Poetry Reading

by Alex Hetherington, 9 Jul 2008

The Village Voice group met yesterday to undertake a performance poetry reading in homage to the Poetry Room at Falkirk Cultural Center in San Rafael, California. We’ll have the images and video online in short extracts soon, at the main blog, with longer versions on a dedicated web site electronic version of The Voice.

We had readings from a number of Scottish poets, of course Robert Burns, but also from Sylvia Plath, Thom Gunn, WH Auden, ee cummings, Dylan Thomas, and on the table but never read a wonderful work Supermarket in California from Allen Ginsberg.

The women did these poets proud and I think it’ll make an interesting contribution to The Voice.

On Mineral Park, and Garlands, more print to the presses, and me at home today working on the catalogue. I’m really happy to be bringing all the artists productions to this project, I really enjoy all the pieces and I hope it works: commingling and synchronizing so much video and sound from a broad range of practices and conditions. John Sebastian Vitale’s work, the American Voodoo with a car on bottles, has a nice connection to the film for Meddle with the Devil, my Falkirk Voodoo work/performance. I have a feeling though that this video installation will make for some very difficult experiences for the audience, especially since it self-generates on different loops, there maybe times when there is little to see and conversely, at other times, hugely contrasting sound and video playing simultaneously. There is a lot of noise in the show and the descriptions of materials related to the voice, language, misinterpretation and representation. The misinterpretation that led to a plane collision, to a set of crimes and 14 years in enforced hospitalization, speech, gender and sexuality assumptions brought on by pronunciation. Which are all delivered by Michelle, an electronic voice generator on the PC at the studio/office/sounding box (the door, the door, which bangs like a mini-earthquake every time someone uses the corridor between the spaces in the building.)

I am making little signs for the show, Neon John, Mineral Park and Cocteau Twins, little door nameplates. White on red.