Semina

Semina guest edited by Stewart Home, takes its inspiration from a series of nine loose-leaf magazines issued by Californian beat artist Wallace Berman in the 1950s and 1960s. It looked to commission artists and writers interested in experimental prose fiction, drawing inspiration from art as much as it does from literature. The open call asked applicants to think of the ways in which time and space died yesterday, how acceleration exceeds accumulation, the dead city and the perpetual twilight of technology: Georges Bataille, Henri Michaux, Alexander Trocchi, William Burroughs, Ann Quin, Clarence Cooper Jr, Claude Cahun etc.

Above all the series looked for unknown artists and writers willing to take risks with their prose and who demonstrate total disregard for the conventions that structure received ideas about fiction.