~ Video Library ~
Haunted Memory by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin
As an introduction to this piece, Haunted Memory by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin, it may be wise to first talk a little about what we understand to be a poetry video, or a film poem, or whatever term we might choose to describe a work that brings together elements of poetry with audio-visual media.
Over the past five years I have encountered, and sometimes participated in, regular discussions about this terminology: about what are the most helpful terms to use; and what exactly fits within their incompletely defined boundaries. My tendency of thought on such matters is free-spirited, and a bit anarchic, yet I also try to be respectful of the impulse in others to conceptually chart forms and genres. However I think this pinning down of creative work is useful only sometimes, and perhaps more in relation to practical issues of raising finance for festivals and events, than in enhancing the body of work itself. On the one hand I recognise it is desirable to be able to identify poetic audio-visual works we might include and embrace as part of an ever-growing body of artistic achievement in our field of interest and passion. On the other, I fear that tight definitions can become too exclusive, and even strangle or oppress possibilities for that we are meaning to nurture and grow.
Within this context, Haunted Memory challenges notions of boundaries. Cristina and Adrian refer to the film as an “audiovisual essay”, and that is the term used too by its publisher, Sight&Sound, on the opening title. The skilfully edited visual stream is made up of moving images drawn from scenes in the films of Spanish director, Víctor Erice. The crystalline selection of filmic moments, together with the precise montage that arises from their combination, obscures their cinematic origins. What we see in this re-creation is largely comprised of faces in subtle motion, especially those of children. Even without its soundtrack, I find Haunted Memory to be cinematic poetry.
This reminds me of an idea that has been proposed by many others aside from me, that film poetry does not always need to contain words. An example of this is a video I shared a few weeks ago, Snow Memory, by Australian poet and film-maker, Brendan Bonsack.
There is, however, a narration in Haunted Memory, spoken with a quality of interior softness. This was contributed by Adrian, a world-renowned film critic and theorist whose work has appeared in a wide array of major film publications, as well as in several books from highly esteemed publishers such as the British Film Institute. Adrian is one of the most imaginative and creative of film writers. He has been in love with the cinema for going on 50 years, and his texts often challenge boundaries between criticism, theory and creative writing. This is apparent in the text of Haunted Memory, written in collaboration with Cristina, a Spanish critic, writer and film-maker, who since 2009 has been a prominent artist in this form of film on film. Other parts of the soundtrack include snippets of breathy voice-over narration from the original films, again hauntingly poetic in text and affect.
Erice’s films themselves are easily seen as poetic cinema. In a way reminiscent of some types of experimental or avant-garde film, Haunted Memory creates a new, fragmented, and somewhat abstract audio-visual form from his work, at once beautiful and profound.
Editor’s note: the film and thoughts raised here have inspired an extended essay in two voices about poetry in film, the boundaries of genres, and the words we use to describe the meeting of audiovisual media and text, with a substantial reply from Adrian Martin.
The Angry Sleeper by Rosemary Norman
Stuart Pound and Rosemary Norman have been collaborating on videopoems for 24 years now, but their work has lost none of its freshness or surprise. When I click on one of Pound’s videos in my Vimeo feed, it’s with the expectation that it won’t resemble too closely anything he’s done before. And so it was with this animation.
“The angry sleeper stalks his dreams/hard from night to night”. Dirk Bouts’s 1470 painting of demons carrying sinners off to Hell is the starting point for this not-quite-serious animated nightmare. Pachelbel’s famous canon played on a musical box is the accompaniment.
The Hair of Literature by George Uallick and Zhanna Shibalo
A videopoem by the Russian Latvian collective Orbita (“Orbit”), made in 2001—I assume on videotape—and uploaded to Vimeo six months ago. Artur/Artūrs Punte and Diana Palijchuk are credited with making the video, the text is by George Uallick and Zhanna Shibalo, and The Trilobitum Coitus supplied the music. I love the fast-paced, playful energy here, making me re-play it multiple times despite not feeling that I entirely understand it. The main thing is, it’s fun and imaginatively shot and edited, and I remain intrigued.
One of my favorite poetry publishers, Brooklyn-based Ugly Duckling Presse, came out with an excellent bilingual anthology, Hit Parade: The ORBITA Group, in 2015. You can read Kevin M.F. Platt’s introduction, along with several of his translations, online at Deep Baltic. Here’s an excerpt that may or may not shed light on what exactly Uallick and Shibalo mean by “pits overgrown with ancestors” and “the hair of literature”:
Paradoxically, while they eschew nostalgia for the Soviet past, the poets of Orbita are the actual heirs to the legacy of cutting edge and experimental culture characteristic of Latvia in the last Soviet decades. Orbita is an intentionally trans-ethnic and trans-linguistic phenomenon. And this is one of the keys to its success: theirs is an avant-garde of cosmopolitan hybridity. In distinction from the majority of Russian cultural production of the Baltic region, these poets transcend marginality and provincialism by forming a literary bridge between ethnic enclaves, languages, and cultures.
Note: Long-time readers of Moving Poems may recall that I uploaded an earlier, lower-resolution YouTube version of this video back in 2011. Rather than simply edit that post, I decided to delete it and post afresh so others can enjoy re-watching it as much as I did.
Stander Under Anvils by Bronwen Manger
Set on a Melbourne tram, Stander Under Anvils is from Australian film-maker Martin Kelly, and features the luminous presence of poet Bronwen Manger, who speaks her text live to camera for most of the film. It is one of several video poetry pieces that Martin has produced in a media partnership with Ian McBryde.
As with many of Bronwen’s poems, there is an enticing sense of mystery here, perhaps even a suggestion of perversity. I find shadowy and unfamiliar meanings arising from the subtle twists of soft-spoken words, ostensibly directed towards a brother. The final, almost-not-there glance at the camera creates for me a perfectly sly ending to a piece that draws me in by being quiet.
Martin is best known in the international video poetry community as co-creator of Spree, a highly-regarded video of a poem by Ian. In Spree too, the writer appears speaking the text direct to camera, inter-cut with vivid flashes of associative imagery.
Martin says of the ongoing collaboration he has with Ian:
…We hope to provide both a window into the world of poetry for those who may otherwise pass it by, but we also aim at contributing to and developing the unique genre of video poems.
Ian makes an uncredited appearance in Stander Under Anvils, as a blind passenger sitting next to Bronwen on the tram, who suddenly turns to give her a key word.
Memory-Bridge by Shalewa Mackall
From film-maker Danielle Eliska Lyle and poet Shalewa Mackall, this is Memory-Bridge, one of the best films from the 2019 Visible Poetry Project.
The visual stream is jazzily constructed of “found footage” from various free sources. This is in sync with the sample-based hip-hop and house music referred to but never heard in the film. Narration is by the poet, who appears in the film as well, accompanied only by the warm sound of vinyl static—warm like her strong, expressive voice.
The poem is beat-driven, funky. It conveys myriad elements of cultural identity, past, present and future:
Who we are is undefined. Might be infinite. Variable. A mystery unsolved, but not yet ready to exit.
Gen.er.a.tion X, n. People born between 1960 and 1980. Some were alive with the last survivors of enslavement.
Danielle Eliska describes herself as a “black archivist”, her life’s work to tell stories of powerful women, the Black Diaspora and the state of Black culture. She is the founder of multimedia production house Meraki Society.
Shalewa Mackall belongs to a community of artists embracing Sankofa, a word in the Twi language of Ghana that translates to “Go back and get it”. The term relates to the Asante Adinkra symbol, often represented by a bird with its head turned backwards while its feet face forward, carrying a precious egg in its mouth. This symbolises moving forward in full awareness and embrace of what has preceded, historically and culturally.
Kepler’s Law by Christina Rau
From the Visible Poetry Project in 2018, this is Kepler’s Law, re-imagined as an allegorical animation by Dana Sink, and displaying a unique, graphic style.
The piece was written by Christina Rau, who describes it as “sci-fi fem poetry”. As a lover of astronomy, this possibly self-invented genre intrigues me, especially as it is expressed in this fresh poem, unusual in choice of language. As if to demonstrate the generic form in its title, Christina’s collection, Liberating The Astronauts (Aqueduct Press), was published in 2017, the year before the making of Kepler’s Law.
Among cultural involvements such as teaching and facilitation of writer’s groups, Christina serves as Poetry Editor for The Nassau Review. Dana’s animated videos are designed to appeal to his young daughter, who inspires his current creative work.
Wanting by Rich Ferguson
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.
Call for work: 8th International Video Poetry Festival Athens 2019
![The +Institute [for Experimental Arts] and Void Network present the 8th International Video Poetry Festival 2019](https://i0.wp.com/movingpoems.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Athans-video-poetry-2019-call-out-1024x630-640x394.jpg?resize=640%2C394)
The +Institute [for Experimental Arts] and Void Network
present the 8th International Video Poetry Festival 2019
at Free Self Organised Theatre Embros Riga Pallamidi 2 Psirri
DEADLINE 20 November 2019 – Athens / Greece
The +Institute [for Experimental Arts] and Void Network are pleased to announce that submissions are open for the 2019 International Video Poetry Festival in Athens, Greece. The annual festival will be held at the free, self-organized theatre EMBROS this winter, with the precise dates yet to be determined. Approximately 1200 people attended the festival last year.
The 8th International Video Poetry Festival will run for two days in two different zones. The first day will be the Video Poetry Show Room, a unique zone that will include video poems, visual poems, short film poems and cinematic poetry by artists from all over the world (America, Asia, Europe, Africa). The second day will be the Live Improvisation Zone with multimedia poetry readings, concerts with experimental music, and performances.
We are inviting artists – poets, video artists, directors, producers – who want to visit the festival to present their art project at the Theatre. We can provide accommodation for three days (one day before the festival, during the festival and one day afterward).
The International Video Poetry Festival 2019 attempts to create an open public space for the creative expression of all tendencies and streams of contemporary visual poetry.
It is very important to note that this festival is a part of the counter-culture activities of Void Network and +the Institute [for Experimental Arts] and will be a non-sponsored, free-entrance, non-commercial and nonprofit event. The festival will cover the costs (2000 posters, 15.000 flyers, high quality technical equipment) from the income of the bar at the festival. All the participating artists and the organizing groups will participate on a volunteer basis.
The Institute [for Experimental Arts] invites the artists and creators of video poems to participate from their side in our effort to cover the expenses of the festival without private or state sponsorship. For this reason, we propose to the artists the suggested donation of 5 euros for the submission of their video poems.
Void Network began organizing multimedia poetry nights in 1990. Void Network and +the Institute [for Experimental Arts] believe that multimedia poetry nights and video poetry shows can vibrate in the heart of the metropolis, bring new audiences in contact with contemporary poetry, and open new creative dimensions for this ancient art. To achieve this, we respect the aspirations and the objectives of the artists and create high-quality, self-organized exhibition areas and showrooms. We work with professional technicians, and we offer meeting points and fields of expression for artists and people that tend to stand antagonistically to the mainstream culture.
HOW TO SUBMIT
- Click here to download and complete the application form
- Your participation is FREE. Please, if you can, add the suggested donation of 5 Euro (or more) to the following bank account:
National Bank of Greece 04664860451 Iban GR2101100460000004664860451 Swift (BIC) ETHNGRAA - Please, send the submission material via email as following:
+++ via email:
your video poems in mp4 or mov file, definition(720 x 576, 1280 x 720, 1920 x 1080)
the submission form and photos in .jpg file
(all these in a single wetransfer file)
Email: theinstitutecontact [at] gmail.com
*please replace [at] with @ symbol to send email
You can use wetransfer.com or any other FREE SERVICE to send us big files. - It is very important to name your files (videos and still images, photos) as it is shown below:
Title of video poem
Artist’s name
Country - Be careful, you have to send only one email with the application form, the link to download, the video poems or the video poems archives, the still images of the video poems and any website of your art work projects
- We recommend you add English or Greek subtitles to your video poems even if the spoken language is in English as it will be easier for people outside the English speaking world to understand it.
We recommend you send your video poems over the internet. But if you prefer, you can also mail your DVD file to the following address:
INTERNATIONAL VIDEO POETRY FESTIVAL
TASOS SAGRIS
159 KREONTOS
SEPOLIA ATHENS
GREECE 10443
Please post it no later than November 20, 2019 (date of postmark) to the International Film Poetry Festival, Athens.
+ the Institute [for Experimental Arts] will inform you about your participation in late November 2019.
Documentation of previous events
Review of the 7th International Video Poetry Festival by Michael Mantas, Film Director
Photos of previous poetry nights organized by Void Network and + the Institute [for Experimental Arts]:
International Poetry Festival London Financial Consequences Festival- 9/2/2019 at LSE- Reviews & Photos
5th International Video Poetry Festival
SPEAK NO EVIL / poetry event in WEN. 21/10/2015 Thessaloniki
More photos from Void Network art, events and actions
Make America Great Again (Slogan) by David Hahn
A video collage by multi-media artist, Donna Kuhn, set to composer David Hahn‘s piece, “Make America Great Again”, addressing the contemporary political and cultural landscape of the USA, while alluding to historical ideologies of identity that have led to its present condition.
In a rhythm reminiscent of beat poetry, Hahn voices his own text in a rapid stream of hackneyed national slogans, turned upside-down and inside-out to powerfully convey the deranged zeitgeist experienced by so many US residents, and by masses around the world. His feverish mantras climax in the distilled and obsessive chant, “America, America, again, again, again, America, again, again”.
The video is made up of a kinetic array of visual elements including animated text, digitally-drawn art, abstracted numerical sequences, cartoon images, and superimposition of iconic movie clips with footage from World War II.
Hahn has been composing for 30 years, beginning as a performer on lute, guitar, and mandolin with groups such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony and Opera Orchestras, Boston Musica Viva, the Seattle Symphony, Musica Nel Chiostro in Florence, and the City of London Festival. He served on the faculty at the New England Conservatory, where he co-founded the Boston Renaissance Ensemble, which toured extensively in the US and Europe.
Donna Kuhn’s experimental videos have exhibited internationally since 2004 at film festivals, museums, art galleries and online on literary and poetry sites.
The title of the piece is given on its Vimeo page as “Make America Great Again”, with the titles on the video itself suggesting the alternative name, “Slogan”.
