Morris, Simon ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6448-6941 (2022) 'I would prefer not to...'. In: Anonymity, Un-Originality, Collectivity – Contested Modes of Authorship, Warwick University.

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Abstract

I would prefer not to…

Morris writes without writing, publishing over ten books in which not a single word is his own. Of course, this plagiarist’s favourite book is Bartleby & Co. by Enrique Vilas Mattas. In a wide ranging presentation, Morris will talk about: writers who refuse to write; artists who just say ‘no’, the resurrectionists who reduced Michael Crichton, the author of the Andromeda Strain to tears; Andy Warhol and his surrogate Allen Midgette, the raving beauty with his high cheekbones, full mouth and sharp, arched eyebrows; Adam Chodzco’s missing actors from the cast of Salo; John Cage’s refusal to answer questions after lectures; and Chus Martinez posing as Mária Boston in order to persuade the Spanish author Enrique Vilas Matas to spend a week writing in public in a Chinese restaurant on the outskirts of Kassel as part of the contemporary art exhibition Documenta 13. Morris will also reveal his methodology, performing as a psychoanalyst. The participant would enter the room and make themselves comfortable on the couch. Morris, seated behind them— there but not there — would gently reach forward and touch their forehead and the collaborator would begin to free-associate…

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Lecture)
Status:	Published
Subjects:	N Fine Arts > N Visual arts (General) For photography, see TR
School/Department:	School of the Arts
URI:	https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/15966

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