Fiktion

Under the program management of Mathias Gatza and Ingo Niermann, communications management of Henriette Gallus, and organized by Julia Stoff, the international model project Fiktion, with support from the Kulturstiftung des Bundes, is further developing the opportunities arising from digitization for the perception and distribution of challenging literature. Since 2013, Fiktion has promoted the expansion of an international network of authors by digitally publishing literary texts and essays in German and English. The work of the project is accompanied by a literary advisory committee including, among others, Rajeev Balasubramanyam, Nina Bußmann, Douglas Coupland, Katharina Hacker, Elfriede Jelinek, Tom McCarthy, Ben Marcus, Ou Ning, Thomas Pletzinger, Stephan Porombka, Verena Rossbacher, and Sabine Scholl.

Fiktion tests new forms of digital distribution and explores questions of copyright, distribution, reading habits, translation, and communication processes in digital practice. It seeks to discuss these topics in literary as well as non-literary – that is, broader societal – contexts and put them forward for public debate. At international conferences and workshops in New York, Barcelona, Berlin and Basel, Fiktion has continuously grown its original network. Since its founding, it has influenced public discourse on digital literature with new ideas at literary events and repeatedly incited provocative discussion among critics. The theses pointedly summarized in September 2013 in the Declaration on the Digital Future of Literature still form the starting point for these encounters, which have been conducted in the framework of numerous international collaborations.

Konzentration, an anthology published this spring, gathers the results of the debates thus far on the subjects of concentration and immersion, and brings together writings by, among others, Boris Groys, Kenneth Goldsmith, Emily Segal, Ingeborg Harms, Dirk Baecker, Charis Conn, Arthur Jacobs and Raoul Schrott. This and other titles already published in digital form by Fiktion are constantly being introduced, in both German and English, in a series of presentations that will invite the audience to read along digitally. These works include “Herr F” and “Popppappp” by the British author and musician Momus in 2015, the debut novel Elephant Chronicles by the Romanian author and historian Sînziana Păltineanu, and a story by the Leipzig-based author Francis Nenik.

The open-source-based e-reader created by and for Fiktion is currently undergoing further development in conjunction with a reading research study headed by Arthur Jacobs (professor of neurocognitive psychology at FU Berlin). At the end of the year, Fiktion will publicly present the experiences compiled from digital practice to authors, advisory committee members and readers for discussion and criticism.

FIKTION is a project of Fiktion e.V., developed in cooperation with the Haus der Kulturen der Welt with support from the Kulturstiftung des Bundes.

Project Managers, Program: Mathias Gatza, Ingo Niermann (Fiktion e. V.), Project Manager, Communications: Henriette Gallus (Fiktion e. V.), Project Manager, HKW: Katrin Klingan, Academic Director, “Literatur digital” Congress: Katharina de la Durantaye, Humboldt University, Berlin

• #Digitalisation
• #Discourse
• #Future
• #Literature