Tom Jenks

Manchester No Spy Zone anthology

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April 12th 2014 at Terrace Bar, Northern Quarter, Manchester Peter Barlow’s Cigarette held a reading to protest against state spying and the creeping erosion of freedom of speech. The pieces performed that night dealt with those topics and more. Manchester Poets Declare A No Spy Zone is the anthology that collects together the work first heard that night. New and original work from 14 poets features in the book: Tim Allen; Richard Barrett; Sue Birchenough; Sarah Crewe; Matt Dalby; Philip Davenport; Joey Frances; Tom Jenks; David Keyworth; Rachel Sills; Chris Stephenson; Scott Thurston; Gareth Twose and Steven Waling. The anthology also features a CD recording from Matt Dalby of his performance on the night – Mass Observation Live. Copies of the book are available from PBC Press.

Holly Pester: Telephone

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Wooden K2 Telephone Kiosk, Burlington House entranceway, Piccadilly W1J 0BD

19th September 2014 – 3rd May 2015.

The first red telephone kiosk designed in 1924 by renowned architect Giles Gilbert Scott is the site for four new sound works commissioned by Measure, a non-for-profit arts organisation. The historic structure installed under the entranceway to Burlington House, Piccadilly was the only wooden prototype made of this iconic design.

Marking the 90th anniversary, Measure will present a programme of sonic compositions by UK-based artists to be listened to through the telephone handset. Presented consecutively artists Holly Pester, Aura Satz, Dan Scott and Lawrence Abu Hamdan will each probe the cultural role of the public telephone, its technological design and its relevance as a site for solitary conversation within a bustling central London setting.

nick-e melville: ALERT STATE IS HEIGHTENED

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Collage has a long history in avant garde practice, from Picasso, Braque and Schwitters in the visual arts to Cage, Mac Low and Pound in literature. Marjorie Perloff, whilst noting its experimental origins, is dismissive of its current value: “What was once a revolutionary technique is now the staple of advertising and greeting cards.” Part of the reason for this it is now, in the digital age, so much easier to do. Cut and paste has replaced scissors and glue and the internet gives us all the library of Babel in our pocket. It is true, as Perloff notes, that some examples of collage are unambitious and uninteresting. It is also, true, however, that a lot depends on who is doing the collaging. nick-e melville’s work is very far from being a Hallmark message or a commercial break. Rather it is a sustained detournement of the tricks and tropes of advanced capitalism. It is a work of deconstruction in that it picks apart the smoothed texts of reification and commerce that are forever around us, but it is also a work of construction, taking these threads and fragments and weaving them together into a giant magpie’s nest. ALERT STATE IS HEIGHTENED is as dense as a cubed car in a scrapyard and as heavy as the Death Star. This is a text made of texts, artificial in its conception and execution, yet as authentic an expression of individuality as you are likely to find.

Read more.

Bruno Neiva: Dough

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‘The minimisation of structure mushrooms the crown crush of these poetical asides by the singular Portuguese avant gardist bruno neiva. The murderous accuracy that laser guiding systems clearly possess, but are not trained to employ, emanates from this taut, surgical work. It is a satire, a corrosive against double speak & offalous officialdom, with all the intensity of a brilliant visual poet taking to a more lyrical lingual poesis.’ SJ Fowler.

Out now on erbacce.

Mopha

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Sun 28 September 7.30pm £8, £6
 
How would you describe the space around a horse? Or lift a watermelon with your voice? This experimental variety show is the result of 6 artists and poets approaching the edges of language through miniature plays, live sound effects, language games and improvisation. Expect bad jokes, fractured speech, aberrant theatre and words under pressure.
Mopha is an art-performance-poetry collective formed by Holly Pester, Patrick Coyle, Emma Bennett, SJ Fowler, James Wilkes and Tamarin Norwood. Mopha pools and mutates the live practices of six adept performers with backgrounds in poetry, sound art, live art and sculpture to create collaborative, site-responsive performances.
Tickets are available from the www.richmix.org.uk website at the link above. This will be the debut performance of the Mopha collective. For examples of previous duo & triplet works visit http://mopha.weebly.com/work.html (for the likes ofhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-TiVTTfDuM)
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Following this debut show, the Mopha collective will be conducting performances in the latter part of 2014 and the early part of 2015. All six members are also part of the extraordinary new residency at the Wellcome Collection, called the Hub.http://www.wellcomecollection.org/the-hub/current-residents.aspx

Under The Influence

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Drawing on the scores, scripts and performances from films such as Woman Under The Influence, Love Streams and Minnie and Moskowski, Under The Influence is a live improvisational performance by artist Kathryn Elkin and artist-musicians Simone Congreave, Anne Marie Copestake, John McKeown and Ariki Porteous that explores the exchange between script and soundtrack in the films and compositions of John Cassavetes and Bo Harwood.

Notorious for a directorial style that encouraged actors to embody their character’s meaning using voice, gesture and interpersonal relations, John Cassavetes’ films have long been couched in terms of theatrical improv and noted for their absence of the traditional cinematic semiotics. Sound producer and composer Bo Harwood began his twelve year stint with the director in 1971, first credited as musical supervisor for Minnie and Moskowski and later going on to compose the soundtracks for Cassavetes classics such as Woman Under The Influence and Killing of a Chinese Bookie.

Though Harwood was an accomplished composer it was his unflinching, unrefined and emotive soundtrack demos that Cassavetes often took to the final cut. These scratch tracks the populate many of the director’s films provide their audiences with an acoustic mirror that doubles and bolsters the raw, gestural performances of the cast.

Setting the scene musically, Congreave, Copestake, McKeown and Porteous will deliver a blend of compositions written by Bo Harwood for John Cassavetes’ films, accompanied by and producing the conditions for Elkin’s impromptu obbligatos of remembered lines, dialogue and gestures.

Under The Influence is the final instalment of the Shady Dealings With Language series. It is devised by artist Kathryn Elkin and generously hosted by Rhubaba Gallery, Edinburgh.

Auld Enemies: a poetry documentary by Ross Sutherland

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The Enemies project: Auld Enemies was a transnational poetry collaboration where six poets worked in rolling paired to produce original works for readings across the breadth of Scotland and where in each event also featured numerous pairs of writers from the region, who also presented brand new poetry collaborations. Beginning on July 9th and finishing on July 27th, the project visited Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Lerwick and Kirkwall, before a wrapping up in London. Auld Enemies was a groundbreaking exploration of contemporary Scottish poetics through the potential of collaboration. Supported by Creative Scotland.

Syndrome 2.1: Choros

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Click image for more details.

A room-as-instrument devised by artist Jamie Gledhill with sound artist Stefan Kazassoglou, using an array of computers attached to X-box Kinect devices. This project brings together popularly available motion capture technology with 3D audio set up into a unique experiential and performative artwork.

The work will allow for the dynamics and speed of a users movement within the space form a live illustrative mapping on the walls, and for sound to be literally ‘thrown’ across the 3D space by a performer – and members of the public as active participators in their own performative moment with the work.

The CHOROS installation will be open for playing and viewing from 10 – 4pm on 22nd – 24th August. Entering the space, the movements of your limbs will be traced by light and sound across a 3D axis using projections and an ambisonic speaker array. Entry is free for all, and suitable for all ages.

A launch event will feature a brand new movement work by SJ Fowler in which he explores the ritual and violence of martial arts:

The Book of Five Rings by SJ FOWLER
The Book of Five Rings is an unforgettable exploration of physicality and martial spirituality through cutting edge avant garde theatre and performance. And while each Ring will be decidedly different, each a unique, responsive production to its subject, as a whole, they will form an unforgettable tale of a universal human expression, battle without violence, war without war.

no. 1: Pugilistica UK / US (western boxing)
A conceptual performance exploring the sport of Boxing. SJ Fowler takes the audience through a boxing workout with a different, shadow boxing with a complex, cutting edge technological rig, so that each movement has a responsive light and sound reaction. An exhausting, explosive performance of light and sound
The work will then be available to view from 21st – 24th August.

EPC@20

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EPC
Click on the image for more details.

 

Including Charles Bernstein, cris cheek, Tony Conrad, Loss Pequeño Glazier, Steve McCaffery, Myung Mi
Kim, Tammy McGovern, Joan Retallack, Laura Shackelford, Danny Snelson, Dennis Tedlock, Cecilia Vicuña, Elizabeth
Willis, & Wooden Cities with Ethan Hayden, in a dazzling array of stellar talks, performances, and conversation.

Yes But Are We Enemies?

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Beginning on September 18th in Belfast and visiting Derry, Galway, Cork, Dublin and finishing in London on September 27th, YBAWE is a multinational project about collaboration and innovation in contemporary poetry.

Six core poets, 3 Irish, 3 English, will present new collaborative works across the six date tour. At each reading they will be joined by numerous pairs of locally based poets. Every event features never before seen collaborative works.

Yes But Are We Enemies, co-curated by Christodoulos Makris, is fundamentally about the creation of new collaborative works and the integration of differing poetic communities, and has only been possible through the generosity of a series of organisational partners, first and foremost The Arts Council of Ireland / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and The Arts Council of Northern Ireland, through their Touring and Dissemination of Work scheme.

More here.

Marcus Slease – Rides

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“There is only seeing and, in order to go to see, one must be a pirate” said Kathy Acker. This is pirate literature. On a train. Partly inspired by Ted Berrigan’s Train Ride from 1971, Rides has a reality hunger. A mash up of memories and  observations on train rides all over the U.K. Out now on Blart Books.

Otoliths 34

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Online now, featuring  Ken Bolton, Anne Gorrick, Paul Pfleuger, Jr., Jessie Janeshek, Christopher Mulrooney, Richard Kostelanetz, Philip Byron Oakes, Steve Timm, Pete Spence, Thomas Michael Gillaspy, Jim Meirose, Jack Galmitz, John M. Bennett, Jim Leftwich, Jim Leftwich & John M. Bennett, Thomas M. Cassidy & John M. Bennett, Tom Beckett, Joe Balaz, B. T. Joy, Raymond Farr, Louise Landes Levi, SS Prasad, Philip Hammial, Cecelia Chapman, Bobbi Lurie, Pam Brown, Nicola Griffin, John McKernan, Natsuko Hirata, Shataw Naseri, Eileen R. Tabios, John Lowther, sean burn, Mary Kasimor & Susan Lewis, Stephen Nelson, Sheila E. Murphy, Michelle Greenblatt & Sheila E. Murphy, bruno neiva, Aditya Bahl, Andrew Topel, Leigh Herrick, Satu Kaikkonen, Andrew K. Peterson, Andrew Brenza, Marco Giovenale, Marcello Diotallevi, Jeff Harrison, David-Baptiste Chirot, Marcus Liljedahl, Felino A. Soriano, Jeremy Freedman, Carol Stetser, Johannes S. H. Bjerg, J. D. Nelson, Bob Heman, Francesco Levato, Mark Staniforth, Lakey Comess, Ong Sher Li, Kit Kennedy, Cherie Hunter Day, Texas Fontanella, Maureen Alsop, Marty Hiatt, Katrinka Moore, Owen Bullock, Joseph Salvatore Aversano, Susan Gangel & Terry Turrentine, Jake Goetz, Michael Brandonisio, Alice Allan, Chris D’Errico, sven staelens, Bogdan Puslenghea, Scott-Patrick Mitchell, Nurul Wahidah, Eric Hoffman, Spencer Selby, John Pursch, & Marilyn Stablein.