Posts Tagged: Prelinger Archives

3 Erasures at War by Matt Mullins

12 October, 2022 by Dave Bonta - Leave a comment - Posted in Author-made videopoems, Kinestasis, Videopoems
Poet: | Nationality: | Filmmaker:

An author-made videopoem from earlier this year by Matt Mullins, who probably needs no introduction here. As someone who’s dabbled in erasure poetry myself, I was impressed by how well he handled that. There’s quite a lot of free footage of the 1934 New York World’s Fair at the Prelinger Archives, which I’m guessing might be what gave Matt the idea for the videopoem in the first place, but regardless, I think he made good use of it, taking a kinestatic approach for a pleasing contrast with the longer screen-times of the text elements. The soundtrack glues it all together, incorporating Hendrix’s rendition of the US national anthem from Woodstock.

Wanting by Rich Ferguson

13 August, 2019 by Marie Craven - Leave a comment - Posted in Videopoems
Poet: | Nationality: | Filmmaker:

Los Angeles poet and performer Rich Ferguson teams up with film-maker Chris Burdick to create Wanting, a tour de force of beat-style spoken word and mashed-up old films.

Rich posts daily at his blog, RichRant. The constant stream of inspired writing is marvelous, some of it existential, some political, some funny, frequently all three, and almost always on key.

The selection and editing of archival film is the work of a master. Any film-maker who has worked with footage from the Prelinger Archives will appreciate the countless hours that must have gone into finding all the shots, that are then cut to the fast rhythms of Rich’s voice.

Chris’s virtual home is at Patreon, where can be found a blackly hilarious account of his life and aims as a film-maker/writer/human. The synopses of his short fiction are alone worth the visit.

The ongoing collaboration between Rich and Chris has produced several videos so far, of which a small collection can be found on this playlist at YouTube.