Author of The Kamikaze Mind, Richard James Allen, recently participated in:

WRITING the STORY of the FUTURE

a one-day seminar on the author in the digital age

organised by The Australia Council for the Arts to explore a universe

in which the book is a game without buttons.  (Details)

Richard developed the notion of being a “shapeshifting” artist, that is inherently cross-platform in approach to creating work, by drawing on ideas in his recent UTS Chancellor’s Award-winning doctoral thesis and his cross-platform literary work for pages, performance, and phones, The Kamikaze Mind.

Here is some more of what we said about it at the time:

As part of this presentation, we would like to kick start a new phase of The Kamikaze Online Mind – and we would like you to be involved! 

The Kamikaze Mind book is the story of an astronaut who launched himself into a black hole. The recovered fragments of his mind have been organized alphabetically into a witty, whimsical, surprisingly touching and laugh-out-loud funny dictionary of a floating mind.  Expanding out beyond the book, but keeping in spirit with its inherent interactivity and hypertextuality, we would like you to contribute to definitions of words that either are not in the original dictionary, or if they are, to give them your own creative spin.  You can be literal, but you can also be whimsical, lateral, sly, profound and witty.  Once we have enough definitions posted, Richard may reshape these into collaborative online poems. 
 
In tune with the themes of the seminar, here are the first four words we are suggesting – please have a go at one or all of them: Technology, Tomorrow, Taste, Tactile.  A definition for only one of these exists in the published book:  “Technology     He reinvented the wheel and rolled off down the hill, never to be heard from again.”  (p. 131)

How to contribute:

1. click here (http://www.blognow.com.au/kamikazemind/) 
[or go to The Kamikaze Mind and click on ‘write your own review or remix’).

2. Read through the information about posting your contribution.

3. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Post Comment: http://www.blognow.com.au/post_comment.php?w=kamikazemind&e_id=18012

  
Hints – You can preview your contribution before posting it.

–        Give your contribution a title in the ‘Subject’ line – or at least the word you are ‘defining”.

–        Include your name so that your line can be credited to you.

–        Remember to type in the code.
 

If possible, post your contributions by midnight Sunday February 26, as Richard will share the first contributions with the audience in Adelaide during his presentation on Monday.

Thank you – The Kamikaze Online Mind is conceived as ongoing interactive and creative arts event, anchored in the book itself, but taken further into new digital spaces - a multiplatform meeting of minds.  We look forward to sharing in your creativity.  And feel free to pass this on this information.  It’s part of the whole idea – lateral, viral, reclaiming creative spaces and creating new spaces to play in the digital world.  As in the Definition for “Assignation     Meet me out in left field.” (p. 17)