Edition #31 (2011)
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GDS #31 was Australian literature’s first fully interactive multimedia journal edition! It was also Going Down Swinging’s first foray into digital publishing, put together by new editorial duo Jessica Friedmann and Geoff Lemon. It flung digital literature way beyond the concept of e-book to a fully-fledged multimedia publication, with a stunning mix of film, animation, spoken word, illustration, photography, poetry, fiction and essay.
The GDS team at the time helped readers with the whole ‘digital publishing’ malarkey, so new to the Austlit scene, with an explainer article on the old blog titled ‘Steve Jobs is not my homeboy’.
Featuring artists from Australia, New York, Hawaii, and Russia, #31 captured all the fun and spikiness that have become GDS trademarks over the years. In this issue:
- Hear Rosanna Stevens translate Dorothy Porter’s poetry for the cello, then slice up her composition to discuss converting the written word to music.
- Watch Jessica McCausland film and photograph the evolution of her commissioned cover image, from first sketches to final time-lapse creation.
- See Vanessa Hughes’ richly-coloured short film collage, derived from an acclaimed one-woman stage play of Under Milk Wood.
- Get educated, with Nick Marland’s ‘Selections from the Encyclopaedia of Notable Persons Never Born Due to Contraception’, and Vanessa Hutchinson’s ‘Every Girl’s Guide to Loving and Caring for Her Winged Horse.’
- Read as Eric Yoshiaki Dando teaches hardened convicts to care for pea sprouts; Caitlin Thomson provides case files for missing Rapture vanishers; and Alex Skovron tells you why you shouldn’t climb the Empire State Building.
- Let Valery Petrovskiy’s ‘Cloudberries’, straight from Russia’s Chuvash Republic, show you the ordinary in language both beautiful and surreal. Hear Grover Mapleton’s dictaphone capture the right bits of strangers’ conversations at the right time.
- Eric Paul Shaffer sends wistful letters home from the edge of Hawaiian cliffs, while out there across the restless ocean, Sean M Whelan and Chloe Wilmott join with post-rock superstars The Interim Lovers as they take up their roles as The Siren and the Sailor.
Editors: Jessica Friedmann and Geoff Lemon
Published 2011.