The European Beat Studies Network present a three-day convergence of radical theory and sound, recognising the ongoing impact of the works of US writer William S. Burroughs and the Beat Generation, with London as a primary historical and contemporary nexus point for the American avant-garde.
Tickets: £15-£60 Sliding Scale
The EBSN are very proud to present a three-day convergence of radical theory and sound, recognising the ongoing impact of the works of US writer William S. Burroughs and the Beat Generation, with London as a primary historical and contemporary nexus point for the American avant-garde. The event connects Burroughs’ experimental vision with London’s underground culture — transgressing scholarship, art, and performance in an atmosphere of collaboration and interdisciplinarity that explores the history of 1960s multi- and countercultural London, while giving a platform for the continuing dissemination of the works of Burroughs and the Beats into the present.
Daytime lineup includes:
Iain Sinclair, Barry Miles and Oliver Harris in conversation: Acclaimed writer and psychogeographer Sinclair, legendary cultural historian Miles and renowned Burroughs scholar Harris discuss Burroughs’ relationship with London.
Keynote Speakers:
Thomas Antonic [Writer, poet, director – author of Amongst Nazis: William S. Burroughs in Vienna 1936/37]
Allen Fisher [Esteemed artist, poet and performer, a central figure of the London innovative poetry scene of the 1960s and 1970s – Emeritus Professor of Poetry and Art, Manchester Metropolitan University]
Oliver Harris [Author of William Burroughs and the Secret of Fascination, editor of numerous editions of Burroughs work, Emeritus Professor of American Studies, Keele University]Discussion Panels, Talks, Roundtables and Performances featuring acclaimed writers, poets, artists, musicians, and Burroughs scholars including:
Phil Baker [Writer – author of William S. Burroughs](Critical Lives)]
Joseph Darlington [Writer – author of The Experimentalists]
Rob Jones [Beat/Burroughs scholar – Assistant Professor of English at Louisiana State University]
Symantha Jones [Interdisciplinary artist, researcher, and Assistant Professor of Fine Art at Florida Atlantic University]
Matthew Levi Stevens [Writer – author of The Magical Universe of William S. Burroughs]
Ian MacFadyen [Artist, Writer, Beat scholar – co-editor of Naked Lunch @50: Anniversary Essays]
Oliver Ray [Writer, poet and musician, former member of The Patti Smith Group]
James Riley [Muriel Bradbrook Official Fellow in English Literature at Girton College, Cambridge – author of The Bad Trip: New Worlds, Dark Omens and the End of the Sixties]
Jack Sargeant [Writer – author of Naked Lens: Beat Cinema and Against Control]
Florian Zappe [Writer – author of Godless Polemics: Atheist Pamphleteering and the Specter of Emancipation in the United States]
The event also includes two evenings of extraordinary actions, performances and monologues in celebration and homage to William Burroughs. Drawing from a unique archival sound collection of unreleased or extremely rare examples of William Burroughs own experimental tape and cutup recordings produced during different periods of his life.
The Artists:
Scanner, TAGc, Nova Ghost Transmission have all chosen separate unique sound recordings to work with and explore within their own leading expressive fields and genres. Extracting, cutting up, and reworking to rewire the Third Mind in a multi dimensional confrontational virus in sound and visual engagement. The Virus is transmuting again….
TAGc The Anti group (communications): One of the main pioneering Audio-Visual experimental projects of Adi Newton, with inclusions at ARS Electronica, Sophia Reiner gallery, Musée National d’Art Moderne, and many others. Newton’s other main project, ClockDva, are increasingly considered one of the pioneers of Industrial music in collaboration and association with Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire. Other projects include Matar, Spectral Unit, SOON and Psychophysicist . For this event The Anti Group will radically and psychoactively re-render the cut up, and Brion Gysin & Burroughs’ third mind projections with an audio-visual set that is specifically designed to enhance and maximise Alpha levels by working specifically with Dr W. Grey Walters research that originally informed and inspired Gysin and Ian Sommerville’s Dreamachine .On this occasion TAG will be Adi Newton with sound contributions and experiments by Stephen Mallinder, a long time advocate of Burroughs whose inspirational spirit informed his band Cabaret Voltaire.
Nova Ghost Transmission: John Gosling (Zos Kia/Psychic TV/Jiz), Isabelle De Jour (Jiz) and Jill Westwood (Fistfuck) unite in a rare live collision to construct an unstable audio-visual performance. Back catalogues are cut open—film, sound, image—spliced, looped, degraded, fed back. Past transgressive works are reassembled into a volatile act of transmission and disruption.
Robin Rimbaud (Scanner): Since 1991, Robin Rimbaud, working under the name Scanner, has explored the intersection of sound, space and experimental electronic music. Through concerts, installations and recordings including Mass Observation (1994), Delivery (1997) and An Ascent (2020), he has earned international acclaim for innovative sonic work. Known for his “found sound” approach, Rimbaud transforms everyday audio fragments into immersive soundscapes alongside original compositions
Graham Duff: Acclaimed screenwriter, actor and producer (Ideal, Dr. Terrible’s House of Horrible, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, Count Arthur Strong, and more] performs readings from some of Burroughs’s most thrilling stories and writings. Not to be missed!
No Land with Oliver Ray (The Patti Smith Band) and others…
No Land’s work activates poetries ancient & contemporary, channeled through a method of improvisation alongside musicians. She culls from an invisible intelligence– drawn down from the ether, driving the performance as an alchemy of possibilities. In the lineage of third-mind-cut-up, and in reverence to poetry as high enigma, the poet resists declaration or conclusion. She instead tunes her tongue to a radio frequency of realms beyond and mysteries within. In No Land’s work alongside musicians, the artist is not machinery. Her cut up is a return to spirit’s fluid intuition moving, dissonances and harmonics woven and rewoven, a watery musical consciousness, fragments half awake & half dreaming, a protest calling in a more compassionate kind of world.
Walking Tour
Day three, which is free for all ticket holders (day/evening etc), will be a walking tour led by Burroughs afficiando and Aloes Books publisher Jim Pennington.
More info coming soon…
This is a unique one time event for a new generation of artists celebrating the impact of William Burroughs and his associates with audio-visual communications, documents photographs, talks and discussions. The Process continues…
Any queries please contact Ya-Chu Fu (yachu@ebsn.eu).
Organizing Committee:
Ya-Chu Fu – Benjamin J Heal –Simon Kane
Huge thanks too to our incredibly supportive sponsors, without whom this event would be impossible:
Aloes Books
COJU Records
Moloko Books
Outskirts of the City
Third Mind Books
Thanks too to our supporters and volunteers, including Douglas Field, Simon Warner, Oliver Harris and Jim Pennington.