Millfield: Exposed
Exposed by Jess Lee and Alice Coe (Millfield School Film Poetry Festival Winner 2016).
Jul 18
Film Poetry Festival at Millfield, June 2016
I was delighted to return to Millfield for a third time in June, this time to judge the student Film Poetry Festival. Thank you to James and the team at Millfield for the invitation – this was an exciting project and it was thrilling to see the range of creative approaches. The quality of the film poems was astonishingly high and extremely impressive, and the students’ enthusiasm and passion came across. Also impressive was the subject matter explored in these films – challenging personal emotional topics, and active engagement with political issues and the big questions. An introduction written by James Baddock (Head of English, Drama and Media) is below, and the winning films have been uploaded to the PoetryFilm website for viewing.
Film Poems
Always ready to embrace innovation and experimentation, this year the English and Media teaching teams at Millfield School in Somerset took their students down an exciting new path, that of film poems. In April, Zata Banks visited Millfield to introduce the art form to an appreciative audience of A Level English Literature and Media Studies students. Subsequently, film poems became the theme of our summer Poetry Festival; pupils in Years 9, 10 and the Lower Sixth were invited to make their own film poems, individually or in groups. Many used smartphones and tablets to film, edit and present their work, and several made good use of our media studio and equipment to realise their ideas. The results were diverse and inspiring! Submissions included delightful stop-motion animations, time-lapse mood pieces, striking text-on-screen films and performances of original poetry.
This venture was an experiment for Millfield, and one we are keen to repeat and develop! Film poems unlocked our students’ imaginations, and gave them an opportunity to express their ideas in exhilarating combinations of words, images, sound and music. My thanks go to Zata for inspiring and championing our students’ work, some of which is presented here. All of the pieces were created from scratch by the students themselves. I hope you enjoy them.
James Baddock
Head of English, Drama and Media
Millfield School, Somerset
Winners
Year 9
Summer by Tamara and Eloise
Year 10
Depression by Grace and Elenice
Fear of the Unknown by Igor Ledecky
Audience Award: A Love Story by Cameron, Matt, Will and Max
Lower Sixth
Exposed by Alice and Jessica
Time to Forget by Domino
The Beauty of Racism by Michael, Alex, Ellie and Jack
Millfield: Time to Forget
Time to Forget by Domino (Millfield School Film Poetry Festival Winner 2016).
Millfield: Fear of the Unknown
Fear of the Unknown by Igor Ledecky (Millfield School Film Poetry Festival Winner 2016).
Millfield: The Beauty of Racism
The Beauty of Racism by Michael Kay (Millfield School Film Poetry Festival Winner 2016).
Millfield: A Love Story
A Love Story by Cameron, Matt, Will and Max (Millfield School Film Poetry Festival Winner 2016).
Millfield: Depression
Depression by Grace and Eloise (Millfield School Film Poetry Festival Winner 2016).
Milestone event at the House of Lords, 22 June 2016
Baroness Prashar (seated), Yogesh Patel and Lord Parekh presenting ZB with gift and accolade following the keynote speech.
By Dr. Debjani Chatterjee, MBE
LONDON: On the eve of the momentous Brexit referendum, 22 June 2016, the House of Lords saw another colorful and history making occasion for English language poets of the Indian diaspora. The evening was hosted by Lord Bhikhu Parekh, a distinguished Indian diaspora non-fiction writer and a patron of the non-profit Word Masala Foundation and poet Yogesh Patel, the founder-Director of WMF. The ambitious event was Patel’s brainchild and was tightly packed with speeches, book launches, poetry readings, award ceremonies, slide presentation and networking. It attracted some sixty people, including well-established and rising poets, poetry publishers and journalists.
In his welcome address, Patel stated his intention of bringing together and honoring eminent Indian diaspora poets from Britain and the US, as well as British publishers who support diaspora poetry. He announced a few exciting publishing initiatives, among these, talks with the prestigious ‘Poems on the Underground’ project, who were seriously considering contributions picked up from the Word Masala Award Winners 2015 anthology launched at the event and published by Patel’s Skylark Publications website.
Patel was particularly proud of a publishing contract for Isle of Man-based Usha Kishore whose next poetry collection will be brought out by Eyewear Publishing, announced with great flair by Dr. Todd Swift, the publisher.
Patel, who omitted himself from the readings, is known for his literary activism and publishing, and is also a fine trilingual poet and translator. Just a month ago he received an ‘International Accolade for Outstanding Achievement in Poetry and for Promoting Poetry’ at Vatayan’s annual award ceremony.
Zata Banks treated the gathering to an inspirational keynote speech on the ‘creative opportunities at the intersections of poetry and film’. Banks is the founder of Poetry Film, an influential research art project that was launched in 2002 and has an archive collection of over 1000 films.
Lord Parekh and Baroness Usha Prashar presented awards, first to the American poets: Meena Alexander, Usha Akella (based in Austin, Texas), and, in absentia, Saleem Peeradina and Pramila Venkateswaran; and then to British poets: Shanta Acharya, Siddhartha Bose, Kavita Jindal, Daljit Nagra, Usha Kishore, Reginald Massey and Debjani Chatterjee. Word Masala’s first Crowd-Funding Award was given to Mona Dash to support the publication of her next poetry collection. All the award-winning poets read briefly from their work, accompanied by a slide-show highlighting their achievements and poetry.
Parekh and Prashar commented on the excellence of the readings and the high quality of the poetry. Parekh spoke of the ‘immense pool of talent’ that is contemporary Indian diaspora poets, and called for a mutually beneficial meeting of two great literatures: English literature and Indian diaspora literature in English, which itself is enriched by its heritage of multilingual Indian literature. He encouraged diaspora writers to capitalise more on their experience of migration and of dual cultural heritage. He urged British publishers to consider publishing and publicising diaspora writers’ poetry and suggested opportunities for cooperation with Indian publishers.
Word Masala awards were given to seven British poetry presses: Arc Publications, Emma Press, Eyewear Publishing, Faber & Faber, Limehouse Books, Nine Arches Press and Valley Press. Three poetry books were launched at the event: Glass Scissors, a debut collection by writer-publisher Bobby Nayyar of Limehouse Books; Saleem Peeradina’s collection Final Cut, from Valley Press; and the anthology, Word Masala Award Winners 2015, edited by Yogesh Patel and published by his Skylark Publications.
The event was a milestone for Indian diaspora poets as it represents a pioneering attempt by WMF at trans-Atlantic connections. While there have been some exceptional achievements in publication and major prizes by poets, significant gaps and omissions still remain. And there is a need for more such global cooperation that will certainly benefit Indian diaspora poets and the wider world of poetry.
Dr. Debjani Chatterjee has had over sixty books published in various countries and won many prizes for poetry, literary translation and writing for children. She is Word Masala’s Consultant Editor, Pratibha India’s Associate Editor, Gitanjali and Beyond’s Advisory Editor, Survivors Poetry’s Patron, The Healing Word’s Founder, and Associate Royal Literary Fellow.
Word Masala Foundation takes Diasporic poets to the mainstream
Press Release copied below describing the special event at The House of Lords, London, on 22 June 2016.
‘It was an inspirational evening-truly wonderful to meet and hear such remarkable poets’ – Baroness Prashar.
‘The event went splendidly well and brought together several interesting people. Yogesh, you have every reason to be proud of yourself’ – Lord Parekh, Patron, Word Masala Foundation.
London-based non-profit Word Masala Foundation’s innovative vision was very evident in its major celebration of Indian diaspora poetry on 22 June 2016 at the House of Lords. Poets received awards for excellence in poetry and the British publishers reaching out to the South-Asian diaspora internationally received awards as the Champion of the South-Asian Diaspora Poetry allowing them to be distinctly proud for the work they are doing to include BAME authors and poets in their publishing programme.
In his welcome address, Yogesh explained that it was an occasion to bring together to honour selected Indian diaspora poets from Britain and the USA, and British publishers, large and small, who have brought out work by diaspora poets and are committed to giving fair consideration to work submitted by such poets in the interest of both cultural diversity and the highest literary standards. He also announced a few exciting publishing projects, and then introduced Zata Banks, founder of Poetry Film, whose inspirational keynote speech was about ‘creative opportunities at the intersections of poetry and film’.
Yogesh Patel, Foundation’s founder-director and poet, said, “The diaspora writers have a huge problem finding publishers and agents. There is a general apathy against them, and Page 2 Word Masala Foundation takes Diasporic poets to the mainstream deep-rooted attitudes deny them a fair opportunity. The Foundation will strive to bring the diasporic writers to the mainstream by working with publishers and other organisations active in the British literary field, and give them the recognition they deserve.” Lord Parekh, the Foundations patron, and Baroness Prashar presented awards to two American poets Meena Alexander and Usha Akella who had flown in from the USA, especially for this occasion, and in absentia, to Saleem Peeradina and Pramila Venkateswaran . The British poets receiving awards were Shanta Acharya, Siddhartha Bose, Kavita A. Jindal, Daljit Nagra, Usha Kishore, Reginald Massey, Bobby Nayyar and Debjani Chatterjee. Mona Dash, a London-based poet whose novel was just published in India, received Foundation’s first Crowdfunding award with the contract of publication with Skylark Publications, Yogesh’s publishing arm. To introduce the quality of their work, poets were showcased with the brief reading from their work, to the accompaniment of an excellent slideshow highlighting each speaker and poet’s poetry and achievements. The Foundation is about taking diasporic writers to the next level.
The Word Masala Awards are conferred on published South-Asian diaspora poets with a substantial quality of work, upholding their achievements to the highest standards, akin to ‘Lifetime Achievement’.
For more information, please contact Yogesh and visit www.skylarkpublications.co.uk
Press release copy and photo provided by Skylark.
Left-Right: Zata Banks of PoetryFilm (seated); Poet Yogesh Patel, Founder-Director of Word Masala; Baroness Prashar; Lord Parekh; and poet-publisher Dr Todd Swift of Eyewear Publishing. The photo shows Dr Todd Swift receiving the Champion of the South-Asian Diaspora Poetry award and making an announcement of awarding a contract to Usha Kishore for her next poetry collection.
What Does Dada Mean Today? Contemporary Dadaists on Dada
Three Rooms Press featured me in their latest newsletter on the theme of “What Does Dada Mean Today?” Scroll down to read my response. The full newsletter is pasted below.
2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dada, and the tenth anniversary of Three Rooms Press’s contemporary Dada anthology series Maintenant. Born in 1916 as an avant-garde reaction to World War I, Dada was “an alarm signal,” deconstructing art and convention to illustrate dissatisfaction with war and convention, rules and meaning. Now, one hundred years later, we believe Dada is as important, as necessary, as ever.
As noted in the introduction to MAINTENANT 10: “Humankind increasingly is able to dissipate the need for intellectual sustenance. Perhaps the same will hold true in the next century for nutritional sustenance. As Hugo Ball once said, “Dada was not a school of artists, but an alarm signal against declining values, routine and speculations, a desperate appeal, on behalf of all forms of art, for a creative basis on which to build a new and universal consciousness of art.” For ten years, Three Rooms Press has actively sought out the work of contemporary Dada artists from around the world. For one hundred years, Dada—the alarm signal—has continued.”
To celebrate the release of Maintenant 10(0): Warm/Hunger (June 2016), we asked six contributors to try to answer just what Dada means to them. Here’s what they have to say:
1. Heide Hatry:
Dada (bye-bye) was my first word, and my infantile word for everything. My father was the first Dada I met. On our farm he used every piece of detritus, repurposing it for unimagined uses, both practical and whimsical, collaging the buildings on our farm, rigging quixotic networks. My own work is conceptual Dada, pastiches of ruined ideas from which I salvage what humanity I can.
In their play, children mimic the destroyer as well as the creator. The children of Dada were the children of Europe, ruins themselves, the animated ruins of Europe. Though they mimicked the work of the destroyer, it was creation to which they unreflectively repaired, making in spite of themselves, in spite of Europe, showing it their monsters in its broken mirror. Like the poet in the Phalarian Bull, their song was beautiful even as they burned. Dada is finding our humanity in the wreckage, where it always lies, whether we like it or not.
2. Thomas Fucaloro
What dada means to me? Hmmm I guess it means the silence of clarity. The falsehood of meaning. The letting the rocks fall where they may. When writing it I think it’s about not focusing on meaning. When reading it I think it’s about finding your own unique meaning. Cubist? I think of Gertrude Stein and tender buttons. I think of the ingredients on a cereal box. I think of the cereal. Yes that is what dada means to me: cereal.
3. Kofi Forson
Dada prompts in me a primal need to provoke and initiate a concern for the reasons why I make art. In essence I’m constantly questioning my role, how I’m at an advantage to do and say something with respects to its philosophy and aesthetic separate from the facets of commercialism, promoting a self-adventurism and uniqueness which allows me to shock, affect the complacency and banality within the establishment.
4. Philip Meersman
Dada for me is a point of view (or a way to portray the world) which shows the (un)expected, the (un)intended, the rare, the common, and experimental without being bound by rules. Dada sheds off all rules, restrictions, and regulations to blossom via informality. Total freedom to create, in which “total” relates to subject, form, medium, means of expression, carrier/canvas, or the opposite of these. To not-be is as much the non-object of creative experiment as the world we’re living in. And even that is too restrictively defining what is possible within Dada.
5. Valery Oisteanu
The history of Dada as an anti-war, anti-establishment, and an artistic revolution, then as a movement that upended bourgeoisie sensibilities is still raging today.
Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich, 1916) vas named after French writer and his novel Candide which mocked the idiocies of Voltaire’s society.
Tristan Tzara (poet, performer Romanian/French) insisted it was an international affair encompassing the globe.
In 1920 Dada moves to Paris where many of the artists and poets started their apprenticeship in the movement, that later they would leave for Surrealism introduced by Andre Breton.
Unfortunately The Dada-Centennial created a fever in some of the quarters of corporate cultural institutions, local and international, in an effort to monetize Dada, finding a way to capitalize on Dada-100, citing a long cultural investment in Zurich, Bucharest, and Paris etc.
The difference between the historical Dada, surrealism and the counterculture that followed and the present conspicuous consumerism of avant-garde bears the question: actually where is the authentic dada.
6. Zata Banks
“Dada is an inherent part of the human condition.”
On Monday, June 20, come celebrate the 100 anniversary of Dada at our Dada Salon at Cornelia Street Café. Doors open at 8:15. Admission is $9, which includes a free drink. Cornelia Street Cafe is at 29 Cornelia Street, in the West Village, between W. 4th Street at Bleecker (http://corneliastreecafe.com). Reservations and additional information: info@threeroomspress.com.
On Monday, June 20, come celebrate the 100th anniversary of Dada at our Dada Salon at Cornelia Street Café. Doors open at 8:15. Admission is $9, which includes a free drink. Cornelia Street Cafe is at 29 Cornelia Street, in the West Village, between W. 4th Street at Bleecker (http://corneliastreecafe.com). Reservations and additional information: info@threeroomspress.com.
Keep up to date with the publication of Maintenant 10(0) by following Three Rooms Press on Facebook or on Twitter @ThreeRoomsPress.
Zata Banks FRSA: Keynote Speaker at House of Lords Poetry Celebration, 22 June 2016
I am honoured to have been invited to present the keynote talk at The House of Lords on Wednesday 22 June 2016. The topic of my keynote will be “the creative opportunities at the intersections of poetry and film”. The event will be hosted by Yogesh Patel and The Lord Parekh. Full details below.
Maintenant 10(0) celebrating 100 years of Dada
I was delighted to hear that my artwork “Warm/Hunger” was selected for inclusion in Maintenant 10(0) journal, celebrating 100 years of Dada, and thrilled to discover that my work was selected to be featured on Page 1 of this 177 page publication of contemporary Dada writing and art. Thanks to Three Rooms Press New York. There will be launches and performances in New York, Zurich, Paris and London over the coming months.
back cover
front cover
Page 1.
Hidden Door Festival, Edinburgh (documentation)
A few photographs from the wonderful Hidden Door Festival in Edinburgh. Three PoetryFilm screenings were presented and it was a sunny day! Thanks to Becky Padley, Charline Foch and the team.
Festival timetable. The PoetryFilm presentations took place at 3pm, 4:30pm and 7pm.
Backup Festival Weimar (documentation)
A few photographs from the wonderful Backup Festival in Bauhaus-land (Weimar). Thanks to Aline and Guido and the team.
Z, Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bel, Martina Pfeiler, Hubert Sielecki
Backup Festival Trailer 2016
Click to play the Backup Festival trailer 2016!
PoetryFilm is at Backup Film Festival in Weimar. Thanks to Bauhaus Film-Institut, Bauhaus-Universitat Weimar, and Poetry Film Kanal journal. On 20 May at 5pm there will be a festival “special” featuring a talk about the PoetryFilm project followed by a screening of the PoetryFilm Parallax programme.
PoetryFilm in Weimar, 20 May 2016
PoetryFilm at Backup Film Festival in Weimar, 20 May 2016 at 5pm. Thanks to Bauhaus Film-Institut, Bauhaus-Universitat Weimar, and Poetry Film Kanal journal.
A festival “special” featuring a talk about the PoetryFilm project followed by a screening of the PoetryFilm Parallax programme.
Maintenant 10(0): celebrating 100 Years of Dada
I’m delighted to be featured in this forthcoming issue of Maintenant 10(0), celebrating 100 years of Dada. Copies can be ordered here and will be available in early June.
front cover
back cover
Maintenant is an annual journal that features the most significant contemporary Dada writing and art from around the world. Inspired by the original Maintenant, an irreverent and risk-taking ‘zine published, edited and allegedly written by Arthur Cravan from 1913-1917, the Three Rooms Press editions aim to bring to light cutting-edge poetry and art that stems from this original spirit. Since 2005, Three Rooms Press’ Maintenant has developed an international reputation as a primary source for Dada work by well-known and emerging artists.
Maintenant 10: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art
edited by Peter Carlaftes and Kat Georges
In 10 years, MAINTENANT: A Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art has grown from a 12-page stapled black-and-white zine to the current issue: 190 pages filled with provocative, stunning, full color art and writing by some of the most intense DADA creators working around the globe today. Working with the theme “WARM/HUNGER,” contributors examined ideas of global warming, global hunger, and the “warmongers” that lead to these conditions. This issue of MAINTENANT also celebrates the 100th anniversary of the start of DADA, with quotes from DADA founders throughout the volume.
Complete list of contributors to Maintenant 10 (in alphabetical order):
Jason Abdelhadi, Tomomi Adachi, Derek Adams, Henrik Aeshna, Jamika Ajalon, Linda J. Albertano, Jan Michael Alejandro, Joel Allegretti, Avelino De Araujo, Greg Bachar, Alice Bag, Aditya Bahl, Zata Banks, David Barnes, Amy Bassin, Mary Beach, Beate Bendel, C. Mehrl Bennett, John M. Bennett, Volodymyr Bilyk, József Bíró, Sergey Biryukov, Rabyn Blake, Mark Blickley, Dianne Bowen, John Bowman, Gedley Belchior Braga, Bob Branaman, Fork Burke, Irene Caesar, Glen Calleja, Billy Cancel, Angela Caporaso, Peter Carlaftes, Mona Jean Cedar, Neeli Cherkovski, Peter Ciccariello, Hal Citron, Lynette Clennell, Andrei Codrescu, Giuseppe Colarusso, Roger Conover, Karen Constance, Tchello d’Barros, Steve Dalachinsky, Arturo Desimone, Cathy Dreyer, Kip Duff, Agneta Falk Hirschman , Jeff Farr, Becky Fawcett, Bartolomé Ferrando, Luc Fierens, Giovanni Fontana, Kofi Forson, Michael T. Fournier, Thomas Fucaloro, Ignacio Galilea, Armando Jaramillo Garcia, BAAM aka Maria Garfjell, Kat Georges, Christian Georgescu, Franco Götte, S. A. Griffin, Rebecca Griffin, Fausto Grossi, Janet Hamill, Grant Hart, Alamgir Hashmi, Heide Hatry, Aimee Herman, Karen Hildebrand, Jack Hirschman, Mark Hoefer, Bob Holman, Laura Tringali Holmes, Joel Hubaut, Alfonso Iandiorio, Jonathan Peter Jackson, Ruud Janssen, Mathias Jansson, Dobrica Kamperelic, Susan Keiser, Paul Y.J. Kim, Antonia Alexandra Klimenko, Doug Knott, Mark Kostabi, Ksenija Kovacevic, Dylan Krieger, Hope Kroll, Žygimantas Kudirka, Edward Kulemin, David Lawton, Pascale Le Bihan, Jane Lecroy, Marc James Léger, Patricia Leonard, Patrice Lerochereuil, Alexander Limarev, Emily Linstrom, Frédéric Lipczynski, Gerard Malanga, Sophie Malleret, Djelloul Marbrook, Laurent Marissal, Malak Mattar, John Mazzei, Jim McHugh, Philip Meersman, Iulia Militaru, Lois Kagan Mingus, Charles Mingus III, Richard Modiano, Mike M. Mollett, Dustin Luke Nelson, Alexandre Nodopaka, Dylan Nyoukis, Ruth Oisteanu, Valery Oisteanu, Suzi Kaplan Olmsted, Marc Olmsted, Jane Ormerod, David Ishaya Osu, Eiko Otake, Bibiana Padilla Maltos, Lisa Panepinto, John S. Paul, Claude Pélieu, Puma Perl, Pawel Petasz, Raymond Pettibon, Charles Plymell, Roxie Powell, Renaat Ramon, Janaki Ranpura, Kathleen Reichelt, Johann Reißer, Mado Reznik, Weley Ricket, Bill Roberts, Jerome Rothenberg, Martina Salisbury, Phil Scalia, William Seaton, Silvio Severino, Susan Shup, Elly Simmons, Pere Sousa, Thomas Stolmar, Richard Stone, W.K. Stratton, Phantom Street Artist, Daina Surrealism, Yuriy Tarnawsky, Neal “Skooter” Taylor, Richard Tipping, Ted Tollefson, John J. Trause, Jürgen Trautwein, Ann Firestone Ungar, Jon Andoni Goikoetxea Uriarte, Nico Vassilakis, Duska Vrhovac, Anne Waldman, George Wallace, Scott Wannberg, Mike Watt, Poul Weile, A. D. Winans, Larry Zdeb, Ali Znaidi, and Joanie Hieger Fritz Zosike.
Pleasures: film by Calum Atkinson + poem by Denise Leverton
PoetryFilm recently collaborated with the Graphic Design BA at The University of Lincoln on a poetry and film module. Students had a choice of three poems and the term-long project was to create a film based on one of the poems. I thoroughly enjoyed watching all the films at the end of term and here is Pleasures by Calum Atkinson, based on the poem by Denise Leverton. Congratulations, Calum! Click to watch.
In the treatment, Calum writes, “This film explores mundane objects through a macro lens (for example a glass water and a pencil sharpener), exposing them in interesting, unique perspectives, giving them new meaning and discovering an unfound beauty which may have gone unnoticed.”
PoetryFilm at Millfield School, 28 April 2016
Thanks to Millfield School for inviting me to deliver a presentation about PoetryFilm, with film clips, to Art&Design, Literature, and Media Studies sixth form students on Thursday. Thanks to all the staff and students for a wonderful evening, including some great questions. It was a flying visit before catching the last train back to London!
Sinestesia: screening in Barcelona, 7 May 2016
My films Full Stop and Palindrome will be screened at Sinestesia on 7 May 2016 in Barcelona. Full details below.
Luka Lesson (Australia): poeta y slammer, campeón nacional el 2011
Zata Banks (Inglaterra): poeta, artista y fundadora de poetryfilm.org
Eduardo Yagüe (España): actor, poeta y videopoeta
Tálata Rodríguez (Colombia): poeta, performer y gestora cultural
Paul Broderick (EEUU): poeta y videorealizador
Ester Xargay (Catalunya): videoartista y escritora
Irakli Kakabadze (Georgia): escritor y activista por los Derechos Humanos.
Bobie (Yves Bommenel): artista, videopoeta y performer.
También nos acompañará fuera de la pantalla la artista indisciplinar Marta Darder y su poesía visual.
Seguiremos desvelando más detalles…pero habrá pica-pica, sí.
Videopoesía cada día!
http://lameva.barcelona.cat/barcelonapoesia/ca/programacio/dies/2/2016-05-07
Daata Editions Season Two Commissions
The press release for the Data Editions Season Two commissions, including a Poetry section, is below.
Tracey Emin, Jake Chapman, Jacolby Satterwhite, Casey Jane Ellison, and Rashaad Newsome have been announced amongst the leading international artists commissioned for Season Two of Daata Editions, an innovative online platform for the sale of easily downloadable commissioned artist video, sound, web and poetry art editions. The first set of editions will be released to coincide with the opening of NADA and Frieze New York on 5 May 2016, with works available online from $100. Season Two commissions will also be exhibited at Daata Edition’s interactive NADA booth.
Daata Editions was developed to enable audiences to view contemporary artists who are working in digital mediums, showing artworks made for, and therefore best viewable on laptops, iPads, iPhones, screens and even cinemas. This new and innovative way to download and collect art is designed specifically to be a native platform to a new generation of artists who work with moving image and sound, and to empower artists, audiences and the marketplace in an area of artistic practice that remains underrepresented within traditional art market models.
On 5 May 2016 the first set of Season Two artist commissions will be released online. Tracey Emin, Jacolby Satterwhite, Michael Manning and Rashaad Newsome will each present a series of six works. Leading British artist Tracey Emin is known for her varied practice that draws inspiration from events in her life and explores self-representation and the feminist discourse. For her Daata Editions commission Emin has produced a new series of highly personal poetry works for the new Poetry section of the website, which explore how sound can express essential emotions.
In his new series of work for the Video section, multidisciplinary American artist Jacolby Satterwhite explores blockbuster movie tropes, disaster films and queer eroticism in a futuristic suite of films En Plein Air Abstraction (2016), featuring floating mechanics gliding over sci-fi inspired global disaster zones. Using the internet as his medium, LA-based Michael Manning has produced a series of video works called Activity Playlist that take their conceptual basis and form from playlists created by streaming services such as Spotify, seeking to give visual form to the themes and moods presented in their musical playlist counterparts. Rashaad Newsome’s work examines the visual language of power and status, sampling heavily from hip-hop and pop culture.
For his Daata Editions Sound commission Newsome has produced three works, including a score created in collaboration with a secondary school marching band and a film score featuring vocals from renowned vogue commentator Kevin JZ Prodigy, rapper Cakes Da Kill, singer Ian Isiah and Newsome himself.
For Season Two, Daata Editions has also invited guest curators to select specially curated sections in the Sound, Web and Poetry sections. Guest curators include Gutter Records, bitforms gallery, New Contemporaries and Zata Banks/PoetryFilm. Also new for Season Two is the Poetry section, which features commissioned work by Tracey Emin, Laura Focarazzo, Kate Jessop, C.O. Moed, Tameka Norris, Ariana Reines, Scott Reeder, Julian Scordato, Susanne Wiegner and Antoinette Zwirchmayr.
Seeing Sound symposium: documentation
Click below to see the event booklet featuring all the abstracts and the full programme. The Seeing Sound symposium took place at Bath Spa University on 9-10 April 2016.
Two films by Zata Banks screened at LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) + Femmes Video Art Festival, 6-30 April 2016
Delighted to hear that my poetry films Full Stop and PoetryFilm Blackboard have been selected to be screened at LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) and at the Femmes Video Art Festival 2016 at The Situation Room gallery (LA). Screenings between 6-30 April 2016. Thanks to curator Micol Hebron.
Full Stop features a poem communicated in Morse Code, and PoetryFilm Blackboard was a participatory co-creation poetry project commissioned by Southbank Centre in 2014.
The full programmes are below.
PoetryFilm at Backup Festival, Weimar, 18-22 May 2016
PoetryFilm has partnered with the Backup Festival in Weimar, Germany, in association with Poetryfilmkanal journal. A programme will be presented in Weimar on 20 May 2016 as part of the festival.
PoetryFilm at Hidden Door Festival, Edinburgh, 4 June 2016
PoetryFilm is delighted to partner with the wonderful Hidden Door festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, and will present a programme on 4 June 2016. The press release from Hidden Door is below.
Mar 30
“Timeline” Bokeh Yeah Poem Film Showcase at HOME in Manchester (documentation)
Documentation from last night’s Timeline Bokeh Yeah Poem Film Showcase at HOME in Manchester (29 March 2016).
The event took place in a cinema at HOME in Manchester
BFI LOVE highlights – featuring PoetryFilm Paradox
Many thanks to the BFI, Film London, and to Film Hub London for featuring PoetryFilm Paradox in the BFI LOVE highlights video! PoetryFilm presented 3 sold-out events in December 2015 at the Groucho Club and Hackney Picturehouse. Click to watch.
SEEING SOUND symposium, Bath Spa University: “The PoetryFilm Archive: Sounds of Poetry + Poetry of Sounds”
I’m delighted to be presenting a paper at the Seeing Sound symposium at Bath Spa University on 9-10 April 2016, featuring sound-informed artworks from the PoetryFilm Archive.
Seeing Sound is an informal practice-led symposium exploring multimedia work which foregrounds the relationship between sound and image. It explores areas such as visual music, abstract cinema, experimental animation, audiovisual performance and installation practice through paper sessions, screenings, performances and installations.
PoetryFilm 