This Dull Chaos by A. H. Jerriod Avant
An author-made videopoem by A. H. Jerriod Avant, one of the three lead curators of a new, Los Angeles Review of Books-sponsored website and YouTube channel called Voluble, where the video debuted:
“this dull chaos” wants to track a very specific emotion, through at least a singular episode of social chaos, right down to the family function. an episode where the speaker wants to escape, if just for a moment, or from a cycle of these moments, even if that escape’s no larger than one’s own mind, if that be a measure. these moments, hell bent on frightening the psyche, remind me of the love we often run from, the love that we don’t always get to keep, conflict, peace and how this breaks down at the infamous and beautiful family gathering. the photographs seek out angles, similar to the way a spider web’s thread does. also in its construction, with a center, “like an ambition done sat up in you,” I once heard an elder Black deacon say. it explores this episode of social chaos while simultaneously commenting on episodes or cycles of social chaos we witness at large and outside the walls of the home. the photographs move chaotically, not caught by any one rhythm. their changes are responses to certain disruptions. the speaker is frantic and at times, seems to wish to get a signal outside this one house for help, even if that help is time, relief or any mode of meditation and or sense-making.
Voluble looks like a promising site to follow for anyone interested in multimedia experimentation. From the About page:
Voluble is an off-the-page makers’ space for writers and artists of all kinds. The channel aspires to be an outlet for experimentation, play, collaboration, and any other gestures that coincide with a visual or literary art practice.
Voluble hopes to shed light on the personal, political, and public lives of writers and artists from around the world.
Gallery space, incubator, laboratory, studio! Each week a different artist or artists will use this online platform to show us their world.
Everyone is invited to join us in making this space as open, challenging, and diverse as the world we hope to live in. We are actively seeking works and proposals, and would love to carry on a conversation about interstitial, interdisciplinary creativity.
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Dave Bonta is a poet, editor, and web publisher from the Appalachian mountains of central Pennsylvania.
