immediated text event
I didn't trail this, which is awfully remiss of me, but over a week ago now I attended part of the Exeter tEXt festival. The festival took place in a number of venues across Exeter from around 11th to 15 May, and incorporated exhibitions, live art, and readings. I saw an Apples and Snakes event, and what I actually went for, some of the 'immediated' events organised by students of Dartington College and Exeter University.
My friend Steven invited me down some time ago with the intention of my offering a small contribution. He produced a text for the festival, recorded and played back once in a pitch black room, to which I and others were asked to respond, in my case by a written piece to be performed as part of a reading by various writers. I recieved the text in advance, and after three weeks managed to produce the untitled response at the bottom of this entry.
The immediated pieces I 'saw' were the other writers performing at the reading, Steven's text, a couple of video pieces, and a performance by artist Ric Royer, who I believe has been completing a PhD at Dartington, where Steven's also been studying.
I can't comment on the festival as a whole, since I didn't see it, but I was interested by most of what I did see. Inevitably, the poetry performances were pretty conventional and relatively uninteresting. The first half of the Apples and Snakes event was pretty much what you'd expect from even a high quality poetry evening - not terribly interesting poetry read with rather too much explanation, and too 'poetic' a reading style. The second half, a performance by Francesca Beard was much better. Poetry, songs, performance, and interesting reflections on language and identity. Some false steps, but generally carried off very well, both entertaining and informative. Christ that's patronising, I'm sorry.
The other reading, in the bar area, in which I participated, was no better (sorry Steven). Much of what was read I could barely hear because of the neighbouring bar area, but what I could hear was pretty standard stuff. If that's a little vague it's because although I don't get nervous before readings I do get a massive adrenaline surge and become 'Performance-Matt', which means my attention isn't quite there, and I can be a little intimidating. Basically, although I will try to pay attention almost nothing will stick in my head from the last few minutes before a performance.
However, I do remember Steven's text, the videos, and Ric's performance, which thankfully were better and more interesting than what went previously. As a piece on the page, especially when presented as conventionally punctuated text rather than a square of disembodied letters, I had some problems with Steven's text. Partly to do with the fact that I had to come up with a response, and partly because there seemed to be too much awareness of the text as an artefact in itself, almost to the exclusion of anything else - which is guaranteed to wind me up. However, the playback of the text, with little visual stimulus and a quiet measured reading, worked a lot better. I still found it hard to draw anything from the text, but I think it would have been easier to step back from the text and appreciate it in a more impressionistic way. Which is perhaps a little contradictory for something so self-concious. Anyway, the upshot is that it was a whole lot more successful this way, which I would guess is the way it was intended.
The video pieces were good, although I would have liked to see things with stronger individual identities. They seemed to reflect things that I've seen elsewhere, and to have a strange interstitial quality - over quickly, but with a pace suggesting they should be longer; utilising familiar imagery (and images), but not in a distinct enough way to enhance or challenge the associations they evoke; and sitting uneasily between installation video and more conventional film shorts. Again I'm painting a more negative picture than was actually the case, the videos were well worth seeing, and I'd happily view them again. Which is more than can be said of most of the poetry.
Finally, and last of the night, Ric's performance was great. While not necessarily very profound, and again quite self-concious, it was certainly clever and amusing. It also kept me interested right through. In part this was due to the skill and conviction of the performance itself, which was only matched elsewhere by Francesca Beard. But it was also due to the fact that the pacing and structure of the work was very strong, that the issues it raised were interesting, and that it drew on more than one discipline.
Essentially the evening started out fairly conventionally, but rapidly improved. The poetry segments (with the exception of Francesca Beard) were by far the least interesting. I do regret missing Mark Greenwood's performance, but I'd been kind of sat down in the bar area to form a nucleus for the poetry viewing people later on. I'd like to be able to direct you to other reviews of the event as a whole, but I've been unable to track any down as yet. I'm sorry if my response is a little nebulous, I've just tried to give an impression of the event without going into great descriptive detail. I hope that the links I've provided will be of some use in giving an impression of the kind of thing that was going on.
Anyway, here's the untitled piece I came up with in response to Steven's text. If I can find that anywhere I'll post a link.
11/03/06 For the moment I've taken down this poem since it's been accepted for magazine publication in the summer. I may post it back in the autumn. As soon as I have details of when the magazine will be out and where you can get it I will of course trail it on the blog.
12/5/8 I aim to restore the text of this poem as soon as possible. It was saved on my PC, so I need to track down a paper copy and put it back old skool - typing and everything.
My friend Steven invited me down some time ago with the intention of my offering a small contribution. He produced a text for the festival, recorded and played back once in a pitch black room, to which I and others were asked to respond, in my case by a written piece to be performed as part of a reading by various writers. I recieved the text in advance, and after three weeks managed to produce the untitled response at the bottom of this entry.
The immediated pieces I 'saw' were the other writers performing at the reading, Steven's text, a couple of video pieces, and a performance by artist Ric Royer, who I believe has been completing a PhD at Dartington, where Steven's also been studying.
I can't comment on the festival as a whole, since I didn't see it, but I was interested by most of what I did see. Inevitably, the poetry performances were pretty conventional and relatively uninteresting. The first half of the Apples and Snakes event was pretty much what you'd expect from even a high quality poetry evening - not terribly interesting poetry read with rather too much explanation, and too 'poetic' a reading style. The second half, a performance by Francesca Beard was much better. Poetry, songs, performance, and interesting reflections on language and identity. Some false steps, but generally carried off very well, both entertaining and informative. Christ that's patronising, I'm sorry.
The other reading, in the bar area, in which I participated, was no better (sorry Steven). Much of what was read I could barely hear because of the neighbouring bar area, but what I could hear was pretty standard stuff. If that's a little vague it's because although I don't get nervous before readings I do get a massive adrenaline surge and become 'Performance-Matt', which means my attention isn't quite there, and I can be a little intimidating. Basically, although I will try to pay attention almost nothing will stick in my head from the last few minutes before a performance.
However, I do remember Steven's text, the videos, and Ric's performance, which thankfully were better and more interesting than what went previously. As a piece on the page, especially when presented as conventionally punctuated text rather than a square of disembodied letters, I had some problems with Steven's text. Partly to do with the fact that I had to come up with a response, and partly because there seemed to be too much awareness of the text as an artefact in itself, almost to the exclusion of anything else - which is guaranteed to wind me up. However, the playback of the text, with little visual stimulus and a quiet measured reading, worked a lot better. I still found it hard to draw anything from the text, but I think it would have been easier to step back from the text and appreciate it in a more impressionistic way. Which is perhaps a little contradictory for something so self-concious. Anyway, the upshot is that it was a whole lot more successful this way, which I would guess is the way it was intended.
The video pieces were good, although I would have liked to see things with stronger individual identities. They seemed to reflect things that I've seen elsewhere, and to have a strange interstitial quality - over quickly, but with a pace suggesting they should be longer; utilising familiar imagery (and images), but not in a distinct enough way to enhance or challenge the associations they evoke; and sitting uneasily between installation video and more conventional film shorts. Again I'm painting a more negative picture than was actually the case, the videos were well worth seeing, and I'd happily view them again. Which is more than can be said of most of the poetry.
Finally, and last of the night, Ric's performance was great. While not necessarily very profound, and again quite self-concious, it was certainly clever and amusing. It also kept me interested right through. In part this was due to the skill and conviction of the performance itself, which was only matched elsewhere by Francesca Beard. But it was also due to the fact that the pacing and structure of the work was very strong, that the issues it raised were interesting, and that it drew on more than one discipline.
Essentially the evening started out fairly conventionally, but rapidly improved. The poetry segments (with the exception of Francesca Beard) were by far the least interesting. I do regret missing Mark Greenwood's performance, but I'd been kind of sat down in the bar area to form a nucleus for the poetry viewing people later on. I'd like to be able to direct you to other reviews of the event as a whole, but I've been unable to track any down as yet. I'm sorry if my response is a little nebulous, I've just tried to give an impression of the event without going into great descriptive detail. I hope that the links I've provided will be of some use in giving an impression of the kind of thing that was going on.
Anyway, here's the untitled piece I came up with in response to Steven's text. If I can find that anywhere I'll post a link.
11/03/06 For the moment I've taken down this poem since it's been accepted for magazine publication in the summer. I may post it back in the autumn. As soon as I have details of when the magazine will be out and where you can get it I will of course trail it on the blog.
12/5/8 I aim to restore the text of this poem as soon as possible. It was saved on my PC, so I need to track down a paper copy and put it back old skool - typing and everything.
For information, the quotes in the text of the untitled poem come from a text piece by my friend Steven, which I'll try and get permission to post here, Samuel Beckett, as quoted in Art Spieglman's 'Maus', and 'Death Letter', the White Stripes reading of Son House' 'My Black Mamma'. The White Stripes version is available on their CD 'De Stijl'. Son House' version is on 'Delta Blues' through the 'Complete Blues' series released last year, and probably other compilations - the track name might vary depending on the collection.
Some of the other details and concepts are drawn from a couple of documentary programmes, namely Channel 4's 'Life Before Birth' broadcast in April this year (2005), and the second part of BBC's How Art Made The World, from May this year. The only other allusion is to Abbas Kiarostami, the Iranian filmmaker, and his film 'Where Is The Friend's House?'
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