Litroissue134 teaser

new writing

134

Augmented Reality Featuring

Bruce Sterling Iain Robinson Peter Vilbig Eveline Pye Jake Fior Thomas Darby James Miller

Mystery Issue, March 2013 | 44

Institute of Continuing Education

International Summer Schools 6 July – 22 August 2014

Creative Writing Summer School 3 - 16 August Our new two-week programme builds on Cambridge’s rich literary tradition and is designed for participants who wish to develop their existing writing skills. Elements will focus on the writing of poetry, fiction and non-fiction in a range of genres and styles. Speakers include Wendy Cope, Jill Dawson, Jem Poster and Louis de Bernières.

Hanseatic League Summer School 17 - 22 August This multidisciplinary one-week programme, based at Madingley Hall, looks at the League’s foundation to its heyday, and beyond. Lectures embrace trade, transport, religion and politics. The course includes visits to King’s Lynn and the Fitzwilliam Museum.

The Creative Writing Summer School can follow on from our Literature Summer School, or one of the other one to six-week specialist or interdisciplinary programmes detailed on our website. They are taught by leading Cambridge scholars and guest subject specialists.

Participants can stay in an historic Cambridge College and take part in a range of excursions and social activities. +44 (0)1223 760850 intenq@ice.cam.ac.uk www.ice.cam.ac.uk/intsummer

LITRO MAGAZINE Issue 134 | May 2014

Events

04

Bruce Sterling

07

AUTHOR Q&A

Iain Robinson CASCADE

09

Eveline Pye

16

Jake Fior

18

Peter Vilbig

23

Thomas Darby

29

AUGMENTED REALITY/ IMAGINARY NUMBERS LOOKING GLASS HOUSE

PATHWAY

LOUD AND CLEAR

James Miller MICRO-NARRATIVES OF THE EVERYDAY

COVER ARTIST Brett Stout

32

34-year-old artist and writer. He creates and eccentric art which investigates what can be done with Blood & Urine. His artwork has been published in webzines as well as the Oklahoma State University Medical School Journal.

134

Litro Magazine

Augmented Reality

EDITORIAL Dear Reader, Sometimes the future approaches at frightening speeds. It feels like only yesterday that we were wowed by the birth of the iPhone—now we’re living with gesture recognition for our gaming consoles, voice recognition in our cars, even iris recognition at some airports. Systems like Google Glass and Oculus Rift are breaking down the boundaries between the online world and the physical world—between fantasy and reality. It turns out that the key to the door of perception comes not from mind-altering drugs, but in the shape of a microchip. At times modern life feels like a Philip K. Dick novel.

Litro #134 is our Augmented Reality issue, dedicated to mapping out the new technological landscape and exploring reality’s unpatrolled borders. We open with an interview with Bruce Sterling, one of the visionaries who has reported on—and imagined—this erosion between our world and the virtual. If you’re at all uncertain about the impact augmented reality will have, or even what it means, then let Sterling be your guide. He also voices concerns over the collection of data by Google and the resulting loss of personal privacy—a theme that Litro will be exploring at a series of live events at the Latitude Festival this July.

In Cascade, Iain Robinson imagines the logical future for technologies like Google Glass. Then Eveline Pye explores the no man’s land between technology and art in her poems Augmented Reality and Imaginary Numbers. Pye has made a career out of the poetry of mathematics, and her poems in this issue prove that even the most frightening new tech can be incorporated into the human experience. Following that, we have Looking Glass House, an exclusive extract from Jake Fior’s forthcoming retelling of Lewis Carroll’s classic novel. Watch out for some exclusive footnotes hidden in the illustrations, as Alice takes us through the looking glass...Next, Peter Vilbig takes us for a walk through a surreal and vivid version of the world as we know it in Pathway, reimagining our existence through a Technicolor lens.

Our last two pieces offer an examination of the changes technology is bringing to the English language. Thomas Darby deconstructs a simple, three-letter text message, and suggests what we can—or cannot—read between the lines.

Then, finally, we consider the impact of social media on modern fiction with James Miller’s essay Micro-Narratives of the Everyday. As we spend an increasing amount of time communicating with each other via status updates and 140-character tweets, the way in which we tell stories is evolving. Even the technology we use to read is in a state of flux, as e-readers and apps replace physical ink-and-paper books. Miller will also be taking part in our Latitude Festival events, discussing the impact of social media on modern privacy—keep an eye out for announcements over the coming weeks.

The stories, poems and essays we have collected here will give you a small insight into what the future might hold, and the ways in which augmented reality is slowly seeping through into our everyday world. But technology is elusive and unpredictable. Google Glass may be making the headlines today, but we’re already hearing about the EyeBorg Eyecam, a prosthetic eye that streams live video from the wearer’s perspective to a computer or smartphone. Reality just got a whole lot weirder.

Dan Coxon Editor May 2014

EVENTS THIS MONTH

Litro Live @ Stoke Newington Literary Festival Stoke Newington Library Gallery, 184 Church Street N16 0JS 9pm, June 8, 2014, £5 This one-of-a-kind event brings together three of the most promising young writers from the pages of this magazine, as well as the first authors to be signed up to Litro’s new bespoke literary agency, Litro Represents. Reading from their works-in-progress will be: Maia Jenkins (winner of the GQ/Norman Mailer Prize), Rebecca Swirsky (shortlisted for the Bridport Prize) and Reece Choules (finalist for the Aesthetica Short Fiction Award). Hosted by Litro editor Dan Coxon.

The festival’s other highlights include Ray Davies, A.L. Kennedy, Claudia Roden, Lynn Barber and Mark Billingham.

Find tickets at www.stokenewingtonliteraryfestival.com, or call 0800 043 0401

Litro Live @ London Short Story Festival Waterstone’s Piccadilly, 203-206 Piccadilly, London W1J 9HD 1pm, June 21, FREE Litro authors Maia Jenkins and Sabrina Mahfouz read their short stories as part of the inaugural London Short Story Festival. Maia Jenkins appeared in Litro #132, and is currently represented by our bespoke literary agency, Litro Represents; Sabrina Mahfouz appeared in Litro #119, and has recently published The Clean Collection. Reading will take place at 1pm at the Speakers’ Corner, located in the foyer of the Waterstone’s Piccadilly branch. It will also be followed by a short Litro writing workshop in the Writers’ Space, starting at 2pm.

The festival features some of the very best established and emerging short story writers, including Jackie Kay, Claire Keegan, Helen Simpson, Adam Marek, MJ Hyland and Colin Barrett.

Both Litro events are free and unticketed.

04 | Litro Magazine

THEATRE A View From the Bridge Young Vic, 66 The Cut, London SE1 8LZ Until June 7, 2014, £10-£35 Arthur Miller’s classic tragedy, featuring two high-profile leads in Mark Strong (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Sherlock Holmes) and Nicola Walker (Last Tango in Halifax, Spooks). This new production brings a dark, disturbing edge to Miller’s tale of mistrust and betrayal.

Fathers and Sons Donmar Warehouse, 41 Earlham St, London WC2H 9LX June 5–July 26, 2014, £7.50-£35 Based on Ivan Turgenev’s classic novel, this adaptation by Brian Friel promises to be almost as engaging and thought-provoking as the original. It just goes to show that tension between the generations isn’t a recent problem. A thrilling exploration of the relationship between parents and children.

ART Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2014 The Photographers’ Gallery, 16-18 Ramillies Street, W1F 7LW Until June 22, 2014, Free This spring’s most talked about photography collection. Alberto García-Alix, Jochen Lempert, Richard Mosse and Lorna Simpson have been shortlisted for this highly sought after prize. Check out a selection of their work, and decide for yourself who should be awarded the £30,000 cash prize.

London Festival of Architecture Various locations 1-30 June, 2014, Varies For the city’s tenth celebration of architectural design they’ve really gone to town. The lineup includes guided tours of London’s greatest buildings, a public debate on the capital’s changing skyline—plus a live LEGO architecture battle. Check out the full programme at www.londonfestivalofarchitecture.org.

Augmented Reality, May 2014 | 05

Join Our Community Help us help writers. Your membership will support our efforts to find new ways of looking at the world through stories. You'll also be helping us provide opportunities and exposure for emerging writers, perhaps kick-starting their careers.

The latest Litro BookClub read, is THE SPRING OF KASPER MEIER by Ben Fergusson "A powerful evocation of shattered lives trying to reconnect—and a heartbreaking story of the pain of compassion" Jake Arnott, bestselling author of The Long Firm

Beside our core All-Access membership, we also have new deal for students, giving you access to our fantastic magazine and book club for 50% off the normal rate.

New Membership Options:

With our all-access UK membership, you get Litro Magazine delivered to your door: 10 issues of Litro Magazine a year, plus exclusive access to hundreds of short stories from past issues in our digital archive. Get in on our quarterly Book Club: four new books a year from our Book Club, plus access to live author Q&As, and the chance to see your reviews published on our site.

Discounts on Litro Live! events: 50% off Litro Live! events and priority booking.

With our all-access International membership, you get all the same benefits as for UK readers, but at an additional cost for postage and packaging.

Our Student membership gives you the same benefits as a full membership, but at a discounted rate. You will be asked to show proof that you are a student of a school or university in the UK.

For more information: Visit us online at www.litro.co.uk. and become a member so you never miss an issue!

For general requests and information: Call us on +44 (0)20 3371 9971, or email us at info@litro.co.uk.

AUTHOR Q&A The sci-fi guru gives us the lowdown on Augmented Reality

with Bruce Sterling Litro: This is our Augmented Reality issue, and you're reporting from the frontlines of that field. For those who aren't familiar with the term, can you give a quick explanation of what Augmented Reality is, or might be in the future?

Bruce: Augmented reality is a system that combines the real and the virtual, is interactive in real time, and is registered in three dimensions.

All the major issues are hidden inside that modest-looking word "registered."

If you want to produce sensory input from a computer into genuine, physical, three-dimensional spaces, there you have to figure out some way to get the "augmentations" to stick there in the "reality." That's the big problem in the field. People who understand how to do this understand "augmented reality." The paradigm of "augmenting reality" is really a kind of computerscience metaphysics, it's like "virtual reality" or "artificial intelligence" or "thinking machines" or similar large vague notions.

Litro: You've been writing at the forefront of technological development for quite some time now. What's the new technology that has most surprised or impressed you during that time?

Bruce: Well, in terms of "augmented reality," I was surprised how quickly the sensor technology advanced. Five years ago, if you stuck your hand out in mid-air in real-time, computer vision systems would have only the vaguest data about where your hand was located. Now there are devices like the Kinect and the Leap Motion that can measure that with an accuracy of millimetres.

It turns out that this "gesture recognition" technology has a whole lot of previously unsuspected user-interaction problems, but it amazed me that it works at all. It will still amaze any seven year old child—a Leap Motion really feels like a magic trick. It remains to be seen what these rabbit-in-a-hat actions might be good for—what makes an augmentation impactful, useful and relevant? So far, they remain games, amusements, eye-catching displays, theatrical tricks, art forms. Nobody augments anything from 9 to 5, five days a week.

Litro: On a related note, how big a development do you think Google Glass is?

A game-changer, or just the next stepping stone along the path?

Bruce: I think that the Google Glass is basically a side-show for consumers, and that Google's real path of development is radically advanced computer-vision processing using the full power of Google's Cloud and Google's databanks.

Glass is just an Android device with a prism that you put on your head; all the real work there is going on through broadband inside Google's big-iron.

I'll make a prediction: it will be a bigger deal that Google sees your reality, than you seeing anything that Google might augment onto your own reality. It'll be like you personally using a search engine, versus the industrial and Augmented Reality, May 2014 | 07

CASCADE One man rejects the virtual future

by Iain Robinson Leith leaned out of the large sash window and looked down on the street. It was summer. Even if his skin lacked the sensitivity to detect temperature change, even if he had no frame of reference to decipher that a blue sky meant warmth, he could still tell it was summer from the way people dressed, the lighter clothing, the bare arms and legs, and the way sounds drifted and wobbled through the heat. It had something to do with the denser air molecules—a sort of sonic heat shimmer.

The noise that met his ears felt unfamiliar, like some large metal structure melting under heat, buckling and groaning under the strain of its imminent collapse. He looked skyward and saw the airliner falling on its trajectory towards the airport. Then down at the street where a bus pulled up, its brakes emitting a deep bass note. From somewhere, the clang of scaffolding parts being thrown onto concrete. He almost ducked, then gingerly craned to see the pavement. There was a rank of delivery bikes parked diagonally, and a wide bald head barking instructions to somebody unseen. A builder’s van reversing, then pulling out, then reversing again, trying to ease into a slot marked out by orange cones.

Of course, he knew the blue sky meant warmth, that the airliner was going to the airport, and that the bikes belonged to the pizza place three storeys beneath his flat, but it all came with added data.

He knew the precise outside air temperature, at differing altitudes, and how that related to the seasonal average. He was able to ascertain the precise trajectory of the aircraft, and the flight number, that it would arrive at 8.40 am, and that this landing would be 11 minutes earlier than the ETA on the flight plan. He knew the exact dates and places of manufacture of the delivery bikes, and if he’d chosen to, he could have quickly called up the names of previous owners. The bus was 52 seconds overdue. The builder’s van was registered to an address in Newhaven. The orange cones gave him nothing. He stared but no data flowed. He felt his mind empty. Something would fill it. Would that be thought?

Pure unadulterated thought? Perhaps he was already blocking Cascade, but no—the traffic cone, invented by Charles D. Scanlon and patented in 1943. The cascade began.

Leith looked up at the startled blue sky. There wouldn’t be long to wait now. He backed away from the window and brewed up some coffee. His studio was spartan, the way he preferred it. There Augmented Reality, May 2014 | 09

AUGMENTED REALITY

by Eveline Pye The difference between augmented reality and virtual reality is a Bengal tiger called Richard Parker who emerges from Life of Pi and walks down Oxford Street —an animal framed by a mortal hand, captured in a screen which shatters the illusion that seeing is believing.

We construct our own versions of the world, so why not look through a bus stop window and see what we want to see.

"Life is a story ...you can choose your story".

Embankment by James Abell 16 | Litro Magazine

LOOKING GLASS HOUSE

An exclusive extract from a new vision of Alice

by Jake Fior One thing was certain, Mum was not going to be impressed.

Alice already had an uneasy suspicion that the maths test mightn't have gone too well, but 48%! That was actually bad and the worst mark she’d been given for any subject in years.

“Well, I suppose I don’t have to mention it unless Mum asks,” thought Alice.

But Mum was sure to ask. Mum always asked.

Everything was more difficult now that Dad wasn’t there to help and at the moment she missed him a lot. But nobody was allowed to see that, not even Mum. Alice had decided that she was going to get a place at university and ride on a bicycle to her lectures. She would need one with a basket at the front to put her sandwiches and books in and a loud bell to scare the tourists if they dawdled on the zebra crossing. Alice had definite plans for the future but this was now and for now she would have to walk.

Alice always chose the same route home from school in summer, cutting through the park to join the high street from the gates at the north end. This was considered the less desirable stretch where a lot of the old businesses had closed down and a clutch of charity shops had opened up in their place.

Alice liked to browse these for old books and treasure on the days that she had enough time and money to spend. She loved stories and to imagine the journeys these objects had been on before they came to meet with her.

The first shop she went in was in aid of a heart attack charity and most of the space was given over to old clothes. As a result, there was a rather musty smell when you opened the door. Alice just quickly scanned the rails in this one in case she saw something special or vintage. She wasn’t as bothered about fashion as most of the other girls at school but some of the designer labels could be re-sold on e-mart for a profit and that would help towards the bills at home. It seemed nothing interesting had come in since her last visit, so she thanked the assistant for letting her look around and continued on her way.

18 | Litro Magazine

PATHWAY Love and pornography in an augmented world

by Peter Vilbig For Jodorowsky and Ron Bushy The pathway has a velour tenderness—though I’ve seen better. Anyway, you say you’re happy, and that’s what I care about.

Or do I? At the end of the path lies—well, I’m not sure what lies at the end of the path. In any case, it’s more pleasant to linger. The trees have such big friendly leaves; they look like circus tents. The leaves and the darkness mingle, the night air is humid, and some kind of fancy insects are flying above the treetops. This park, or forest, or whatever you want to call it, might be beautiful. You keep wanting to stop and kiss. The people who stroll by in their jumpers and sneakers ignore us. I say: “What about your mom?” And you say: “We have pop music for forgetfulness.”

“You’re quite the jokester,” I say. “I thought pop music was for vestigial religion.” “Hallelujah,” you say. Then comes a guy down the path with his pug. Or is it a bulldog? In the dim light, I can’t tell, and as my old philosophy professor, Mr. Boner, used to say if you have to develop a procedure to tell, you won’t be able to.

The old fellow with the dog says: “What are you kids doing out on a night like this?” And you surprise me by answering: “Do you remember when you were young and the nights were gloomy and mysterious, nature wet and breathing, and maybe it has to do with sex but nobody cares because everyone is dizzy with the spin of the world?” And the old man—the uniform he’s wearing isn’t FedEx like I thought at first—doesn’t answer, seems lost in his own dreams, and I pull you a few steps ahead thinking: why talk about sex with that guy, but you want to kiss again, and I never ask, and I feel myself slipping into your mouth, and man, I’m gone, and then we stop, and I’m back, and you’re breathing a bit madly, and I say: “Let’s go sit by that bank of primroses or are they daisies,” and you say: “The city has done a nice job,” and I say: “You’re kidding.”

After a while, we stand and walk.

I wish I could tell you how I got here. The world is so beautiful.

I’ll admit that, but it’s also so present, constant, and unchangeable, and I say to myself: “I hope”—and then I don’t know what to say. And you sense my mood, saying: “You always get this way.”

“I know,” I say. We walk a little further. Something disappears Augmented Reality, May 2014 | 23

The leTTerpress shAkespeAre

A publishing lAndmArk All of Shakespeare’s works printed letterpress in individual leather-bound volumes. ¶ since the first folio in 1623 there have been countless editions of shakespeare’s plays, yet none surpasses the restrained beauty of the letterpress shakespeare – a project that has taken The Folio society, britain’s leading publisher of fine books, eight years to complete. ¶ individual editions of all of shakespeare’s works, graced by pure and elegant typographic design, printed letterpress on thick, mould-made paper, and bound in leather with hand-marbled boards. ¶ Only 300 copies of each volume of the letterpress shakespeare are available to order.

To find out more go to www.foliosociety.com/letterpress or email letterpress@foliosociety.com

LOUD AND CLEAR A simple text deconstructed

by Thomas Darby The last text was sent over a week ago, at 07:50 on the 8th of March. It contained just three letters: Xxx One uppercase letter followed by two lowercase. Nothing more, nothing less. The auto-capitalisation function in the message settings most likely accounts for the initial ‘X’, it being the beginning of the sentence. It’s not much of a sentence, but these functions don’t precursor what’s going to be typed; they’re democratic that way. The setting comes as standard, turned on at the factory and most people don’t change it. Why would they? It’s an easy semblance to a basic knowledge of the English language.

This function, in keeping with the traditional rules, then demotes the following characters to lowercase. Two thirds of the message adheres to this rule. If there was a second sentence, we could glean further whether the auto-capitalisation function was turned on.

Can we assume then that this hegemonic setting does not denote a greater emphasis put upon the first character by the author?

Is this a safe assumption? The otherwise may promote a theory that each character, although huddled close together, make distinct reference to something particular and separate from the others, something known only between the sender and recipient, and the preferential case size treatment of ‘X’ over ‘xx’, in both height and meaning, makes specific referral to whatever it has come to mean for both parties. Though this metaphorical route has too many unknown variables to be convincing in any useful way and must therefore be considered a dead end of sorts.

With the limited amount of data available it becomes even more quotient to evaluate the territory around the message. All possibilities, within reason, must be considered. Conjecture and deduction become necessary evils in the attempt to ascertain why specific decisions were made over other ones. There are obvious difficulties with this task: where to start, when to stop, and what to determine useful among these parameters.

The message is not composed entirely of capital letters, though this must surely be considered as having been an option. It would have taken greater effort, meaning more movement of the fingers or thumbs, regardless of the auto-capitalisation setting being Augmented Reality, May 2014 | 29

MICRO-NARRATIVES OF THE EVERYDAY How social media is changing the modern novel

by James Miller “Where do novels come from?” Or “Who invented the novel?”

Or “What was the first novel?” Or even, “Why did Shakespeare write plays, why didn’t he write novels?” Why does one literary form come to dominate an age rather than another? What are the circumstances that bring a particular literary form into being and how might new technologies—as well as the discourse that surrounds them—shape the novels that have yet to be written?

How should we, as writers and readers of literature, respond to the immense challenge presented by digital technology in general and social media in particular?

We live in accelerated world where everybody and everything is continuously available, all the time and largely independent of wherever we might actually ‘be.’ New forms of immediate and intensely inter-connected media mobilise language in conjunction with images and emotive signifiers in a way that seems closer to hieroglyphics (and often almost indistinguishable from advertising) than, say, the dense prose of a Dickens novel. Furthermore, the accessibility of these media means everyone can now ‘be’ (or present themselves ‘as’) a novelist, poet, artist, photographer, film maker, musician or fashion model. We are all—to paraphrase Tom McCarthy—transmitters and receivers, exchanging ideas and information whilst continually augmenting and broadcasting new or updated versions of ourselves. I could tweet to my followers that I am “#writing an article for @LitroMagazine” as I write it. And if I don’t reveal it, the GPS on my phone will show my ‘friends’ and ‘followers’ exactly where I am, as I write the piece. When I check my Facebook, Twitter or Instagram feeds I’m bombarded with data, from up-to-the-moment information from the crisis in Ukraine to a picture of someone’s breakfast to countless trivial and continuous revelations of mood, event, opinion, consumption or action. I read that a prominent YA author is “moving house” while below that a poet announces that his wife’s test results are bad, she has cancer and is being rushed to hospital for treatment. Drama is all around. These ‘updates’ are followed by dozens of comments—words of advice and comfort, arguments and exchanges of opinion, links to other sources—it’s endless and constant. My day has hardly started and already I’m overwhelmed by these micro-narratives of the everyday.

32 | Litro Magazine

Make the Most of Your Summer

Take a Writing course with Middlesex University Summer School at our state of the art Hendon Campus in north London.

We also have courses available for general interest, access to degree programmes or to gain university credit.

– – – –

Playwriting for London Fantastic London Creative Writing Gender and the Postmodern

For more information call us on 020 8411 5782 or see www.mdx.ac.uk/summer sschool@mdx.ac.uk

Publisher & Editor-in-Chief: Eric Akoto Magazine Editor: Dan Coxon dan.coxon@litro.co.uk General Online Editor : Eric Akoto Online Short Fiction Editor: Katy Darby katy.darby@litro.co.uk Online Fiction Editor: Craig Bates onlinefiction@litro.co.uk Non-Fiction Editor: Bella Reid nonfiction@litro.co.uk Book Reviews & Essays Editor: James Field james.field@litro.co.uk Arts Editor: Daniel Janes arts@litro.co.uk Film & Arts Editor: Christo Hall Contributing Editors at large: Sophie Lewis, Rio, Brazil Lead Designer: Laura Hannum Marketing & Sales: info@litro.co.uk

Litro Magazine is published by Ocean Media Books Ltd. General inquiries: contact info@litro.co.uk or call 020 3371 9971.

Litro Magazine believes literary magazines should not just be targeted at writers themselves, or even those with a particular interest in literature, instead Litro believes in reaching the general reader whether they be a commuter, someone browsing in bookshop or in a bar or cafĂŠ to meet a friend.

Augmented LITRO |134 Reality His Cascade stream had been initiated on his fifth birthday.

His parents hadn’t wanted him to be left behind, struggling for answers that everyone else had at their fingertips. The procedure was simple and painless. He couldn’t remember life before it.

His parents were content to keep their technology on the outside, worn or held. He grew to see them as limited, outmoded.

From Cascade

by Iain Robinson Cover Art: Guage Traditional Revolt

by Brett Stout www.litro.co.uk

ISBN 978-0-9554245-5-7

43 | Litro Magazine