Christian Bök

This is an online flash version of Chapter E .

WARNING: IT IS INTERACTIVE

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This picture of Christian Bök during his marathon reading of Eunoia:





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Last night I was thumbing through Chirstin Bök's lexical exprmnt:

(I am quoting now straight from blogcritics.org's Mike Daley)

Eunoia. I picked this book up, with its accompanying CD, at Word on the Street in Toronto a couple of weekends ago. The deal is that Bök (pronounced "book") has written a novel that uses the five vowels, but only one chapter at a time. So chapter one is "A", and all of the words in the chapter contain "a" as their only vowel.

It's quite amazing what he does, and clearly virtuosic, which I like. Now, as a guy who can't tell his metonyms from his synecdoches, I am loath to offer much in the way of criticism or analysis. I'll leave that to bookish English-teachin', poetry-lovin' babes, in whose company I like to be seen.

Let me just say that to hear this stuff read aloud, as the author does on the disc, is a striking sonic experience, and very interesting from a musical standpoint. Here's why. With the constant reiteration of the short and long forms of one vowel, albeit punctuated with a variety of consonant closers and openers, a kind of rhythm and melody emerges. Vowels ARE the carriers of tone in language, doncha know. Of course, this melody and rhythm is always present in spoken language, and implicit in written language as well. But the sameness of the vowel sounds (which are really just timbral profiles, which are themselves just formant registers [language babes love when I talk linguistics]) really points up the musicality of the speech.

What's interesting too is that Bök doesn't shy away from giving affective labels to the different vowels ('u' is obscene, apparently). All of this, in my bök, is a recipe for fun. I'll be chewing on this one for a while. Side note: I'm reminded of one of my mum's (9 months gone yesterday) favourite jokes, which is in the form of a newspaper headline: "'Sex before marriage? Not in my book!' claims angry Noah Webster...."

Takeshi Murata

I was reminded by Ivan and Eric that Takeshi Murata (American, b. 1974) is featured in the Hirshhorn Black Box circa right now. Nick and I went the other day and were blown away. Who needs drugs when you've got this brand of hallucinogenic video art right in front of you? Of course, then one can't help but wonder about the coupling.

Murata digitally re-works and re-joins various motion picture images individually rendering and altering the pixels into his own creation. Described as "electronic painting," the effect is like "visual quicksand."


I'm not sure if there is much better than a pixelated psychedelic soup where a huge beast emerges. Oh wait, I think there is something better: an epileptic pink dot where Rambo emerges. I can't stop thinking about manly entities disguised as cubed rainbows flowing out of waterfalls!


In Monster Movie (2005), Murata samples from a video of the B-movie Caveman (1981). In Pink Dot (2006) we get Rambo. Also, the music in each piece couldn't have been a better fit. Monster Movie, 4 min: sound by Plate Tectonics. Pink Dot, actually a 5 minute loop: 20 minute soundtrack by Robert Beatty


Here's a little taste of "Pink Dot" though without all the movement this is near pointless:

Avant-garde shorts from 20's-30's: Central Europe

I barely made it in time, but managed to get over to the The National Gallery of Art (Washington DC) to see the "avant-garde shorts" part of the series "Modernity and Tradition" in the large auditorium. I love that auditorium. And it was such a pleasure to be able to see these films there in their original format.

The program included works from Hans Richter (of course, a staple), Jerzy Gabrielsky, Jerzy Zarzycki and Tadeusz Kowalski, Stephan and Franciszka Themerson, Alexandr Hackenschmied, Elmar Klos.

Thanks to UBU, here's a little taste of what I saw:







I wish I could share with you my favorite: "The Highway Sings" by Elmar Klos! It's a four minute Czech tire commercial from 1937. It starts out with the tire-maker singing about how happy he is to have made his little baby, and that it will grow-up adn be ready to serve its master. Then he sets the tire free- it then sings while rolling over hills and bouncing and rolling through streets. The tire sings of being so excited to find and serve it's master. Then rolls right into the hands of a mechanic who proceeds to promptly put the tire on a car. Then the tire is rolling under the car and is singing about how happy it is to have finally made it. So great.

Pipiloti Rist

Ivan and I went to see Pipiloti Rist's exhibit at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Rist's video art has come to be a real inspiration for me. It was nice to see them not on my computer. Her installations floored me.

One of the most impressive installations was entitled "Apple Tree Innocent On Diamond." It's pure magic. The projection light creates shadows from the large and intricate tree branch structure as well as the various items hanging from the branches (a plethora of interesting shapes in movement). Oh but it's not done. The light also bounces off the various plastic objects creating illuminations- beautiful ghosts that dance around the room.





"Selfless In The Bath Of Lava" still haunts me in the best way possible. You are walking around and somewhere you here someone pleading in different languages aside the sound of fire burning. You walk one way and it grows fainter, the other and it grows louder. So you walk towards it, naturally, trying to find it. But where is it coming from? Well soon enough you will look down and see a tiny little woman pleading to you from a hole inside the wood floor. The video could only be about 4 by 4 inches or so (but I'm bad with measurements). It's teency! And that's part of it's power. It brings you to your knees, literally. She is naked looking up at you from a pit of fire. On the looping soundtrack, Rist cries in German, French, Italian and English: “Help me! Excuse me! I am a worm and you are a flower. You would have done everything better.” And what can we do? Nothing. We are powerless.





Fortunate enough to see these? Here's a compilation from UBUWEB of Rist's videos.



What you saw:

* 1992 - Als der Bruder meiner Mutter geboren wurde, duftete es nach wilden Birnenbluten vor dem braungebrannten Sims - 4 Min.
* 1999 - Aujourd'hui
* 1993 - Blutclip - 2:50 Min.
* 1988 - (Entlastungen) Pipilottis Fehler - 11:10 Min.
* 2003 - I Want To See How You See
* 1995 - I`m a Victim Of This Song - 5 Min.
* 1986 - I'm Not The Girl Who Misses Much - 7:45 Min.
* ? - Lullaby
* 1998 - Oasis Dance, Sipping My Desert--Santa Fe, New Mexico
* 1996 - Mutaflor
* 1992 - Pickelporno - 12 Min.
* 1998 - Regen Spot Sverige
* 1987 - Sexy Sad I - 4:36 Min.
* 1990 - You Called Me Jacky - 4 Min

(http://www.ubu.com/)