4 # Strom

In our No. 4 on ›STROM‹ (electricity/stream/river), language flows through poems from the Elbe to the Kothe. Through provocative readings of Flaubert and Cioran, we develop a poetics of swimming against the current, while also demonstrating how power outages turn the world upside down in films..

A brief quotation quiz reveals how deeply electricity metaphors shape our everyday language. Essays harness the flow and energy of language to illuminate the physical dimension of speech, while articles swim in a sea of images on Instagram. This fourth issue uncovers the revolutionary potential of electricity / ›Strom‹ – through essays on feminist theories of fluent (female) speech and on Engels, who connected electricity and revolution in Russia.

Sparks fly in dramatizations of online dating and Nicola Tesla electrifies a full-page illustration as a bright-eyed poster boy. In short, with our electricity [kon], we’ll get your neurons and retinas tingling in the most beautiful way.

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Hier strömt die Sprache durch Flussgedichte von der Kothe bis zur Elbe – es wird in verunsichernden Lektüren zu Flaubert und Cioran eine Poetik des Gegen-den-Strom-Schwimmens entwickelt und zugleich gezeigt, wie Stromausfälle in Filmen die Welt auf den Kopf stellen.

In der vierten Ausgabe offenbart sich so zwischen Essays zu feministischen Theorien eines fließenden (weiblichen) Sprechens und Engels Verknüpfung von Elektrizität und Elektrifizierung in Russland das ganze revolutionäre Potenzial des Stroms.