes, and monstrous portmanteaus. The format was ideal for inviting my collaborators to engage in the same acts of play.
As to why it is important... I wouldn't be qualified or have enough credibility to say if it is important without performing editorialization on my own work.Many people I know find it interesting or even beautiful, but just as many simply "don't get it" - which is fine. I would hitch any importance to the text's insistence on experiment and putting experiment into practice.
What does the term lysicology mean and what does it have to do with your book? Lysicology is a term I created that inverts the notion of "lyric". Lyric is generally composed according to a rhythmic formula. Lysic adopts what Deleuze and Guattari call de- and re-territorialization which recreates subjectivity according to a more rhizomal method, without appeal to preset hierarchies of understanding. In the context of this book, I chose to set a loose program of de-composing words, breaking their pseudo- or quasi-molecular bonds even at the site of the letters themselves, and then re-compose them differently. One would have to picture words like Lego blocks, and the builders emancipated from the expectations of how the letters and words should go together. On a more macro level, the recomposition after decomposition takes place when vignettes of manifestos, essays, and process documentation freely interpellate within poetic fragments. Add the visual layer for extra appeal, and one has a book that is far more than the sum of its parts.
The other theoretical concern of mine is actually indexed on my recent dissertation on the metaphysics of metastasis. Simply put, I placed wild and unchecked growth at the helm of all being's instantiations, thereby routing Aristotelian or Hegelian categorical assumptions. Metastasis of the word itself is what interests me, the flux of the word hyper-charged. The charging of words is something that has a precedent in Ezra Pound.
Tell us about your partners who co-produced [+!] with you?Matina Stamatakis was the first to come on board. I had brought the very loose diagram of what I had in mind sometime back in the early months of 2008. One of the reasons I tapped her talents was due to her somewhat exquisite sense of wordplay and adventurous renderings that come off in an almost aphasic fashion. Effectively, our collaboration became a sort of engine or generator, and each text we parlayed via email seemed to construct a bizarre machine with ever new inputs, outputs, and derivative creations.
John Moore Williams was a late addition to our team. Whereas Matina was able to furnish the project with gorgeous textual photos, John's metier had been digging ever deeper into what visual poetry on the screen could do. His vispo inventions, and Matina's keen camera eye, are what give this book its strong visual appeal, making it an artifact of beautiful obscurity.
Do you have a day job?I suppose I have several, but this would depend on what is meant by day job. I sometimes see my academic and literary practices converge or diverge. At present, I am an assistant professor for a media studies program, although my real educational background is in continental philosophy and modern French literature. I hold a few freelance positions and am an editorial board member of a few academic journals.
What other careers have you had? What's the worst job you've ever had?Writing and research has always been a kind of career, but rarely has it been a paying one. One of the harsh realities of having spent a decade being a student, negotiating one degree after the next and racking up significant debt, has been the long series of odd jobs I've taken on. I've been everything from a retail clothing store clerk, mover, junk hauler, security guard, produce department clerk, dairy section clerk, ghostwriter, arts consultant, proctor, house painter, tutor, ESL teacher, and so on. The enduring irony has always been that I look more like a stereotypical worker than a writer or academic being a somewhat tall and robust creature with big working hands and exceptional physical strength. I suppose this lends to my persona the versatility in not being able to be reduced to one particular thing, one particular perception that would capture the whole.
Do you consider yourself an underground artist?To be honest, I don't know if the distinction between underground artist and celebrated or known artist holds in an age where new hubs, nodes, and niches are facilitated by virtual dissemination of work. I do know that attempts at nationalizing literature, for example, will always have to contend with the facts that a) nationalizing literature sets a rigid formula that must be obeyed and emulated, and b) nationalist lit seems to lose relevance in a global market where I collaborate with people from all over the world. Ironically or not, I am next to nobody here in Canada, but I have a slight whisper of international presence. If I can be considered underground, it is perhaps because I set a different standard for literary production that is not in vogue at the moment, and may never be. I am perhaps a bit too "European" in my outlook and sensibilities, and demand far too much of my audience. I don't believe literature has to be grossly simple or beautiful, for my conception of art is not the sort that must look pretty on the coffee table and not clash with the sofa cushions.
How do you approach writing? Believe in writer's block?I believe in flux, which comes with its flows and intensities that vary due to several internal and external factors. I used to worry about the slower times, but they pass and I am prolific once more. I've never had any problems generating new ideas; in fact, my problem is quite the opposite: I have far too many ideas and projects that I would need more than my own lifetime to pursue and develop. I cannot seem to stem the lateral flow of thought, the branches that grow from an existing project where I encounter an idea for yet another project.
I approach writing in a workmanlike way. My laptop is my generative factory, and I produce so many units of work of different types. The benefit of having so many concurrent projects is that I can maximize and dilate my time; namely, each project fits neatly into my range of moods, so if I'm not in the mood to work on project x, I can work on project y which makes best use of the particular mood or personal mode I'm in. I find this method beneficial since there is never an excuse for idle time.
Listen to music while you create? Who?I do, most of the time, depending on the focus of the project, and if it will enhance my given mood at the moment and fit well with the project. Most of the music I listen to while writing will have few to no lyrics. Ambient groups like
Zoviet France, Boards of Canada, Godspeed You Black Emperor will mix with
CPE Bach and
JS Bach, Rachmaninoff, Scarlatti, etc.
How do you define success? Have you won any awards? Do money or accolades matter much to you?Success begins at home. I set unrealistic standards that are much higher than perhaps others would expect. There is something Spartan and militant in the way I define success for myself. I do not let a day pass without achieving something relatively substantial or else I fall into a fugue which resolves itself almost immediately into a self-directed anger which then prompts me to rectify my failure to achieve my goals.
Awards? I have a few now, but my work is delectably obscure and esoteric, so I'm rarely on the radar for those. I am sharing an award with John and Matina for [+!], granted by the &Now conference group. I'm not so concerned with awards, and there are some I would decline on the basis of principles. There may come a day when the same establishment that had for so long rejected and spurned me will think me "safe" enough to include in their klatch, but my memory is long and precise, and I would rather suffer the infamy of declining than to accept and become a stuffed hypocrite.
Money does matter to me these days if only for real world concerns. I've had a nasty habit of just giving my time and work away for well over a decade, and there comes a point when I have to get paid. I have to assign a value to my own time since, if I don't, no one else will assign value to it either. I turn down several pro bono projects every other day, and that is partially because I'm already overworked and my time spoken for in all my other writing and academic ventures. There was a time when I would take on anything, like a dog will table scraps, but now I have a certain luxury to be more selective. At this time, I am trying to hitch every one of my projects to cash-based grants. As my good friend states, "you got to pay yourself first."
The other change is in publishers. I've had some pretty bad ones, and so my books - to crib from Hume - fell stillborn from the press given a patent lack of marketing on their end. I do my fair share of promotion, but I can't be expected to do it all since I need my time to create as well. My new publisher,
Crossing Chaos Enigmatic Ink, is a very good emergent press, and I know the editor Wayne Groen is committed and a hard worker at shilling the list and doing promo. With a generous contract in hand, and a conscientious publisher backing my work, I feel a sense of optimism that this will bode well.
Accolades are, to me, mostly added lines on an expanding CV. I am far too ironic and self-deprecating to take even the most laudable accolade all that seriously. My first reaction is to find humour in it and then never think about it again.
What other interests do you pursue?In my non-writing time? Fossil hunting, coin collecting, and spending as much time as I can with my wife. I live a simple life, and am happy to write, teach, drink beer, and smoke cigarettes.
Are you prolific?Depends what is meant by prolific. On some years, I produce more than 10,000 edited pages per annum. I would define myself as multivox and versatile. There is probably no kind of writing I have not or am not already doing. From staid academic articles to cultural journalism, a variety of poetry types to vastly different styles of novel writing, aphorisms to book reviews, there is no single "style" or "focus" per se. Have pen will write seems to sum me up quite well. This may appear nomadic, a jack of all trades and master of none, but it is perhaps possible that one can extend beyond some specialist status to be a different kind of knowledge worker, the kind that may find the boundaries separating different types of writing to be those one can transgress and see what tensions emerge from their intertextuality.
What does the future hold for Dr. Kane X. Faucher?Writing and research to the end of my days, most likely. There are about 30 novel manuscripts on the go, an academic book on metastasis in development, a research project on rhizomedia, more teaching, a collaboration with Anthony Metivier, a collaboration with Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, a collaboration with Tom Bradley, my new novel (
The Vicious Circulation of Dr Catastrope) coming out next year with
Crossing Chaos Enigmatic Ink, several manuscripts awaiting verdict from publishers near and far, grants to write, readings and conferences to attend, a poetry book from
Differentia Press coming next month, another collaboration with John Moore Williams, interviews to conduct and be conducted by, ad infinitum. To be honest, it all depends on the serendipity of things as to where my pen and person will take me next. There is no preset script to my activities beyond a few stable goals such as gaining tenure at the university, publishing more books, and engaging in exciting new projects that will appeal to my desire for intellectual and creative stimulation.
