Romie Says

Spent Saturday conducting another round of “The Most...

Wed, 01 May 2013 17:40:00 -0400

Spent Saturday conducting another round of “The Most Art” at the ICA Boston Art Lab, using the title “Portrait and Performance.” I’d guess around 200 people had their portraits taken.

Strange Horizons has been nominated for a 2012 Hugo Award, one...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 01:34:00 -0400

Strange Horizons has been nominated for a 2012 Hugo Award, one of the two highest honors in SF. My co-editorship only encompassed the last third of the year, but still - it’s my magazine! Getting a pat on the head! The announcement from the editor in chief is here.

Francis Ford Coppola likes my script

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 15:24:23 -0500

Francis Ford Coppola likes my script:

EXT. - PAVILLION - DAY

A woman’s hands use tweezers to skillfully assemble a tiny sandwich. The tiny sandwich is placed in a mousetrap. The trap is placed in a high-priced coffin containing the body of a man in his 60s. The lid of the coffin is closed, and the coffin is lifted by pallbearers.

ANTON

His favorite sandwich.

— An excerpt from the beginning of Ratcatcher, a top 10 finalist in the 2012 American Zoetrope screenplay competition

The Most Art

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 00:05:00 -0500

January 26, I’m conducting a workshop at the ICA Boston, and you can participate even if you’re not there. All you need is a camera. Here’s what you have to do.

First, take a picture of yourself as yourself - a portrait. Give a little bit of thought to this. How do you look when you’re yourself? How do you stand? What kind of expression do you make? Are you holding anything? This is me:

Next: take a picture of yourself as not yourself. Interpret this as you like. Maybe it means you make a facial expression you never make. Maybe instead of being shy, you’re outgoing. Maybe you wear a costume. Maybe you act like you’re a cat taking a bath - and you’re not even a cat person. This step was tricky for me, because among other things I’m an actor, and wearing costumes and acting like other people is something I do as myself. I did what I could to seem like a regular person who just happens to not be me.

Third, take a picture that is halfway in between the photo of yourself and the photo of not yourself. Here’s what I did:

Ok, now this is the important part: Of the three photos you took, which one do you think is the most art? Clearly, some pictures are more art than other pictures, or they’d all be in the museum. Is the picture of yourself as yourself the most art because it’s the most true, or the least art because you might post it as a snapshot on facebook? Is the picture of not yourself the most art because it involved acting, or the least art because it relies on the audience understanding it’s not you, which is external to the picture? Does the halfway-in-between picture make a nice compromise between the constructed nature of art and the truth-seeking mission of art, or is it the worst of all because it looks like a picture that tried to be one thing or the other and failed? Or do you just like the one that looks pretty?

I’m going to cheat and not tell you my answer, although I know what it is for this set of pictures. I’m not sure it’s the answer for all sets of pictures, or that I would give the same answer if I did the experiment again.

Feel free to share these instructions and these photos. If you join in, use the tag #TheMostArt

arcfinity: Shonagh Rae illustrates Romie Stott’s short story...

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 16:36:00 -0500

arcfinity:

Shonagh Rae illustrates Romie Stott’s short story “A robot walks into a bar…”

A Robot Walks Into A Bar. . .

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 16:55:00 -0500

A Robot Walks Into A Bar. . .:

Click through to read the story. May or may not be safe for work, depending on the bots where you work.

post-medium:

arcfinity:

“A Robot Walks Into A Bar and Says…” wins our third Arc/Tomorrow Project short story competition. It is a hard story to precis: a tale of robot love, teledildonic sex, Turing tests and the maddening wobbliness of human desire. In the telling, it is anything but predictable: a wholly convincing…

the future will be literary. and sexy.

Arcfinity: Arc's new competition asks, Is the future friendly?

Fri, 16 Nov 2012 01:29:00 -0500

Arcfinity: Arc's new competition asks, Is the future friendly?:

I’m pleased to announce that my story “A Robot Walks Into A Bar and Says …” will be in Arc 1.4!

arcfinity:

Arc and The Tomorrow Project share a common belief: that we can shape the future through fiction. And at our launch, early this year, we teamed up to run a series of unique short story competitions.

We’ve run three so far, highlighting terrific new writing talent in Arc itself and on our…

This is a film of mine from 2007, shot on 16mm for the National...

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 02:05:20 -0400

This is a film of mine from 2007, shot on 16mm for the National Gallery in London. It’s about a painting of theirs, “The Origin of the Milky Way,” by Tintoretto.

Strange Horizons submission call

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:49:55 -0400

Strange Horizons submission call:

“My favorite poetry, spec or otherwise, delights in its own creation… I believe poetry, science, and speculative elements do well together because they aim to enter the same heightened, liminal space.”

I’ll be reading poems submitted in October and January; we pay $20 a poem. What I’m looking for.

rinue: Another screencap from footage for After The World...

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 23:42:10 -0400

rinue:

Another screencap from footage for After The World Ended. You may remember the costume test.

A Test of the Great Man Theory of History

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 00:28:43 -0400

A Test of the Great Man Theory of History:

“It would take at least five issues of Superman to get so much done

and he had but one Lex Luthor”

read the rest at New Verse News (May 2011)

A costume test for After the World Ended (2013, dir. Tony Ukpo)...

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 17:36:30 -0400

A costume test for After the World Ended (2013, dir. Tony Ukpo) in advance of shooting some second unit footage.

Strange Horizons Staff Page

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 17:28:37 -0400

Strange Horizons Staff Page:

Why, look whose name is now on the masthead at Strange Horizons. It appears to be poetry editor Romie Stott.

Episode 32 of the Parsec-winning Toasted Cake podcast -...

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 15:20:00 -0400

Episode 32 of the Parsec-winning Toasted Cake podcast - “The Hungry Child”

Dallas 2009

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 02:02:00 -0400

“It was the winter our guy took the White House
when food was expensive and nobody had a job
It was goddamn beautiful ”

Read the rest at Jerseyworks

My photo blog. rinue: My new shoes are highly ridiculous and...

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 00:55:00 -0400

My photo blog.

rinue:

My new shoes are highly ridiculous and require the wearer to prance. Although they must have been mass-produced, I will be disappointed if I meet another person who wears them. And aroused?

Premise

Mon, 07 May 2012 01:32:00 -0400

A baby is born wearing a silver body suit. A few years later, when it is old enough to talk, the ex-baby reveals itself to be from the future, and clarifies that the only way to time travel is to be born into another time.

“Frankenstein’s Monster Wakes Up In the Dallas...

Sat, 05 May 2012 22:27:00 -0400

“Frankenstein’s Monster Wakes Up In the Dallas Museum of Art” (2010), created in an hour as part of a class I was teaching about low-fi filmmaking and museums as a space for artists to “play” (as opposed to a vault for dead art).

Haiku

Sat, 05 May 2012 22:22:09 -0400

A girl runs quickly.

Light is a vampire, or friend,

or she is crazy.

(My dissertation haiku about “Aperture.”)

Abbreviated Enlightenment’s /Ochen Chotto Spiel/ (2004-5,...

Sat, 05 May 2012 22:17:31 -0400

Abbreviated Enlightenment’s /Ochen Chotto Spiel/ (2004-5, writer/performer)