Physical(2021)
Part performance transcript, part conceptual writing exercise, this project works from an extract from Andrew McMillan’s poem Protest of the physical. The original text was rewritten and recombined into multiple possibilities of form and content. The variations of this text were then recited – from memory – in a semi-improvisational way over a four hour performance that took place at Galleri SLAKT in Bergen. Focusing on the meditative pace and rhythmic intonation of the original poem, various alternative possibilities for the poetic narrative were imagined and explored, creating a generative palimpsest of poetic experience that was shared with the audience. Here, the text from the performance is transcribed, allowing the poem to further mutate and shift from the realm of the voice back onto the space of the page.
With an introduction by the original poet Andrew McMillan.
offset
130 x 190 mm
500 pages
edition of 240
2021
PUBLISHED BY:
Vibrational Semantics / TEXST
Vibrational Semantics focuses on the elaboration, documentation and investigation of the voice. The publications and sound works in the series explore the voice’s ability to shift seamlessly between signification and sonority, from speech sound to noise. Questions of linguistic ambiguity, embodied voicing and the feeling/ meaning are investigated in relation to the place and presence of the performed voice. So far, this has included visual scores, creative essays, interdisciplinary writing and sound works commissioned from artists, writers, performers and vocalists.
The project started as part of artist and writer Samuel Brzeski’s ongoing artistic engagement with Lydgalleriet, who funded the first series of commissioned text works, but is now an independent press run by Samuel.
TEXST is an art collective and publishing press based between Bergen, Norway and Helsinki, Finland.
We explore the presence of text in visual art in all of its manifestations. Our title, TEXST, embodies our approach – testing text-based work in any and all forms. Up to this point, this has consisted of workshops, residencies, and a series of collective and individual publications.
TEXST was established in 2016, and is currently Samuel Brzeski, Lucila Mayol, Robin Everett, and Pedro Riva.
