'Pataphysics Unrolled

Slought is pleased to announce 'Pataphysics Unrolled, an evening of pataphysical conversation and fun to celebrate the publication of 'Pataphysics Unrolled, on Friday, April 29, 2022 from 5-6:30pm. 'Pataphysics Unrolled is a new publication edited by Katie L. Price and Michael R. Taylor for the Reconfiguring Modernism Series of Penn State University Press. Price and Taylor will be joined at Slought by contributors Jean-Michel Rabaté and John Heon to discuss the book, its origins in Philadelphia, and the future of pataphysics in the context of crises of health, safety, and freedom. 20 complimentary copies of 'Pataphysics Unrolled will be available to those for whom purchasing a copy would be a hardship.

Could a city of blubber be the solution to the environmental crisis? Could un-academies offer a truly accessible form of higher education? What texts are our bodies writing, and what could we learn by reading them? When one can look up anything, how might we design computations that maintain a sense of wonder and discovery in the online realm? In an academic setting, a pataphysical reference runs the risk of registering as a mere joke. As George Perec explains: "If physics proposes: 'You have a brother and he likes cheese,' then metaphysics replies: 'If you have a brother, he likes cheese,' But 'pataphysics says: 'You don't have a brother and he likes cheese.'" George Perec's tongue-in-cheek definition avoids the fallacy of trying to define pataphysics rationally. After all, 'pataphysics is most often glossed as simply "the science of imaginary solutions."

'Pataphysics Unrolled presents itself as an "imaginary solution" to the riddle of what is arguably the most important sentence of Jarry's most important work, and the book's epigraph: "And behold, the wallpaper of Faustroll's body was unrolled by the saliva and teeth of the water. // Like a musical score, all art and all science were written in the curves of the limbs of the ultrasexagenarian ephebe, and their progression to an infinite degree was prophesied therein." We interpret these lines by offering texts that expand, explicate, and embody Jarry's lines in critical, creative and speculative ways, demonstrating how pataphysics has indeed infiltrated a remarkable range of arts and sciences. While the humor in the claim that this volume brings together "all art and all science" is not lost on us, the volume does seek to highlight the spectrum of pataphysical influence in art, literature, science, and technology. This volume collects essays that re-examine and re-embody pataphysics; it is an unrolling of pataphysical experimentation from Jarry to the present day. As an improvisational musician would interpret a musical score, the essays showcase the myriad ways in which Jarry's foundational ideas have been, can be, and perhaps should be played.