RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY (paperback)

"random access memory" is an exploration of trauma-related memory loss through nat raum’s digital footprint, personal library, and external backup drive in use from roughly 2011 to 2015. intended as a reflection on this early period of their life, from which they remember very little, chaotic snippets of tangible memory ask what resolution looks like—if it even exists at all.

nat raum (b. 1996) is a disabled artist, writer, and genderless disaster from Baltimore, MD. They’re a current MFA candidate at the University of Baltimore and also hold a BFA in photography and book arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art. nat is also the editor-in-chief of fifth wheel press and the author of "the abyss is staring back," "you stupid slut," and "specter dust," among others. Past publishers of their writing include Delicate Friend, perhappened, Corporeal Lit, and trampset. Find them online: natraum.com/links.

"In ‘random access memory,’ nat raum sheds finesse for total authenticity—and fashions a satisfyingly challenging work of art in the process. This book is more than just a journey paved with poetry, pops of color, and immaculate design elements. It’s an accomplishment, a courageous albeit devastating feat by which the reader is stunned in an ice bath of code, toner, and honest sentiment. The reader is made to question what is artificial versus what is real, and even reckon with the likelihood that there is no real distinction between the two when it comes to the sentient mind. In these pages, raum gives us work that is human and simultaneously sublime, sublime and simultaneously computerized, and in doing so, leaves us wishing ‘random access memory’ might double as an unauthorized data chip we can inject into ourselves and let live beneath our skin—glitch after glitch, and over a wonderfully uncomfortable, but deeply necessary, period of time."

— Ami J. Sanghvi, co-founder of Gutslut Press, and author of "Into Oblivion," "x( )-id</3," "In Residuum," and more

"The experience of reading nat raum’s ‘random access memory' is a little like walking into a nightclub well past sensible o’clock with the strobe flickering, shadows looming in corners—one of whom looks like your ex-boyfriend and another that may well be that girl you once had a thing with—not knowing whether it’s nostalgia or desire that’s making you nauseous. raum’s collection flickers on the page like a kaleidoscope of exposed negatives, using the RGB digital colour chart to filter their own randomly accessed memories. Exploring everything from evil twins, Facebook settings, Ace of Base, trauma and the relentless tiredness of living in the modern world, this work leaps off the page, yet retains the fuzziness and chaotic unreliability of memory.  'I exist as an npc in a rpg about a dystopian future,' they write in ‘an exhaustive search (v. 1.0).’ raum continually explores new boundaries with their work, and ram is no exception. It is an extraordinary and singular work, and I, for one, want nothing more than to be immersed in this dystopian mind palace." 

— JP Seabright, editor at Full House Literary & author of "GenderFux" and "Machinations"