Talk Series: Kareem Estefan & Tan Lin: on affect and attention in beautiful operating systems (like disco or a relaxing poem)

Monday

Tan Lin’s Seven Controlled Vocabularies is a book as generic data object: at times it’s like a painting and at others it’s vaguely cinematic. It has a narrative structure, but it’s loose like a tourist itinerary or inventory. The most beautiful page makes you look away from what you are reading. Tan Lin said that. Estefan and Lin will talk about what attention spans are made, and what affective states they produce, in the generic objects and operating systems of the present.

Kareem Estefan currently co-curates the Segue Series at the Bowery Poetry Club and studies art criticism and writing at the School of Visual Arts. Previously, he hosted Ceptuetics, a WNYU radio show featuring readings and interviews with conceptually innovative poets, which is now archived at PennSound.

Tan Lin is a writer, artist, and critic. He has published the books Lotion Bullwhip Giraffe, BlipSoak01, Heath: plagiarism/outsource, and 7 Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004 The Joy of Cooking. He is a professor of English and creative writing at New Jersey City University.