ZER000 EXCESS

by Jake Reber

ZER000 EXCESS is a work of ambient body horror. Depicting the birth and growth of strange organisms--creatures spawned from the maw of the text. Watch as they fester in the dark. Illuminated only by the reflection of the monitor-screen. The data glut bleeds out into desolate landscapes of zeros and ones. Biocosmic distortions. Pixel vibration. Flesh-plane flatness.

Using cut-up techniques, warped imagery, and diagrammatic visual poetry, Jake Reber explores the relationship between the organic and the digital. The pages are designed for slow scanning more than reading. Excavating the yet-unknown terrains of databases and dead websites.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction

243 pages, Paperback

First published October 27, 2020

About the author

Jake Reber is an artist and writer living in Buffalo, New York, where he cocurates hystericallyreal.com. He is the author of NO RESULTS (LUMA/89plus) and TAPE 181 (Gauss PDF). His recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in West Wind Review, P-Queue, Best American Experimental Writing 2015, PANK, [Out of Nothing], KTBAFC, BlazeVOX.
Jake Reber is also the author of Lobster Genesis, Exit Ambition, and Invasive Species.
His new book, ZER000 EXCESS is a work of ambient body horror.

Reviews

[Mike Corrao · Rating 5 out of 5]

ZER000 EXCESS is a cursed artifact. Radiating the auras of a virtual phantom. After reading it, I cannot shake the feeling that I have summoned something. Or that I have at least witnessed the summoning of something.

[Adam Hudson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m thinking that if you put on THX-1138 and a Voivod record is playing while you read this, things will get rather peculiar.

[Ronald Morton · Rating 4 out of 5]

The idea of ambient literature is pretty new to me, and oddly I only really honed in on “ambient” in “ambient body horror” when I was reading something else (probably retweeted) on the inside the castle press (who I’m aware of only because of their Senges translation) twitter feed which was highlighted as such; that reminded me I’d grabbed a copy of this a couple months back. Its fairy light on text but heavy on structure and layout; it’s a beaut to look at and just kind of lose yourself in. YMMseriouslyV depending on your appetite for this sort of experimental weirdness though.

[Holden Rasmussen · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the text can veer into CCRU clichés at times -- mentioning wetform bioware and hinting at a genderless being trying to break from the screens/scanners/control technology stand-in -- this is a clean breakaway from established poetic and graphic media.

[Curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this whole book and I still don't know what "ambient body horror" means. I think it's when you shoegaze while listening to shoegaze for so long that you forget how to look away.

[Bob Comparda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fragmented words, symbols, images and patterns take the novel beyond reading, to a point of feeling.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

A semiopathological Neptune spear to the inferior frontal gyrus, 56k modem casket lids, and Sirc-less freshman comp. A text you travel as Baudrillard passenger seat in Anza Borrego. Of the emerging cadre of Ungula and certain new juche texts.

[Kenneth Cale · Rating 5 out of 5]

I often wonder what it would’ve been like to experience Alien in theaters in 1979. Much like reading this 1111 title, I guess. “Zero Excess” by is both a defamiliarization of visual poetry and a fresh mapping of the near-future. Its stark voidscapes unsettle and seduce in equal measure.

[Tristan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Draws from cryptic visual noise as much as from the clinically standardized language of Wikipedia articles, and embraces accelerationist aesthetics to create a bizarre, uncanny little book. A work of self-described "ambient body horror," though it also oscillates between eco-horror and cyberpunk in equal measure. I describe lots of things I like as labyrinthine, and it fits here as well even though I am a little embarrassed to be so repetitive with my word choices. Also it takes barely an hour to read, so you may as well give it a go.

[in8 · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://5cense.com/22/1031.htm