Karen Eliot

Karen Eliot is a multiple identity, a shared pen name that anyone is welcome to use for activist and artistic endeavours. It is a manifestation of the "open pop star" idea within the Neoist movement.[1] The name was developed in order to counter the male domination of that movement, the most predominant multiple-use names previously being Monty Cantsin and Luther Blissett.[2]

The experimental composers and artists David Chokroun, Aydem Azmikara, André Éric Létourneau, Marc Couroux, Engram Knots, and Vanessa Grey have used "Karen Eliot" to collectively and anonymously write musical compositions during and throughout their lifetimes. According to writer Eldritch Priest, as a composer "Karen Eliot belongs to nobody and is no one...the collective nature and schematic indirection of 'Karen Eliot' circulates her contradictions and inconsistencies in a way that keeps doubt and the status of her reality in play."[3] Many of André Éric Létourneau's radio-art works are also signed by Karen Eliot.[4]

  1. ^ N O Cantsin (April 2010). A Neoist Research Project. N.O. Cantsin. pp. 161–. ISBN 978-1-906496-46-3.
  2. ^ Bloch, Mark. Pan-Neoist Source Document http://www.panmodern.com/neoism-intro.html
  3. ^ Eldritch Priest (11 April 2013). Boring Formless Nonsense: Experimental Music and the Aesthetics of Failure. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 137–. ISBN 978-1-4411-4616-8.
  4. ^ Lander Dan (1994). Radio Rethink : Art, Sound and Transmission : Selected Survey of Radio Art in Canada, 1967-1992. ISBN 9780920159668.