New work on Slowforward

Meanwhile, I've got a new piece posted on Slowforward and its a doozy made in-between blackouts. Slick minimalist thingie.

Link - https://slowforward.net/2022/11/13/cant-do-much-when-ruskies-bomb-your-electric-grid-volodymyr-bilyk/ 

Can you recommend any good books about surrealism?

People asks me about stuff all the time. Here's one of the recent one. 

I’ve got a couple of faves:

• David Hopkins - Dada and Surrealism: A very short introduction. It’s the fundamental book with everything you need to know about the subjects. It doesn’t go into detail on some more deep cut stuff but covers all the basics.
• Patrick Lepetit - The Esoteric Secrets of Surrealism. This one tackles the subject from a completely different point of view. If you dig mysticism and magick - that’s your jam. It breaks down a lot of stuff regarding automatism and subconsciousness exploration and puts it into context.
• Peter Stockwell - The Language of Surrealism. This book is about literature and language experimentation in different surrealist works. It is hardcore science book so it is a tough read but it is very insightful.
• Ruth Brandon - Surreal Lives: The Surrealists 1917-1945. If you’re looking for an insightful book that is also a well-written piece of literature - that’s your book. It covers all the usual suspects and puts them into context.
• The Exquisite Corpse: Chance and Collaboration in Surrealism's Parlor Game. This book is a collection of essays on the exquisite corpse game. Provides multiple perspective on the subjects and tackles several different applications of the concept.
• Susan Laxton - Surrealism at Play. This one is about how things are done, how it is different from other artistic practices, how surrealist vision of artistic process evolve and what’s its legacy.

Why is the infinite monkey theorem usually depicted with chimps when chimps aren't monkeys?

Here's something to think about. 

My take: most people are stupid and lazy and can’t tell the difference. 

On the other hand, it doesn’t really matter all that much and you can call the theorem “infinite primates who are not as advanced in communication as humans theorem”. 

But it is too long and “monkeys” get to the point just fine despite persistent visual inaccuracy.

New works in Utsanga.it

Great news! Several of my pseudo-calligraphic collage works have been published in the Italian experimental literature journal Utsanga.

I want to thank Francesco Aprile for posting these works.

THE LINK: https://www.utsanga.it/bilyk-six-scribbles/

This series of works uses elements of drawings by the sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzezka. I took out individual elements of scanned drawings and made new compositions from them in a different style - some kind of primitivist scribbles thus the title.

New Work in The New Post-Literate

Great news! Several of my pseudo-calligraphic works have been published on the asemic writing blog The New Post-Literate.

Many thanks to Michael Jacobson for making it happen. 

THE LINK: https://thenewpostliterate.blogspot.com/2022/07/a-semiworkable-font-which-is-glitchy-as.html

New work at COMPOSTXT

Great news! Some of my new typographic work has been posted on COMPOSTXT blog. Many thanks to Roberto Cavallera for making it happen.

THE LINK: https://compostxt.blogspot.com/2022/07/volodymyr-bilyk.html

These pieces were made with heavily distorted block font. The text was scrambled and then fuzzed out with intersymbol distance jammed

New works at Global Multimedia Poetry Stands

Great news! A selection of my visual works are currently exhibited at Global Multimedia Poetry Stands tower at Praça do Sertório in Évora, Portugal. 2022 edition also features 65 artists from 24 countries.

The tower will be installed until the 2nd of September.

It is the third time I'm taking a part in this project and it always was a pleasant experience for me. Well, I wasn't personally present there, but my works were place right in the face of the visitors, so I count it as a win. Kidding.

Here's the poster:

 

 

 

New work at Nokturno.fi

Great news - several of my works from the series "Inappropriate content" have been published in the Finnish experimental literature magazine Nokturno as part of the Ruminating Senses issue. Many thanks to Miikka Laihinen for facilitating the publication.

THE LINK: https://nokturno.fi/en/poem/inappropriate-content/

This is my second publication in Nokturno this year. The first one took place in mid-March. At that time, these were poems from a Ukrainian-language poetry collection under the working title "Durysvit". This time it is a selection of senior transformative works.

In essence, the series "Inappropriate content" is an ironic reworking of various works with the help of transformative methods, mainly ciphers.

 

Works exhibited at Glory and Freedom Ukraine and For World

 

Great news! Got a couple of pieces exhibited at Galerii Fusionisma Centrum, nam. Svovody c. 217 v Hostce. The exhibition opened on May 26th and will continue until June 25th. 

No photos at this point, but I can tell a couple of words regarding which works are featured:

• a couple of primitivist collages;
• late-stage detournement crusade pieces;
• selected photos from the school bombing;

Here's a short interview with Miroslaw Lewandowski:

New work in World War 3 Illustrated

Great news! Several of my visual works and also some photos were published in the latest issue in the World War 3 Illustrated.

Many thanks to Seth Tobocman for publishing these pieces. Also, I want to thank Tamara Wyndham for making it happen. 

Here what got featured:

• Selected visual works from 2019 and 2020
• Photos of partially demolished School 25 in Zhytomyr, made hours after the attack. 

Website: https://www.ww3.nyc/single-post/issue-52-frontlines-of-repair
Preorder: https://www.akpress.org/frontlines-of-repair.html

 

New work in Utsanga.it

Great news! Several of my works were published in the newest edition of online art magazine Utsanga.it.

Many thanks to Francesco Aprile for making it happen. You're doing a great job. 

Here what got featured:

• humanoid font formations from Fontmen series https://www.utsanga.it/bilyk-works-i/ - these are from 2016. First, I did them as a joke, because I can do that stuff. Later on, the joke kinda went on to develop into a full-blown method - so i did the series. Some of the works were published in the zines, some of them were exhibited in Ukraine and Europe. 
• semi-asemic calligraphy https://www.utsanga.it/bilyk-works-ii/ - you know, chilling in the shelter creates a lot of spare time. 

Took part in International Fusionism Museum exhibition

On April 8th an exhibition to support Ukraine opened in International Fusionism Museum, Easton, PA.

Tamara Wyndham asked me to take part in it and it was an honor to be featured in such an event. I want to thank her for making it happen.

There were two types of works of mine presented:

• visual works – ranging from Detournement Crusade to different visual poetry and collage pieces.
• Photos of destroyed School 25 in Zhytomyr made hours after theattack

Here are several photos

New Book! Divagation (2022, Sigilist Press)

Meanwhile, with the help of my good friend Andrew Brenza, I suddenly got a new collection of poetry published.

divagation /,dīvəˈɡāSH(ə)n/ n: a message that departs from the main subject.

The whole book is made with random word generators with no extra input. Seriously. As it turned out - it is way harder then you think. It is a challenge to keep yourself from finishing the text the way you feel it on your own - mostly because random word generators only work to an extent. You can get lucky and make one poem with random words only. But further you go - harder it gets. 

The visual parts consists of reconstructions of damaged drawings. They damaged by water and i tried to fix them digitally but it didn't work so I embraced the aesthetics and went as far as I could with it.

You can order book here: https://sigilistpress.com

The work began in the summer of 2018 immediately after the release of the first version of Roadrage. The idea was to quickly make a small collection the laziest way possible. To do this, I used several random word generators. I expected to "make" a few dozen poems in a week or two. 

As it turns out - it doesn't work that way. In fact, writing poems with random word generators only is basically an exercise in futility. Unless you have all the time in the world. But even then you would probably have better things to do. 

It all began simple enough. The first poem got made fast and easy and it gave me false confidence that I could do it in swift fashion and churn the whole book in a matter weeks. The images felt right - unexpected and curious with absurdist narrative out of nowhere.

But then I started working on the second poem and the whole thing just started to crawl. It was all wrong - words, images, nothing really fit together. Just a bunch of stuff. As it turns - that's what you get most of the time. 

Then I started looking at word combinations of nouns, verbs, adverbs - it was a bit easier than picking up word by word, but we're talking about moving a few centimeters faster than usual - it wasn't really a breakthrough. 

The whole thing just took too long. On average - it took 5 or 6 hundred words to find one that works in the poem. It was easy enough to kick off the poem, but to get it moving - it was borderline impossible. It took approximately 2, sometimes 3 weeks to finish a poem. 

Visual part goes back to my university drawings of 2008-2010. I kept them in the backroom at parents home. At some point they got damaged by water. I found it out in 2013 when i was cleaning the place. 

Most of the drawings were lost, but some of them remained somewhat intact. I scanned them and played a bit with it.

***

I finished the poems in 2019. At first, they were supposed to come out at Jukka-Pekka Kervinen's Ma Press, but one thing led to another and it never came out.

Two and a half years later. I worked with Andrew Brenza on several Brave New Word Magazine publications. I was going to collaborate with him on a project for his press.

Then the war started and it all went through the window. So i decided to use the poems as the basis for further collaboration. However, Andrew thought the poems were good as they were, so it was decided to publish it.

New work at THE NEW POST-LITERATE

Great news! Some of my shelter works are posted by Michael Jacobson on his The New Post-Literate Asemic Writing blog. Mike is one of the greats and it is always an honor to be featured in The New Post-Literate. When I started to branch out into English language platforms in 2012, Mike was one of the first editors who wasn't looking for excuses not to publish my work because I'm Ukrainian. He just treated me as an equal and offered handy criticism when necessary.

The pieces are inspired by proto-writing the meaning of which is lost to time. The other source of inspiration were Sumerian tablets with recipes and bad jokes.

The link: https://thenewpostliterate.blogspot.com/2022/03/some-cryptic-writing-from-bunker-by.html

New article! Why is Russia constantly falsifying history?

Today, Vox Ukraine published my article on the origins of Russian historical revisionism and its tendency to falsify history to fit their current political interests.

I would like to thank Julia Guz, Ilona Sologoub, Vladlen Marayev and Oleksandr Zholud for their help in preparing the article.

https://voxukraine.org/dlya-chogo-rosiya-postijno-falsyfikuye-istoriyu/

Da Eel in Culture Library in Stockholm

 

 

What a find. Lina Nordenström found Da Eel in Culture Library in Stockholm.

 

Topical Chores at OTOLITHS

Great news! My piece "Topical Chores" is going to get featured in the upcoming issue of OTOLITHS.

I want to thank Mark Young for making it possible. Keep on keeping on, man. 

https://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2022/03/volodymyr-bilyk.html

New poems at Nokturno.fi

Many thanks to Nokturno.fi and Miikka Laihinen for posting some of my recent recent poems. All of them were made with weeks before the war. 

One of them was finished literally hour before it started.

https://nokturno.fi/ukrainalaista-nykyrunoutta/

https://nokturno.fi/poem/дурисвіт/

#BilSababWorks

Still here - still kicking

It is early March and yet it is snowing like it is full-on winter. Oh well.

 

Укриття. Реалії.

 

Zhytomyr, School 25

That's what left of my mom's school. She spent 40 years working there. She met my dad there. I've spent a lot of time in this school. Now I'm cleaning the rubble. 

 

Some news

That's me and the doggie. Invaders must die! Take a look at my sexy boots. Good at beating the shit out of russian propaganda.

 

Found around the city

That's the stuff russians use to navigate. Found these stickers around the city in hidden places like garbage cans. 

 

KIMBO slice

It's KIMBO slice, y'all. For real.