This charming videopoem using (I presume) archival footage is a video trailer for a chapbook by B.C. Edwards, To Mend Small Children, from a new publisher called Augury Books.
This is just about the most inventive typographic animation I’ve even seen — a gorgeous and moving tribute to the power of Polish poetry by American-Irish poet and artist Alice Lyons and Irish artist Orla Mc Hardy. The film has its own website at thepolishlanguage.com, whence the following description:
The Polish Language is an animated film-poem about the subversive force of art and the renewal of poetry in the whispery language of Polish.
Based on the poem of the same title, the film pays homage to the revitalization of poetry in the Polish language in the 20th century. Using hand-drawn, stop-motion and time-lapse animation techniques, the poem unfolds onscreen, with typography as a key visual element. It visual style is loosely based on underground publications in Poland in the 1970s and 1980s, known as Bibula. A chorus of voices sampling poems in Polish, woven together with original music by sound designer Justin Spooner, combine to create a powerful score in a film of ’emotional depth and technical sophistication’ (Jury, Galway Film Fleadh 2009, award for Best Animation).
The Polish Language is at once a playful and solemn journey into the sensuality, beauty and power of language.
Lyons wrote the poem, while Mc Hardy took the lead on the animation. For full credits and a list of screenings, see the website’s About page. The poets sampled in the soundtrack are Tadeusz Różewicz, Zbigniew Herbert and Wisława Szymborska.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpwahVK9QCg
The poem by London writer Mikey Fatboy Delgado is performed by Foy Migado and Kemoe Hopscotch. See YouTube for the text of the poem.
http://vimeo.com/12127670
Thare are Chapters 6, 8, 11, 20 and 21 of Mark G. Williams‘ erasure-poetry project The Disappearing Line, which he described in an email as follows:
These evolved from using white-out to turn junk mail into found poetry; currently and with these I used popular novels, working backwards from two such novels, one word at a time and making sure plenty of space separates my choices to avoid ‘stealing’ phrases, and working until I get 100-word sentences. I count on short-term memory loss and the use of the text of others to force out phrases and sentences that I likely would never have heard or written otherwise.
Chapter 20 was part of a display at the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art called Looking Forward: Ten Artists to Watch, from June 14–July 7, 2012. Watch all 30 chapters on Mark’s Vimeo channel.
Martha McCollough writes: “A love poem in the voice of a surveillance satellite. Built in aftereffects, Sound design in Logic.”
http://vimeo.com/43368324
Canadian artist and videopoet Valerie LeBlanc‘s latest video. Here’s how she describes it at Vimeo:
A summer parade opening the Calgary Stampede celebrations, 2001 is presented in triplicate. The visuals provide a focus for reflection on events that only weeks later marked changed levels of social innocence.
Missing Parade Notes was assembled and edited into a short video documenting highlights of the parade. Slow motion and colour treatment were added to age the footage. The result is reminiscent of archived film footage from an earlier time. The video was then assembled in triplicate as a base to carry the poetry text. Recently composed, the text message appears to have been added using analogue typewriter technology. Overall, the intention is to span the time disconnect and the reaction to past events. The audio component is a mixed cacophony of music and cheering rising up to the spectator.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42Irujr2nWI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R67JpJ76_04
Two excerpts from a 15-minute film called The Inventor’s Last Breath, which premiered at the 2011 CinePoetry Festival at the Henry Miller Library at Big Sur. The film, by J. Hope Stein, is based on her chapbook Talking Doll. Stein blogged this about the first excerpt, “Tiny Men”:
The audio and video are comprised of the some of the first wax cylinder and moving image recordings made by Thomas Edison in the late1880’s- early 1900’s including footage of an elephant Edison had publicly electrocuted as part of a scheme to drive one of his competitors out of business as well as the first kiss ever recorded in moving image.
As far as audio recordings, I used a recording of a man singing into his private phonogram which has a really personal quality, as if he is singing as he mows the lawn or in the shower. I also used an audio recording of Handel’s Israel in Egypt – labeled “ A choir of 4,000 voices over 100 yards away” which was recorded at the Crystal Palace in London in 1888 and has the eerie sound of a lost civilization trying to communicate specifically with us in this moment as their voices time travel through the distressed materials of the early phonograph cylinders.
And about the second excerpt, “The Insomniacs,” she wrote:
All of the music and moving image is sampled from early archived recordings by Thomas Edison. (Except for the song at the end by Broken Bells).
The footage in this clip is just slow motion of a windy city day at the foot of the Flatiron Building in New York City in 1903.
A new videopoem by Heather Haley, and her first produced in full collaboration with her son, Lucas Raycevick, as editor. Here’s the description at Vimeo:
Fierce, full of stiletto irony, verve–yet rife with sensitivity–“Whore In The Eddy’ explores a winding road of twisted fates. “There but for the grace of God go I.” Two women, one forsaken, the other spared. Two tales told though images of a lush, denuded forest littered with fallen giants, cut short like the lives of so many women.
Heather also blogged about the making of the film in some detail. An excerpt:
I tried to find found footage but matching it with ours didn’t work as my 17-year old son/editor pointed out. He’s been helping me on videopoems since age eight, but this is our first real collaboration, a challenge in and of itself but mostly highly gratifying. He kicks my butt! Will not allow shots that are too shaky or out of focus. So funny. I said, hey, I’m not trying to be Steven Spielberg. I will make choices you wouldn’t. We argue for a bit and he wins. ‘Cause he’s right. We have standards. That’s my boy. He amazes me; taught himself to edit video at age ten, began producing machinimas and has had his own YouTube channel since. He’s got a lovely podcasting set-up going too which he allows me to use sometimes. We’ve developed a system in the house so he remains undisturbed while recording. He places a funky beaded necklace—a souvenir of Hawaii—on the door handle. I’m so lucky, he’s a great kid and he works cheap; the third major challenge, a zero budget. (I’ve spent fifty bucks on a dress and seven bucks on flowers.) We barter. I copy edit his fan fiction in return for video editing services.
British Columbia-based poet Al Rempel made this film with post-production help from Steph St. Laurent of VideoNexus Productions. The text is from Remple’s collection understories.
Another animation from Martha McCollough‘s erasure project Grey Vacation.
Poem, music and film are all by Forrest Gander.
Brazilian poet, performer, and visual and sound artist Marcelo Sahea produced the text, did the reading and made the film with the help of some crowd-sourced footage:
During two months, some friends and interested people were invited to participate sending short clips of its naked bodies filmed by themselves with any types of cameras. Some of these images are part of the work that you will see.