SUNDAY 05.12.2010

Kinosaal, Alter Wiehrebahnhof, Urachstraße 40, Freiburg

11.00 – 12.30 Matinee ESPRESSO BOOK MACHINE I
In 2008 the largest yet E-Book Conference took place, in Munich. Almost simultaneously, the Frankfurt Book Fair showcased new electronic readers, whose much prophesised success has however, at least in the German-speaking area, thus far failed to materialise. Too unwieldy, not user-friendly, too heavy, too expensive – so read the overwhelmingly negative verdicts on the hitherto available devices. Yet at the same time the sales figures of books are declining to the extent that some publishing houses have already made their entire output available online, together with reduced subscription prices, and are attempting to appeal to a new readership with a changed marketing strategy; trailers of films adapted from books, hybrid forms of art, advertisement and information, crime podcasts on the internet and web-tv as well as non-fiction blogs. New questions of authorship and copyright develop unavoidably. Does this already signify the emergence of another self-understanding on the part of the publishing and book-selling trade? Does this necessitate that we re-think the main conceptual pillars “text” and “author”?

Valie Djordjevic (academic and journalist, Germany)
Ernst Piper (literature agent, Germany)
Joost Smiers (academic and author, Netherlands)
Chair: Katharina Narbutovic (Director of the DAAD Berlin Artists' Programme, Germany)

12.30 – 14.30 Lunch

14.30 – 16.00 ESPRESSO BOOK MACHINE II

The virtual dimension has long since found its way also into literary exchange. There are literary meeting places in online literary cafés, virtual writers-in-residence leave their mark in the internet, literature blogging projects take place. Texts are being produced and received in another speed altogether. Furthermore, literary exchange has also altered in “really existing spaces”: festivals and big literature prizes attract media and the public in equal measure and keep contemporary literature present in the public consciousness. At the same time there are also critical voices to be heard, which bemoan the loss of literary quality in favour of a superficial market orientation and “eventisation”of literature as well as a production of literature that primarily favours cursoriness and speed. How do authors deal with this issue in their literary approaches, facing the possibilities of a virtualised and “eventisised” literature industry; what type of positions do they adopt?

Chris Meade (author and blogger, Britain)

Heike Müller (Virtuelles Literaturhaus Bremen, journalist, Germany)
Melinda Nadj Abonji + Jurzok1001 (author + writer and poet, Switzerland)
Chair: Insa Wilke (Programme Director Literaturhaus Köln, journalist, Germany)

16.00 – 16.30 Coffee Break

20.00 Literature presentations in a club

Nora Gomringer

Finn-Ole Heinrich

Masterplanet

Thomas Meinecke

Barbara Köhler