The incapacity to name is a good symptom of disturbance. – Roland Barthes
Good Symptom is curated by M Freeman, Rana San, and myself. Released in 12 monthly installments (September 2023-August 2024), this suite of short films troubles the boundaries between literature and cinema. We reviewed more than 700 submissions from around the world and solicited work from renowned artists to craft showcases of literary media arts experiments that push the language of poetry, essay, correspondence, autobiography, manifestos, thought pieces, and hybrid literary works off the page and onto the screen.
Good Symptom coalesces work that disrupts traditional film and literary genres, that transgresses the borders between these forms in idiosyncratic ways. Work that fissures the creative firmament by messing unexpectedly withimage, sound and text. Work that stirs up a certain cognitive dissonance. That opens gaps in the imagination and in between things—illuminated spaces of uncertainty, reckoning, wonder. This work savors the nature of time, of writing, of being and belonging. It offers a way out of imposed reality and fucked up thinking.
– Episode 1 collaborative curatorial essay
CV
A writer and curator exploring the liminal spaces of the literary arts. I am the author of two chapbooks and have fiction, reviews, and poetry published widely. My interest in how words can be experienced has led to solo work and collaborations to create installations, music performances, broadsides, karaoke, and video poetry. I founded and directed Till, a literary organization that offered an annual writing residency, and am currently co-director of Cadence Video Poetry Festival at Northwest Film Forum.
I’m also a very professional professional
A writer and curator exploring the liminal spaces of the literary arts. I am the author of two chapbooks and have fiction, reviews, and poetry published widely. My interest in how words can be experienced has led to solo work and collaborations to create installations, music performances, broadsides, karaoke, and video poetry. I founded and directed Till, a literary organization that offered an annual writing residency, and am currently co-director of Cadence Video Poetry Festival at Northwest Film Forum.
I’m also a very professional professional