“Where language ends, music begins” – Zbigniew Karkowski (experimental musician, 1958-2013)
The full article by Zbigniew Karkowski (written in 1992) is below. The quotation is taken from the end of the article.
Posts tagged ‘sound’
Feb 12
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Happy National Libraries Day 2015
To mark the occasion of National Libraries Day 2015, here is a photograph of the Librairie Sound Art at Le Bon Acceuil sound art gallery in Rennes, France, taken in October 2014.
PoetryFilm Archive: Érik Bullot (interview article)
Faux Amis by Érik Bullot was shown at PoetryFilm Equinox in September 2014. Another of his films, Tongue Twisters, is also in the PoetryFilm Archive. Below is an insightful interview with Érik Bullot* about language, sound and cinema.
In your artistic research, language and voice seem to be central themes. When and how did this interest start?
I have been always interested by the issue of language, especially the topic of imaginary languages. As you know, the medium of film was originally imagined as an universal language or esperanto. It was a political dream. When I began making films, I made many silent films with the purpose to get a visual language. During my first film made in video, I was very struck by the relationships between video and writing. I think there is a continuity between these different mediums. Video is a kind of writing machine. I made a first film, Speaking in Tongues (2005), based on imaginary languages. It was the first step of a series of films about translation, misunderstandings and puns: Tongue Twisters (2011), about tongue twisters, shot in Berkeley; Faux amis(2012), a film about false friends between French and English, shot in Buffalo; Geographical Fugue (2013), based on a musical piece by Ernst Toch; The Alphabet Revolution (2014), a documentary about the change of alphabet in Turkey. There are always many languages in my film. I like to use linguistic elements as plastic material likely to be deformed, transformed, translated. My dream is making slapstick films with language.
You mainly work with visual media, such as video, photographs, texts and performances. What are your artistic references for what regards sound?
I am interested by artists which work is located between visual and sound fields. I was very impressed for example by the blind avantgarde film made by the German artist and filmmaker Walther Ruttmann, Weekend: a black screen with just a sound piece on the soundtrack. I like very much the works of Cage (Roaratorio) and Kagel (his film Ludwig van) and the experimental filmmakers who work on multilingualism as Peter Rose, Werner Nekes or Michael Snow. I have also a strong interest for the linguistic dimension of slapstick tradition, especially the films of Marx Brothers where you can see a ventriloguist situation between the three brothers.
Watch “London” (one of the shortlisted poetry films in the Shot Through the Heart competition)
Watch “London” below, one of the shortlisted poetry films in the Southbank Centre’s “Shot Through The Heart” poetry film competition.
The poem was written by Sophie Herxheimer and the film was made by Joseph Gifford Tutt.
Excerpt from “Characteristics of the New Amplic Phase in Poetry” – the Letterist Manifesto
“By emphasizing again the sound value of poetry, words in their printed form will not have any meaning that people need to labor over deciphering. Consonants will become empty, purely auditory, simple lines having physical meaning only in the listener’s ears. By placing value on effects beyond their usual meaning (in words), poetry will create a new sensitivity. In the place of the cerebral beauty that was created in the chiseling style of poetry, one responds simply with direct auditory understanding. It is then a matter of discovering the unknown abundance of purely oral constructions; of untangling the intangible accents in vocabulary. Poetry is thus liberated from all prose (reading for meaning without regard for tones), to become an instrument of lyrical communication. Poetry realizes its mission which is precisely to broadcast local imperceptibilities and applied suggestions, because poetry was created by individuals who wanted to understand each other, sensing the linguistic vibrations against their palates. Verse is the result of a need to consider the phonetic effects produced in other people’s imaginations. Letterism intends to introduce this beauty, which is limited in the present system of oral communication by lack of rules and even of letters. This is why it is necessary to regulate the stability of auditory frequencies by constructing elements specially designed for the purpose. It is a matter of enriching the possibilities for denoting the changes that occur between sound values. These particles of language, still inferior and unexpressed, must acquire proper signs so that they can develop in their own category, the auditory.”
Isidore Isou
Agenda for the “Vocal Dischords” symposium at the RCA, March 2014
7 March 2014 | 10am – 5pm
Writers, critics, artists and scientists have been invited to explore the moments and conditions when the voice appears to detach itself from the body, seemingly acquiring autonomy.
Speakers include Sophie Scott, professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, who will discuss her research into the processing of emotional information in the voice; Brian Dillon will offer reflections on Billie Whitelaw’s 1973 performance of Samuel Beckett’s Not I; artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan will reflect on his research into the ways in which forensic speech analysis is used by the state; artist and writer Joe Banks will talk about Rorschach Audio, Illusions of Sound & Electronic Voice Phenomena; philosopher Nina Power will introduce and comment on machinic voices employed in public space today. Musician and writer David Toop will end the day with a presentation/performance.
PoetryFilm: Sounds of Love at the Southbank Centre, July 19, 2014
An evening of sound-informed PoetryFilms and live performances celebrating sounds of love and love of sounds.
Conceived, curated and introduced by Malgorzata Kitowski.
Spirit Level at Royal Festival Hall.
July 19th, 7:45pm.
To book tickets, please click here.
The full programme is below.
PoetryFilm Submissions
Work welcome: films based on poems, poems based on/turned into films, art films, text films, sound films, poet-filmmaker collaborations and other experimental text/image/sound screening or performance material.
All themes and topics are welcome. There are also a number of specific themed events coming up so work exploring these topics is particularly welcome:
* Sound-informed material exploring the role of sound
* Material exploring balance, solstice, cycles, symmetry
* Material exploring mathematics/science
Please download the PoetryFilm Submission Form here.
Please send to First Floor, 85 Harwood Road, London SW6 4QL.
There is no formal deadline; material will be considered for all forthcoming events.
For further details, please email Malgorzata at info-at-poetryfilm.org
PoetryFilm 