We had a blast documenting Lisa Torem’s poem, Packrats, at Laurie’s Planet of Sound. With the sounds of the German-American Fest in the background, we basked in the combined glow of neon and LED and shot video and photos from the bustling sidewalk. The lively scene and curious onlookers confirmed our belief that Literature Emitting Diodes really can bring good writing to an appreciative public in an unexpected way.
Today we received the exciting news that Literature Emitting Diodes is included as an official exhibition/installation for the 2015 Chicago Artists Month.
We have yet to announce the featured writer or location of the piece, since we are still accepting submissions. We will announce that information on this site, our Facebook page, and the Chicago Artists Month list of exhibitions as soon as we have selected our October writer. We are still accepting submissions for October until September 5th, so send in your work for a chance to have your writing in the Chicago Artists Month!
The above link to the list of projects will take you to a long and inspiring list of exhibitions. Here’s our profile in case you couldn’t find it in the list.
Here are a few shots of Eric Shoemaker’s poem, I am solar at The Armadillo’s Pillow in Rogers Park. We will be going back to document the installation further, but the dynamic reflections combined with the goings on within the store certainly made for a fun photography challenge.
You have three weeks to view this piece, so stop on by and share your own photos with us using the hashtag #ledpubchi
Our August publication, I am solar by Chicago writer Eric Shoemaker, is up and running at The Armadillo’s Pillow. Shoemaker suggested that his piece reside somewhere in Rogers Park, and we were elated when one of our favorite bookstores agreed to host our LED display. The Armadillo’s Pillow always features excellent window displays, so we are especially proud to be included.
You can come by and read I am solar anytime, but if you want to browse through a great selection of used and uncommon books, as well as art, jewelry, and even coffee (!) then you should stop in during store hours:
Sun-Fri: 12:00-8:00PM
Sat: 10:00-8:00PM
The Armadillo’s Pillow is located just North of Loyola at:
6753 N Sheridan Rd.
Chicago, IL 60626
Click here for a map.
Please stop in to support local writers, artists and business. We are very grateful for The Armadillo’s Pillow’s partnership and proud to present this exceptional poem.
Our first installation went as smoothly as we could have hoped, and we even managed to snap a few photos of the process. We devised a portable frame for the LED display so we could take advantage of the storefront’s elevated window and avoid mounting anything in the ceiling. Our friends at Knee Deep Vintage were very accommodating, and the whole process took less than two hours.
Almost all of that time was programming Kanga’s piece, Aubrey Graham, into the display. We did this with a remote control, one letter at a time! Though slow, the process is fitting for Literature Emitting Diodes. The project investigates the impact of constraints on literature, for writers, readers, and publishers alike. Just as the writers are limited to 500 words, and the readers are constrained to the scrolling speed of the display, so are we publishers held to the limitations of the process.
Part of our fascination with limitations in art and literature is with their relative nature. Surely a remote controller is slower than a computer keyboard, but what about other methods still used by small presses? The slow pace and disorienting experience of only seeing a few characters at a time reminded us of setting metal type for letterpress printing. With so many contrasts between these two publishing media, their common ground as a generative constraint is one of the reasons we are so excited to see this project progress!
We are thrilled to share some documentation of our inaugural publication, Aubrey Graham by Surabhi Kanga.
We first photographed our LED display as soon as the text was programmed. Knee Deep Vintage was still bustling with Friday afternoon shoppers and Literature Emitting Diodes was just one among many elements in the storefront. Competing and collaborating with graffiti, posters, reflections and more, LED calls attention to the rich layers of language that inhabit the urban environment.
At dusk, the context changes. The LEDs glow brighter and the writing reads differently though, of course, the text has not changed. The writing scrolls on by, as it will do thousands of times before the end of July, unaware of the constant changes around it. Every reader will have a different experience, as we do each time we return to photograph the installation.
We hope our readers find this as exciting as we do, and we would be happy to share photos and videos taken by our readers as they experience the piece in their own respective ways.
Literature Emitting Diodes 