This is the first photo-reading…
This is the first photo-reading that I really love. Even the less-than-professional reading works perfectly for me.
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Ren Powell
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Ren Powell
For Advanced Digital Poets…
Have you seen this on the Harriet Blog?
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Dave
No. Looks like the sort of thing one needs advanced degrees to fully appreciate, but interesting nonetheless. The music in the video almost drove me nuts.
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Dave
It aspires to fulfill both Johanna Drucker’s definition of the artist’s book and Katherine Hayles’ concept of the technotext, both of which interrogate the materials of their own creation. This letterpress-printed and hand-bound chapbook interrogates, yet takes part in, the reverence for hand-made books in an era when literature is becoming more widely available in screen-based digital formats.
Gosh, that’s a lot of interrogation! It’s like the Gitmo of poetry chapbooks.
The poems—a series of cryptic letters between two lovers, P and S—do not exist on either page or screen, but in an augmented reality only accessible to the reader who has both the physical object and the device necessary to read it.
Cool. That way they can exclude not only non-academics, but also the insufficiently technophilic (not to mention the impoverished). That should eliminate almost everybody with an interest in poetry. Wonder why they didn’t just go for the gusto and print it in l33t-speak while they were at it?
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renkat
LOL. I just liked the pretty pop-pop pig poem.
I turned the sound off. God-awful.
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Ren Powell
Festivals with Videopoetry
Biannual festival Zebra in Germany http://www.literaturwerkstatt.org/
VideoBardo In Argentina http://www.videopoesia.com/(I am having a difficult time finding annual or biannual festivals. Seems most are one-offs and it’s not always easy to find the year on the webpage. A lot of information out there is terribly outdated.)
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Dave
Here’s one I discovered just now by searching “video poetry” on FriendFeed:
http://citybreathproject.blogspot.com/2010/05/city-breath-opens-in-cape-town.html -
Dave
And that led to this: http://www.africa-in-motion.org.uk/
“Africa in Motion (AiM) is an annual African film festival based at Filmhouse Cinema in Edinburgh, Scotland.“Africa in Motion 2010 is taking place from 21 October to 5 November.” Not a specifically vidpo festival, but I gather from a comment on their Facebook page that they’re interested in the genre — they’re hoping to screen the Citybreath Project films this year.
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Dave
Edinburgh seems like a real centre for videopoetry. http://thiscollection.wordpress.com/about/
I think they’re planning more live events as more films are completed for the project, but I don’t see any mention of an annual festival yet. -
Dave
Heather Haley has been organizing an annual videopoem festival in Vancouver for the past ten years: http://heatherhaley.com/visibleverse.php
Looks like it’s held in November.-
renkat
I was looking for this one!
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Dave
Here’s an English-language link for the ZEBRA Poetry Festival in Berlin:
http://www.nmartproject.net/netex/?p=1967 -
Dave
There’s a Sadho Poetry Film Festival in New Delhi that’s been held twice now:
http://sadho.com/?page_id=1699 -
Dave
The Comma/Version film festival is an annual event for poem films and short-story films from the Northwest of England. http://www.versionfestival.co.uk/taking-part
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Ren Powell
Towards Definitions of Genres and Art Forms?
I have just begun brainstorming with a Cuban actress for a project that will include her live performance, multimedia and poetry. It has me thinking about the characteristics of the various art forms on their own and how they will work together, can work together and whether they are “collaborating art forms” or elements from differing art forms that collaborate to create a single art form (in this case Performance).
Isn’t this the same kind of question we are asking about video technology and poetry?
Despite my own penchant for the written word and visual impression of the written word as intrinsic to some poems, I concede easily to the idea that poetry is also defined as the metaphoric use of language and can be an exclusively aural experience.
However, is it possible to have a “videopoem” that has no words or oral language whatsoever? Does it count as poetry if the words alone don’t convey a poem, but rely upon the visual elements to convey an idea? If so- is this poetry or is this “elements of poetry” (if so-which then??) collaborating with elements of film to create a new art form?
Isn’t perhaps videopoetry actually more like performance than poetry and therefore videoperformance?
(I am excluding documentation of performances here in my tentative genre).What are your thoughts?
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Viral Verse
Great question Renkat! It’s exactly what I’ve been questioning – how integral are the words in poetry? I see foreign language poetry films and sometimes I feel as if I’ve heard a gem of truth in my mother tongue.
For example: http://viralverse.net/wordpress/?p=2433 – a Ukrainian poet spills her poem and I don’t understand a word, but the rhythm, modulation, earnestness in her voice pulls me in – I empathise with a pain I don’t know but fully understand.
Poetry at that point is all about a familiar oral rhythm. But does your post talks more about the removal of sound, or perhaps human voice (and no written words)? I think you’ll be left with product that uses poetry in the metaphoric sense, ie the poetry of dance.
Or else you’ll create a product that has ‘words’ implied. If you have dancers dancing to no sound but their bodies/movement is rhythmic, then music is implied. A video with a specific message implies words, but its is not a poem unless there is the lyricism and other poetic structure to the arrangement of images/narrative. Dancers dancing willy-nilly does not imply music, but rather noise.
Looking back at your post I see I have veered off your point. Sorry – I think video poetry is poetry, because the visuals give an opportunity for more layering of meaning. We know this from how poetry is written on a page – it’s visual aspect, line breaks, stanza breaks add meaning.
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renkat
“…how integral are the words in poetry” this goes to the heart of it, actually. Is poetry a genre of literature or is it something else. I don’t mean to be ridiculous about it, but if one is defining genres, it is important how we use the term Poetry and what we mean by it. Otherwise, why isn’t The Piano a videopoem? It is poetic and reaches toward Aristotle’s definition of poetry. “short” isn’t a definition of poetry. If that metaphor that lets us reach toward something beyond the actual topic at hand is what defines “poetry”, then isn’t ALL art poetry? That’s pretty unhelpful. ;.)
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Dave
For some reason it’s never really bothered me that poetry can’t be precisely defined. Concrete or visual poetry often challenges my own, fairly conservative preferences, but that hasn’t stopped me from featuring examples on Moving Poems, and at qarrtsiluni as well. For me, yeah, poetry implies literature, but if visual artists want to call what they’re doing poetry too, that’s great. I guess I like messiness!
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Dave
V.V., I’ve also found and featured examples of videopoems where one didn’t need to understand the words to appreciate the poetry. My favorite example comes from the Icelandic performance poet Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl — and notice that he is reading for an appreciative crowd of non-Icelanders here:
http://movingpoems.com/2009/06/ur-orum-tobba-from-the-madness-of-tobbi/
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Viral Verse
Wonderful!!!
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Dave
Here’s another, in Japanese:
http://movingpoems.com/2009/08/hato-pigeon-japanese-word-play/
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Viral Verse
Wow! Great find.
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Dave
However, is it possible to have a “videopoem” that has no words or oral language whatsoever? Does it count as poetry if the words alone don’t convey a poem, but rely upon the visual elements to convey an idea? If so- is this poetry or is this “elements of poetry” (if so-which then??) collaborating with elements of film to create a new art form?
To me, it’s not useful to lump this into the same genre as what we’re calling videopoetry, though it is a related genre, to be sure. I actually run across examples of this fairly often while seaching Vimeo for recent uploads tagged “poem” and “poetry.” Not only do many filmmakers metaphorically refer to certain, lyric, non-verbal, non-narrative shorts as film poems or video poems; there’s even a new genre of haiku films which consist of three scenes of five, seven, and five seconds’ duration respectively.
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Viral Verse
Totally agree! Poetry is a tag thrown around to indicate lyricism, artiness, lack of narrative, or plain old self indulgent twaddle. I love it though.
This visual haiku sounds interesting Dave, any interesting ones you know? I’m going to look for some.
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Dave
Here’s one: http://www.vimeo.com/11038714 (Guy seems to have hatched the idea on his own, but he’s far from the first to do it)
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renkat
I really like this. If I were going to be a real pedant about it all – which I am, of course, I would propose a distinction between videopoetry and videopoem. Aristotle’s definition of poetics isn’t about “poems”. A poem is an art object and poetry is a affect of art. Have I got it now? And a term like vid-po (are you here Tom?) would then encompass both?
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Dave
Well, if that distinction makes things clearer for you, great. Seems a little Jesuitical, but come to think of it most Jesuits are pretty cool.
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renkat
I think I have an extremely reactionary almost visceral response to the idea of art being what an “artist does” and that an artist is defined as someone who dresses in black clothes, thinks deep thoughts and is lazy as all hell.
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Dave
(Geez, I’ve never searched Vimeo for “haiku” before — a lot of interesting stuff that isn’t tagged “poetry” or “poem.”)
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Dave
Here’s an example of the 17-second haiku video that also incorporates text:
http://www.vimeo.com/6318735 -
Dave
And here’s a compendium of 30-second video haiku by a guy named Charles Tashiro:
http://www.vimeo.com/7610657
In contrast to the previous example, here there are audio readings but no text. I like his description of the project:This is a composite version of a series of video haiku originally published weekly for a year at YouTube in 2006-07. This is the first time these have been shown online at full resolution.
Self-imposed rules:
1. Classic haiku format (5-7-5 syllable construction).
2. No more than 30 seconds each. A couple are slightly longer to accommodate credits.
3. Cuts and movement were allowed, but only within a single camera start/stop.Most of the shots were original for the project, although some dated from earlier efforts. The majority were taken with either a Canon GL1 or a Lumix FX3. All of the poems are original.
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renkat
These are really illustrative, on the nose and lack suggestion and can’t be poetry in my mind. And I really liked the opening image! How strange that when I read a poem I want to know that is a grackle and not a “bird” – but when I hear it I don’t want it named for me like that.
It has me thinking: the specifics in poetry are designed to create the mimesis that allows us to experience “poetry”, but when we have sound and images the words are unnecessary and can interfere in experience because it is pointing the viewer in the wrong direction (away from the mimesis and “a priori” poetry *apologies for the acadamese, I am in the middle of writing my thesis* and back to the intellect).
VV is this why you dislike words on the page, too? But you said you like the post modern intellectual aim of some artwork… I would like to hear your thoughts on this.
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Dave
Hey! There’s even a Video Haiku channel at Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/channels/vidhaiku
It was prompted by a forum suggestion from a Vimeo user named Blake Whitmam (does that sound like the name of a poet, or what?), http://vimeo.com/forums/topic:4778Structure – 5 seconds, 7 seconds, 5 seconds
Use only diegetic sound, no music.
Write your own Haiku, or use someone elses (make sure to credit!)
Either read the Haiku or title it into the video (5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables)
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Viral Verse
A smorgasbord!! I like Upside Down best on the front page.
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Dave
Yeah, there were a couple that weren’t too bad as poems. I kind of liked the one with explosions, Lines I think it was called.
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Dave
Okay, maybe there weren’t as many completely wordless haiku as I remembered.
Setting aside the issue of whether the 17-syllable definition of a haiku in english makes any sense, I’m not sure that I like trying to convey the feeling of a haiku with a very short film. To me, haiku is all about concentration, focused attention, better expressed perhaps in one very long shot, with the poem coming (either as text or audio) at the end. That was the approach of this vidpo for a Ryokan haiku:
http://movingpoems.com/2009/05/haiku-by-ryokan/
and I liked it well enough to imitate the style in a couple of my own videopoems, such as http://www.vimeo.com/6269148-
Viral Verse
Thank you so much for finding all of these – loads to look at!
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renkat
It makes sense to me that the haiku poetry film should be wordless. Haiku isn’t supposed to use metaphors, it is supposed to be a whole that serves as a metaphor – as you said, through concentration and focused attention.
I think the Ryokan haiku is hilarious. I have no idea if that was the intention. If I rip it apart- I really enjoyed the hyper-awareness of my own attention span – thinking how much I enjoy watching things in nature really and how little time I give to it… then the haiku makes me laugh (post modern sticking it to ya!) – while I have been enjoying the view a thief has robbed me. Then the awareness of so what? The thief couldn’t take what is important. I think this works together a way that few manage to do and a way I would also strive to emulate!
Admonition has got to be one of my favorites of yours, Dave. The same kind of morbid, post modern humor, but with all the craftsmanship of a “pre moderisnist”
… But here I would have liked an opportunity to give the words the same attention that I gave the images because I figure they are on equal footing and they go by too quickly for me to process them with the same care I did the images.-
Dave
Haiku, classic haiku, were definitely intended to be humorous, even in the Basho school. I think people forget this, and latch on to Senryu as “funny haiku” in contrast to the others.
Glad you liked “Admonition”; thanks for the feedback. I agree that many of my videopoems end too quickly — that’s one thing I would definitely try to fix if I were ever to clean them up for submission somewhere.
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Viral Verse
Wonderful comment Renkat! So good I quoted you at Viral Verse, hope you don’t mind: http://viralverse.net/wordpress/?p=2462
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renkat
Not at all
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renkat
Another definition/description http://www.gerardwozek.com/video.htm
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Dave
Yeah, I like Gerard’s definition a lot. (Probably deserves its own post here at some point.)
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renkat
Does anyone know who this is: http://www.datawranglers.com/voices/poetryvideo/
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Dave
No. Good find. Kind of poorly written, but the links page has a bunch of things I haven’t seen. http://www.datawranglers.com/voices/poetryvideo/bio.html
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Dave
But oops, almost all those links are dead, or are to pages that haven’t been updated in ten years. Damn.
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renkat
Another definition from Heather’s Haley’s webpage: http://heatherhaley.com/visibleverse.php
“…My friend and associate Kurt Heintz, of e-poets.net and director of award-winning videopoems, states it much more eloquently than I can:
“Our extension of poetry into video seems only to ratify a deeper understanding, as poets and performers, that poetry rests in a continuous spectrum of expanded genres, each genre an amalgam, offering aesthetic expressions that conjoin text with some other creation. Poetry music. Poetry performance. Poetry theatre. Poetry film and video. Whole literatures in the cybernetic realm where the computer enacts by proxy the author’s will upon the text.
The breakdown of psychological barriers from literature on the page to literature on the stage was the public’s prelude to realizing broader rewards in media poetry of all forms. Poetry video is the public’s first step beyond. Even in its most essential form, it demolishes the old assumption that page and poem are one. We now know poetry is where you find it, in the expressions the world offers. We construct, save, and transmit these experiences for the future. Images and sounds now operate as words where we had no previous literature because the symbols of our poetry were confined to paper in the reader’s hands. So we have not the end of a literacy, but the construction of a new one: visible, audible, temporal, conscious, tactile, bonding author and reader by their gaze.”
She also says: I believe Jean Cocteau was the first poet to employ film. In 1930 he produced Blood of a Poet, usually categorized as surrealist art. Recently I read about “film poets” from the West Coast abstract school, James Broughton, Sidney Peterson and Hy Hirsh, the latter two collaborating with John Cage in 1947. In 1978 Tom Konyves of Montreal’s Vehicule Poets coined the term “videopoetry” to describe his multimedia work. Rather than get bogged down in semantics, I’d like to point out that I think in terms of moving images and don’t make a huge distinction between film and video. I have worked primarily in digital video as it is accessible and affordable, important considerations to a poet with a small budget and again, poetry exists beyond media.
Though most of us in the West are visually literate, it is brave—foolish some say—to adapt the oral tradition to a medium where image is metaphor. I’m drawn to it simply because it’s natural for me, having grown up with television and cinema. According to my mother, I sat with my mouth open through the entire 78 minutes of Jungle Book, my first movie theatre experience. It’s a powerful medium and I still can’t resist its lure. “
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Dave
Here’s a new videopoem without any words: http://www.vimeo.com/12149252
“This video was inspired by the poem Ambit, by Alex Skovron. The sounds of the words were translated into data that could be used and altered by a computer to generate sounds and images. This is an audio-visual improvisation created from that data.”
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Ren Powell
I am so excited that you are doing this. It seems much more appropriate that this discussion group grow from moving poems (no offense intended to the folks at We Write Poems).
I am new to wordpress, so it will take me a little while to understand it all. But it looks manageable. I think Nic’s series of 10 questions on technology. . .
Did you send David Moolten the link?
(It’s nearly 11 pm now and I am closing down for the night). Back in the am.
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Dave
Glad you’re here! I’ll be inviting David and a bunch of other folks, probably tonight. I think what I’ll do is encourage them to register while it’s still easy to do, then in a week or two change the settings so that people have to email and ask to be added before they can post. Otherwise the site will probably get overrun by spammers, and it could be a security risk for all my sites, too.
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renkat
That sounds wise.
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Dave 11:43 am on June 12, 2010 Permalink |
You’re right. I remember coming across this a while ago and being very impressed. Most slideshow-style poems on YouTube don’t excite, but ths does.
Viral Verse 5:29 am on June 18, 2010 Permalink |
Wow!!! The poetry adds greater depth to such a striking photo journalist story – reminds me of the photo stories from Life Magazine that used to transfix me as a child. I also love it when the reader chokes up near the end. Brilliant find Renkat!