Faced with stories of magical bears that transform into wisps of smoke that make fascinating patterns on the walls of a wigwam, or talking fish that grant any wish we want, who'd want to go beyond that magical world to look at the patterns, or structures, of the stories in which these magical and mysterious characters appear?

What if I told you that when we do, a brand-new world full of new information about story awaits us?

This is the world of the Unknown Storyteller

There are so many new things we can learn about story - even though we've been telling stories for literally thousands of years. Most importantly, we can discover new things about story structures that will prove useful to writers, narrative therapists, creative writing teachers, storytellers, story lovers and inquisitive, curious human beings. These things will inspire us, help us engage more authentically in what we love doing, and have the story we want to see unfold in our lives manifest itself through the way we live our lives.

My research centres on using George Spencer-Brown's Calculus of Indications (CoI), as outlined in his book, Laws of Form, to analyse story structure. It's a powerful tool which reveals a surprising amount of new information about story and how it works.

I was fortunate enough to become George Spencer-Brown's last student. I got to know him in the last three years of his life. At first, he mentored me weekly, taking me through Laws of Form, following which we developed a meaningful friendship which lasted until his death.

Since its first publication in 1969, the book has become something of a cult classic. It outlines a powerful content-free calculus based on a single act of making a distinction. From there, Spencer-Brown traces the path the universe takes to come into being, in and of itself, in order (as he argues) to know itself.

The 2022 Laws of Form conference (LoF22) will take place on
Thursday 4th, Friday 5th and Saturday 6th, August 2022
in The Old Library at the University of Liverpool, 23 Abercromby Square, Liverpool L69 7ZN.

This is the same venue in which LoF50 took place in August 2019.

There are no fees for attending the conference, for giving a presentation, or for submitting a synopsis of your paper. Facilities for giving presentations by video link will be available for those who, due to distance, are unable to attend in person. Presentations will be recorded and made available on YouTube. It is intended that, after the conference, as with LoF50, the papers will be compiled into a book.

LoF22 is being organised in cooperation with West Den Haag, an international platform for contemporary art. www.westdenhaag.nl

Details of how to submit proposals for presentations will follow shortly.

We warmly invite you to LoF22 and hope to see you there.

With best wishes,

Florian, Graham, Leon and Randy.
LoF22 Organising Committee

There are many academics and researchers who are keenly applying and building upon George Spencer-Brown's work. To celebrate the 50th year of its publication, a conference was held in 2019, in which we shared and discussed our findings and research. The conference informed an on-line exhibition and typography project at West Den Haag.