Kalen Iwamoto (Japanese-Canadian, b. 1981) is a conceptual writer and artist based in France whose work treats language as material, exploring its structures as both constraint and possibility.In late 2021 Iwamoto co-founded theVERSEverse, an experimental literary gallery, together with poets Ana Maria Caballero and Sasha Stiles.
Iwamoto's collaborative digital poem GenText: Seeds and Ashes, made with Rose Jackson and the AI writing tool Sudowrite, was published through theVERSEverse in 2022. Iwamoto also helped create VERSA, an autonomous poet built on GPT-3 that generated and minted poems live during theVERSEverse's presentation at “Proof of People”.That year Iwamoto also showed Littor[alter]ms in Feral File's “Ecotone” exhibition, and exhibited Degenerate & Generate as part of “FEMGEN”, a gender-equity exhibition at Art Basel Miami Beach.,
In 2023 Iwamoto contributed Topography of Absence, a text-and-video poem made with partner Julien Silvano exploring presence and the language of maps, to “TECHNO TERRAIN: Nature in the Age of the Metaverse”, a Berlin group show curated by Anika Meier.That year Iwamoto also showed WAR Zone in “POÈME SBJKT”, part of theVERSEverse's Paris exhibitions on blockchain poetry.
Since 2022 Iwamoto has worked with partner Julien Silvano as Wen New Atelier, a married-couple duo exploring language as both material and generative device.,Wen New Atelier's works include Couple Machine, a 2024 bilingual generative literature machine, and a trio of works shown in the 2025 “Computational Poetry” exhibition at NEORT++ in Tokyo.Wen New Atelier presented “Bar CodeX” at the MAC Bar, the bar of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lyon, drawing on the traditions of Oulipo, Fluxus and Surrealism.
