Happening tonight (Aug. 28) at Fitz Books.

Anyone who has followed the Buffalo poetry and arts scene over the past two decades likely has some acquaintance with the immersive art making and writing projects of Chris Fritton. Fritton works at the intersection of poetics, the books arts and print-making, intermedia, and the philosophies of language and representation. His work, as exemplified by last year’s FOLLOW ME INTO THE HARNESS OF THE WORLD book and installation at the Mirabo Press studio, is grounded in materialism but explores the most liminal recesses of the meaning-making and the ethereal.

Fritton describes his work as dealing with the “romance of science and the science of romance,” which often involves teasing out academic principles into elaborate, impractical stories that confront the absurdity of reality and the language we use to describe it.

Others may know him best from his work as The Itinerant Printer, his decade-long international traveling project and subsequent book, The Itinerant Printer that documented it.

My Fingernails Are Fresnel Lenses starts with the line: “In 2005, Japanese scientists confirmed a long held suspicion that the human body emanates detectable light.” What follows is a heartbreaking assessment of what it means to remember, what it means to forget, and how you share that with the people you love. A pocket-sized treatise on the neuroscience of memory, the physiology of photons, and the inevitability of loss: once again, the romance of science and the science of romance.

This event will feature an immersive reading experience, as well as music by Bryan Dubay. Music at 7:30, reading at 8 p.m. Free and open to the public. Books & music will be available for purchase.

More about Fritton:

Chris Fritton is a poet, printer, and artist based in Buffalo, NY. He’s the former Studio

Director of the Western New York Book Arts Center, and he’s best known for his decade-long traveling project and subsequent book, The Itinerant Printer. He’s been a visiting artist and instructor at hundreds of institutions, including RISD, MICA, VCU, The Center for Book Arts, and others. His work is held at The Library of Congress, the Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry at University of Iowa, the Letterform Archive, and more.