Faceplant

Local organisers and multimedia performance troupe, Zorras, bring you a fringe-of-the-margin-of-the-edge-of-the-fringe production, where you can move outside the mainstream, and not even risk your pennies. Faceplant: a showcase of the brilliantly unpopular will feature some of the UK's finest poets and musicians who create art that is far beyond the ordinary. Witness performances from the strange to the sublime, and leave with stunning words, images and melodies floating in your head...

Alison Smith is a poet who performs her work in British Sign Language. She is noted for her forthrightness -- what you see is what you get. Alison's work has featured in publications with commissions for proudWORD and English Heritage. She was part of b)other collective's exhibition at GOMA in 2009, and has performed and led workshops in Germany, USA and UK. Alison is also the founder of Pesky People, a campaign to challenge digital discrimination faced by Deaf and Disabled people. Pesky People plays on the term "pesky", getting small and large organisations to sort out access issues with considerable success. Go Genie is one of its online entities that helps online users easily find access information. http://www.peskypeople.co.uk/

Colin Herd was born in Stirling in 1985 and now lives in Edinburgh. His debut chapbook "like" was published by the Knives, Forks and Spoons Press in 2010 and a full-length collection "too ok" by BlazeVOX Books in 2011. He edits the magazine and small press "anything anymore anywhere" and regularly reviews poetry for Chroma Journal, fiction for 3:AM Magazine and art for Aesthetica. A work in progress, a suite made up of visual works, performances and texts based around pop song lyrics called "NTWICM" will be launched in Edinburgh in August 2011.

Aberdeenshire based composer/vocalist Fiona Soe Paing sang and played with pop-art-rock combos in London and Brighton, before starting to produce her own laptop based electronica in 2003. After writing the songs for "No Man's Land" she lived in New Zealand, collaborating as "Colliderscope" with animation artist Zennor Alexander on visuals for live shows, which have been presented in cinema, gallery and theatre spaces in NZ and the UK. Music videos and audio have been screened and broadcast internationally, including The Arts Channel on Sky TV New Zealand, London Independent Film Festival, BBC World Service, BBC Radio One, Radio Three and BBC 6 Music, and the compilation on Warner Music "Sound of the World 2007" by BBC DJ Charlie Gillett. The self-released EP "Songs from No Man's Land" is available as a free download at http://www.fionasoepaing.bandcamp.com. http://www.colliderscope.com

Mark Mace Smith has been a full time Artist/Drop Out since September eleventh 2001 (give or take four days). Born in London Mark currently lives in a small town on the outskirts of D'Preston Lancashire with two other Marks, two metal dogs and a rabbit called Scoobeef. Mark performs existential art with drums, words, paints, beats, photography, poetry, comedy, music and shenanigans. It is not clear what he will bring to the feast but there will be much to consume. Mark has recently been eating Chocolate Fudge Creams from Aldi. "My green intentions have come up somewhat Khaki." He said. http://thuddub.blogspot.com/

improvised electro po-noize. Poems vs computers vs drums vs salvaged keyboards and whatever else we can find. You will come. The Naughty Boys are: *Dan Seizure (http://danseizure.com). *Stevie Paterson on keys and percussion noises. *Ryan Van Winkle - spoken words (http://ryanvanwinkle.com).

Nuala Watt is 26 and lives in Glasgow. She is a member of the editorial board of New Voices Press, the publishing wing of the Federation of Writers Scotland. She has an M.Litt in Creative Writing from the University of St Andrews, and has just completed the first year of a PhD in Poetry at the University of Glasgow. Her thesis describes visual impairment as a positive aesthetic for poetry.

Rachel is originally from a small seaside town in Northern Ireland. She used to write stories, poems, and the occasional piece of toilet graffiti. Then she discovered Manchester and it all stopped for a while. On moving to Edinburgh last year for her PhD, she found that the academic jargon she was digesting could only be made sensible if she took up writing stories about other things. So that's what she's been trying to do. She co-organises spoken word performances and workshops with Edinburgh based collective Inky Fingers, and has been published in Rainy City Stories. http://inkyfingersedinburgh.wordpress.com

ShellSuit Massacre is contemporary experimental poetry put to guitar techno. It consists of two Edinburgh poets: nick-e melville and rodney relax. ShellSuit Massacre is a criminal, stealing from the best of high and low culture. Most of the text is found poetry, from a wide variety of sources: tabloids, broadsheets, election leaflets, David Peace, Reader's Digest Book of British Birds, Time for Machetes, TS Eliot etc., making the text quite vast in its scope and referencing. This will likely be their first gig of the year, as rodney has been busy his new twin girls. www.shellsuitmassacre.biz

Sophie Mayer currently teaches Creative Writing at King's College, London and writes about independent cinema for Sight&Sound, Second Run and others. She is a Commissioning editor at Chroma and the author of two collections of poetry, most recently The Private Parts of Girls, which she is touring this summer/autumn. For events and news, see http://www.sophiemayer.net.