Interview with a Cat, by Marcel Broodthaers, is a 4
minute and 54 second long exchange of dialogue between the poet, Broodthaers,
and his (or a) cat. This poem highlights
a desire many people have to carry on a conversation with an animal as many
owners of domesticated animals tend to consider their pet part of their family
and almost an equal, yet the inability for there to be an understood language
between the two always leaves the pet incapable of truly being considered
equal. Broodthaers' conversation with
the cat is romanticized through his natural language (French) and the calm manner
in which he asks questions. Not only
does the language help to romanticize the interview but when we listen we can
almost picture a cigarette or some other prop/element which generates thoughts
of an intimate and personal environment.
This poem can be considered conceptual yet also ethnopoetic in that it
is a conversation between two different species of life, with two separate
languages and only a small bridge of cohesive understanding between the two.
John Cage is one of the most influential artists to live in
the 20th century. His
approaches towards music, the visual arts, and how the two are interconnected
was revolutionary and could be considered to be as influential on the art world
as Marcel Duchamp's theory of the Readymade.
Cage essentially takes the idea of the readymade and carries it further
through the idea of how the sounds of life are themselves very powerful forms
of art. Many of Cage's works were highly
conceptual and provided a new means for people to experience life poetry, or to
say that there was already a form of aural poetry created by the act of living
itself. Cage's series of Memogram
Correspondences highlight somewhat of an instruction booklet to
experiencing this form of aural/audio “life” poetry. This particular correspondence is a good read
and somewhat mimics Yoko Ono's Instructions in that Cage's instructions
provide an alternative means of thinking and approaching. The correspondence itself is also very poetic
as one does not have to be the actual individual being responded to by Cage in
order to follow these instructions. As
we read the letter it becomes quite easy to place ourselves as the receivers to
these instructions and the desire to attempt to follow them proves to be quite
strong.
What can we say about this poem which hasn't already been
said about Lighght by Aram Saroyan?
Much. This particular piece (and
series) by Philip Guston and Clark Coolidge borders itself on the brink of
unreadable and nonsensical babble.
“....Borderlands. A thumb raises
up to spot clear and chalk white. That
the lines are shades are drawn.” As we
read this over and over and over again, asking ourselves what (if any) of this
makes sense, we can find ourselves breaking down the poem to readable
sections. “Borderlands” “A Thumb raises” “Raises up to spot” “To spot
clear and” “and chalk white” “That the lines” “The lines are shades” “shades
are drawn”. This break down promotes
emphasis on each possible individual word or phrase and what seemingly appears
to be something which can be read in less than ten seconds becomes a small
essay in the weight which it carries.
The content of Jordan Wolfson's 2007 piece Untitled
is more original than the title itself.
Wolfson's video piece blends together a beautiful visual of nature, life
and the technological advancements combined with a the natural sounds created
by the three. For the first thirty
seconds or so we are presented with the sounds of traffic passing by and sights
of a camera's view as it pans down along an embankment of trees, which are
located next to a highway. As the camera
settles on a horizontal axis, we hear a man speaking. Speaking about the imposition man has made on
the world of painting, and relating it to the imposition man first had on the
native's of the Americas stating that “we painted indians as fast as we killed
them off”. While this is introduced to
us, the camera slowly zooms out to reveal an Apple computer, turned on, placed
in the grass next to a highway with high volumes of traffic. This entire poem is one huge metaphor for how
rapidly we progress and how that progression leaves a whirlwind of missed
opportunities to fully absorb our surroundings before moving on to the
next. The computer acts as a relic (as
it appears to be one of the first generation Macintosh models), or as a visual
reference to create a relationship for the viewer between what is being
discussed and how it is being received by the audience.
Waves? Rock? Aspen n0.7 sounds like a cheap cologne Carrot
Top would be wearing if I bumped in to him at a Golden Corral. The strength overpowering the delicious smell
of mac-n-cheese, mashed potatoes and that refilled pan of fried chicken I've
been craving. Wings was also good. I
prefer it as nourishment for the body rather than a comedic presentation of a
fabricated environment. And that guy who isn't Carrot Top was in that other
movie about wine. But in that exact
moment I will have felt a pain less than or equal to the same I felt when
mother tossed my Bert and Ernie dolls in the trash.
When we begin to discuss Chris Burden, we should first
establish a communal understanding regarding the vast-stretching reaches of his
conceptual approach and that is to say that he is kind of a genius. In series of television commercials, Burden
not only is able to present this form of rogue poetry to a small audience but
to an entire community, regardless of whether or not their intentions were to
purposefully observe his work. His
direct commentary on the ability of mass-media to be utilized by the pauper or
serf for recognition stands against what most every corporation or conglomerate
wishes. His raw clips presented
opportunities, for those viewers who were lucky enough to witness these
commercials, to have moments of clarity in regards to the mindless television
programming and influential commercials created for mass marketing and product
consumption. This series can be read as
multiple forms of poetry from Conceptual to Visual but also including Language
and Ethnopoetic elements as well.
Who would have thought that being forced to stay after
school and write, repetitively, on a chalk board a single sentence of something
you will no longer do could actually be considered one large poem? Ara Shirinyan presents to the audience that
exact notion in the piece 2005 Resolution: I promise to write better
poetry. In this poem we are
presented with the same sentence over and over again, sprawling across many
sheets of paper which reads “I promise to write better poetry”. As one reads each line and hears themselves,
internally or externally, saying the sentence over and over again there becomes
a detachment from ones recognition of their physical presence. The poem becomes somewhat hypnotic and we
find moments where a word is spelled in a different manner than that of the
previous sentence. This alteration helps
to break up the hypnotic cadence of the repetition and allow for us to
re-assert ourselves in our physical state.
Juliana Spahr selects this piece and puts it at the top of
her list of ten, yet there is no artist or author credited for the subject
matter. The Ultimate guide to surviving
in almost every country, Learn to say “Penis” in over 50 Languages! will
surely provide you with that one, crucial, element you've been missing on all
of your travels. A simple flyer, which
informs the reader that if they were to send $2 and a self addressed stamped
envelope to an address in New York, then they will be rewarded with all 50
translations via mail service. This can
be viewed as poetic yet I would actually claim it as a form of participatory
art which uses elements of poetry to attract and invite people to participate
in the piece. The words and the
formation of them can be viewed as one form of poetry while another form,
romanticized through this mail-order approach, can be viewed as poetic in its
actual and metaphorical forms yet the overall investigation and participation
are what take it to the level of participatory art.
Drexler's presentation on The New Scale is one of
many entries to “Configurations of the New World: the end as we know it.” and
also probably the shortest of all yet Drexler presents to us a clear cut truth
about what is and what could be and how easily a new shift in human life, one
for the better, seems to appear so near.
We know that there is no chance of making the earth a garden, not while
we're around. The earth will return to a
garden once we occupy it no longer. He
speaks of the dreams we have, in open regions surrounded by mountains and
mother nature, yet the reality is that those places are almost extinct from how
we once knew them. He fetishizes the
dreams and then destroys the hopes and curiosities which they bring through
reminding us that they are purely fantasies and be being a guide for us to ultimately
discover the true realities of life and that those dreams will likely never
become real.
http://www.ubu.com/aspen/aspen9/luma.html
Don Snyder's Lumagraphs remind us of contact sheets from a photographers archive mashed something out of a Bond movie introduction. The figures portrayed as nudes with different seductive colored lights projected on to their bodies speaks to the desires we all harbour within us, whether they are sexual or not, it is quite clear that these images are meant to provoke a lust for something. Without using any words Snyder is providing us with a visual language, a language based around desire, a thought or an urge. We require not the play by play walk through analysis of each individual photo or the entirety as a collective but simply the amount of time our brains designate necessary to fully receive the body of work. We can view each individual photograph as its own form of poetry by really focusing on what is taking place within the frame and we can view the whole collective as another form of poetry. The two may tell similar stories and also always be able to hold their on by themselves.
Don Snyder's Lumagraphs remind us of contact sheets from a photographers archive mashed something out of a Bond movie introduction. The figures portrayed as nudes with different seductive colored lights projected on to their bodies speaks to the desires we all harbour within us, whether they are sexual or not, it is quite clear that these images are meant to provoke a lust for something. Without using any words Snyder is providing us with a visual language, a language based around desire, a thought or an urge. We require not the play by play walk through analysis of each individual photo or the entirety as a collective but simply the amount of time our brains designate necessary to fully receive the body of work. We can view each individual photograph as its own form of poetry by really focusing on what is taking place within the frame and we can view the whole collective as another form of poetry. The two may tell similar stories and also always be able to hold their on by themselves.
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