Sal Randolph

2015

Mixed Media, language: English, publisher: self-published, ISBN: N/A.
Materials:

Literary synopsis

& Drift is an ambient novel in multiple voices, written on Twitter. As an ambient novel, it is intended to be read in isolated fragments, seen randomly by ordinary social media followers, but also as an evolving narrative, gathered together in linear form. & Drift begins with a death, and follows the unnamed protagonist as she travels between locations in a flashing series of cities, towns, landscapes, airports, trains, and subway platforms. She moves and stands in the sublime and unceasing deluge of information and image exemplified by the novel's primary habitat, Twitter. Internal voices interweave: aphoristic thoughts, cinematic observations, sound scores, photographs, quotations, letters, lists, narrative turns. What could such a protagonist want, other than everything? What could resist her wanting but the entire world? The protagonist's ear is tuned to the station of the world in a simultaneous state of desire and impossibility.

Relation of the novel to the artist’s practice

& Drift is simultaneously a novel and an art project. Though its structure is fractured, & Drift cleaves to the intimacy with experience that defines the novel as genre. While the work as a whole is conceived of as a novel and is centered on a text, its protean form is intended to adapt to any kind of exhibition situation or publication platform. & Drift finds form in language, in studio practice, in artist's books, in sound performance, in image sequences, in micro cinema, in psychogeographic distribution (objects cached in public space, waiting to be found), and multi-modal gallery installation - even as its primary birthplace and exhibition platform remains in the peculiar mix of public space and publication that is Twitter.

Novel's website

Novel's website 2