A n n a Gib b s ( W estern Sy dney Uni ve r si t y) ‘Figuring: A relational mimetic’ Between Arthur and Martha, the devil and the deep blue sea, the frying pan and the fire, a rock and a hard place, now and then, here and there – things happen not at the shaky poles but in the seething space of the in-between where difference endlessly multiplies itself as movement. This is the space in which writing compensates for nothing but composes something else, a space in which darkness has never meant lack, not a site of ‘straight talk’ but a situation of queer torque, a refractory form of diffraction, the muttering of mattering. Professor Anna Gibbs is based in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western Sydney University, and is a member of the Writing and Society Research Centre and the Digital Humanities Research Group. She has published widely across the fields of textual, media and cultural studies with a particular focus on affect theory, mimetic communication, corporeality and feminism. Other current research interests include new materialism, experimental and conceptual writing and e-poetry. Co-editor of three collections of contemporary Australian writing, she is also an experimental writer, collaborates with artists and performers, and curator of ‘(Un)coverings: art, writing and the book’ (Horus and Deloris Gallery, Pyrmont, 2009). She is a long-time practitioner and theorist of fictocriticism.
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