Two free disposably printed ephemera
Just put together two small chapbooks. Download PDFs below, or send me a message & I’ll send you a copy. Danke sehr schön Jasper Spoelstra, for the cover art.
Natalie Häusler’s Case Mod(ification): surprise(d) meetings between poems, people, pixelated panels
“What I notice is that I architect my poems. . . . Rooms are not just square boxes. You design how people move through them and so that’s [a] projected imagination already of how you’re not going to live in a room, but how you’re going to go from one passageway to another.” Robert Duncan (from Duncan: The Ambassador From Venus, Lisa Jarnot, 2012)
Hesitancy upon entrance. The gallery floor is covered with coloured panels & there is a momentary natural uncertainty. Is this part of the art? & if so, surely it is not meant to be walked on. Inherent to the gallery experience, a para-part perhaps, often unnoticed, sometimes annoyingly defining (by its obstruction; for example, the famous Mona Lisa which can only be viewed from behind glass & a distance of metres). More often than not these restrictions are probably necessary; artworks are regularly defaced or stolen. A Rothko was recently vandalised, as well as a Picasso (whose defacer is, absurdly, getting his own art show); & then there was the overzealous janitor who ruined (or improved?) in any case, thoroughly scrubbed clean, an artwork that she thought was a dirty trough.
Rarely however, is the permitted distance of the viewer from the artwork, or for that matter the viewer herself, actively integrated as part of an exhibition. The Invisible Show (at Hayward Gallery, London) last year did contain some nice pieces that were designed to frustrate, provoke, titillate the visitor. In an essay about a similar exhibition Voids: a Retrospective (Centre Pompidou, 2009) the proposition is made of that, “Voids revealed that the exhibition is contingent upon space (architecture), language and memory.” Natalie Häusler’s work now exhibited in gallery Supportico Lopez recognizes and incorporates these uncertain relations between space, language, body, the viewer.
Not only is there a moment of uncertainty upon entering the gallery, when the visitor becomes part of the artwork before or probably while realising this is happening. There is another way in which visitors’ presence as absence, “out of sheer synthetic voids”, is incorporated into the artwork itself. As visitors move around the gallery, the coloured panels, which are not connected or stuck to the floor in any way, will inevitably begin to move around and get dirty. This means that the exhibition, which will last for a month (until 16 February), will incorporate the marks, movements, and moods of the visitors, the outside world, the weather. The shifting and shuffling of the visitors is recorded by the coloured panels covering the floor, “a stutter / a a a stutter on behalf of recreation” (reads Häusler’s poem ‘Balcony’)
thereby, in a self-reflexive loop, becoming part of the artwork itself. The exhibition thus reflects and incorporates some of the contingent processes of its becoming in the world, ”an excess of flaming fractures”.
The panels on the floor, I was told, go together with one poem. Other poems, with their own artworks of panes of glass are attached to the gallery walls.
Further, the poems have been recorded, each poem by different reader, and are played via small speakers. This means that as you walk by each poem–artwork, you are gradually enveloped, first by the static then the audible poem, and as you move on away, or to the next poem, you are released again from poem, into noise, commotion, new poem, exit.
Or perhaps you will wander over to the small alcove in one corner of the gallery, where you will find a book of watercolours created according to similar principles of allowing moments of contingency to interrupt and inform the creative process and final work. The book Watercolors is the result of a 1 1/2 year correspondence with artist David Horvitz, during which the two artists responded to each others’ drawings and texts.
Art exhibition, or poetry surreptitiously snuck into an art gallery? Not the most important or interesting question; nevertheless, the combination of text, art, installation, book, is unexpected, unusual, and fun. It also reminded me of another favourite artist, Mark Manders, who similarly combines art installations with text (& parenthetically, runs the amazing art / poetry books Roma Publications). In this case, the text usually takes the form of the work’s title. These titles are often very long, with words sometimes separated by foreword slashes suggesting a poem’s line break, or with ellipses combined with words.
Häusler’s exhibition, in its constant metamorphosis, is also reminiscent of Zeger Reyer’s rotating kitchen.
But rather than remaining a self-contained whole that turns on its own axis, Häusler’s Case Modification, as the exhibition’s title indicates, emerges as an open–ended process of becoming, incorporating and reflecting the surprises that it evokes in the world. Surprises, in part, brought in and imprinted on the art pieces by all the different visitors; but no less emanating outwards and leaving, in turn, their own impression on all the varying expressions and bodies of the visitors and by extension all their own separate worlds they eventually wander back to.
avant l’attaque après l’attaque
what will have been
beyond the bend
a history of hallelujah
castle of ecstatic pixilated
presence both more away &
imminent the tracers of the travellers
(or traveller? uncounted multitudes
sutured to one & one is counted
by the swarming stuff) pierced by
a muted roaring grace
Diffractions 2
Marsha Cottrell http://marshacottrell.com/
bone pop knuckle crack some variations
of her body’s grinds & snaps reverberate
in crazy ritornello she slides along
a pavement at both a centre & an edge
of certain sonoric constellations an
open-ended mesh of points of sound
becoming grinding bone her popping
knees the rain fat drops occasional
on leaves & smash on pavement tile
a creaking gate opens white picket fence
crow screech from nowhere horror film
car wheel chafes curb walking cane
scratches tethers lady, miserable
humbug beetle shell of sheathed wing
much like the day solid aquarium
which tremors momentarily all
of the scene including her body & desire
she steps through this sheet of shimmer-
ing translucent moment some wavves
of vibrant matter rip her into shapes &
wrap her bodies into perambulation
band of sisters kind of dervish 2 or
20 pairs of hands skin mostly naked
except for balaklava extend the circuit
of the body with sky with snare of music
instrument he sets alight on an open plain
in the middle of the middle of the city
his body er holt sich sonne scorches all
our sorry state deliberation sorry ass
equivocation he blazes his uncounted kind
of existence 1400 centigrade of desire
soot of his ashes the Manga ball of fire
incinerates the tepid plastic-wrapped press-
statement of a pink-shirted, flush-faced,
ham-eyed politician surrounded by
Mongolian steppe 1 1/5 million kilometers
of 50° degrees of freeze into visibility
compressed a baby pulls all over
her body boiling water her mother
turns the water instant into snow
she throws it out the yurt the water
stops mid air turns into powder
& drops down vertical Wile E Coyote
back to the drawing board schematic
schadenfreude shades of Freud
un friendly fire caught on your own
intra-cranial cross-lines ruminations
wrapped with bow-ties packaged
throw-away leaking the neon-coloured one-
syllabic words he dreams each snowflake
a different colour arranges crystals into patterns
trail of fairy Pollock dust fractal workings
without effort deliberate unplanned perfect
storm of smudges just outside & inside
of the lines interrobang?! Interrobang!?
semi-automatic rhythm in interrobang
flesh of words straight people made
from queer bits & pieces supine linear
recto / verso alongside parallel
the moonlight slides across the surface
flesh of words & quasi- partial pieces
no where to go against his body fists
open onto ecstatic marker thrown hands
outward he disappears his music is not
his it rushes from his form distorting
expectations of the people standing
reassembling signs new positions shapes
new time within a broken halted movement
if there is meaning they do not ask perhaps
some flows frozen lightning Ibsen
keeps a scorpion starves its sting
he can write when it strikes at sporadic
soft fruit in a jar on his desk there was
a poet in Rwanda Himmler always
had the Bhagavad Gita with him “I am
not far from condemning poetry dharma
with out being fully involved totalitarian
poetry redefines the very problem of violence
it is no longer me stabbing you a knife
in my hand as part of a cosmic dance
is moving in space I am nothing but
an observer living God God of the real
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
identify fanatical parts of the brain
influence someone’s belief by direct bio-
genetic intervention! biography of
bibliographer of biographies of biographers;
or biographer of biographers of biographers
beugh graphia many enough maps
for the moment would like one step
out of the refrain map the city according
to the senses eat at every restaurant
in high street pin the flags to scenes
petrol stations garbage trucks “all of these
autists come to language in poetry”
mindblinding objectile bud of an object
attends to its dance of its scene flower
travel story I need to cross-check with
mother uncertainty in the aroundness
already active within the field attentive-
ness of the environment to the environ-
ment I meant to affirm with these modes
of existence the person you have left
≠ the same person neuro typical in-
formation no cartwheels in the classroom
but how were the bodies before
the classroom took over? 2 + 4 must
equal 6 no reaction from the kid
he is treated as mindless separated
from himself because he does not want
to violate the numbers by naming them
straitjacket 6 like he is named impossible
autistic reduced to spastic wheelchair speak
his mind brings peace among the numbers
a commotion of relational activity
islands of self-enjoyment of the environ-
mental field quivers in disquiet of
the resonant field spinning around
& through the 4 + 2 vis a vis
the gateway that is moment
relational qualitative the autistic
boy cannot speak but writes
“The great united states of America
is breathtakingly not free equality
is not sacred because not everyone
has access to it freedom is not
as available as many people think
free people treat us as mindless
they underestimate us very badly
instead of reaching out to us
the creators of the declaration of
independence have wasted their breath”
facilitated communication all of these
autists come to language in poetry
the autist or the awrtist? indeterminacy
enabling constraints co-determination
subtends a vagueness that is
a determination to be determined
causal efficacy presentational immediacy
what occurs in the cusps on the edges
what are the conditions for it being what it is
the chaos is uninteresting the everything-goes
is not where we situate ourselves at all
strange elasticity of time in autistic expression
in the world where we live in if you can t
find the object you are not going to get on the bus
-
Diffractions
Wave passes thru surfer body
body whispers back into the wave
he is the medium of his words,
the gathered journalistos
bobbing heads the clutching pencils
groping pads just the one inarticulated
question magic shatter journalistos
feel their words & fail them finally
becoming lumpen porous proletariat
do revolutionaries surf? These things
have been possible for years now
antifascist first aid brigade sometimes
too late or not enough for a punctured body
toppled ambulance bulk of testosterone
ironed shirts walls of police in monster
gear forceful separations of the many
variations entropic movements
“miracles of anarchy” petri dish &
seeing sky eye zooming centimetres
moving into coloured static nano
fractions carbon atoms imaged right
before dem eyes pretty stuffed air
full & push swell vibration flitting tight
angles assembling intra-acting -ivities
inward collapse constant verge on-
side a ledge arrows pointing into
their equilibrium fish hooks catch hold
of the salt in the sea homunculus
little person & her wide open space
desert in the city everyone their own
absolute open brain folded into person
effigy of certain style friendship barter
whiffs of affect interlocking killer robots
no man in the loop speaking circles
self-reflexive fractal conversation
two human animals collide with force
of love subjecting their shared
& individual positions to sexed positions
difference wound & safe from harm
a pair of pairs of arms encircling cocktail
lulling chatter syncopated he sees
in her a kung fu fighter the tracers of her
circles charge his body forward chest
swan song shared days they spiral
around each interlocked & pushing
thru translucent mirroring too many
repetitions in this lover’s head dawn
dusk the empty bed they hurt her eyes
the body pulses with adrenaline yet empty
of its differentiating features such days
are never planned for & that it rains
sometimes Spielberg-machine “movies
are meant to manipulate people” emotion ≠
always cheap water flows in folds
& pushes carrying itself in shifting layers
forward so it seems the film hangs cut
in strips no heavy spool of acts rather
a rack with seconds separated ribbon curtain
made from feet of 24-image seconds the clock
both freezes in its frame & flows on regular
24 hours of one clock per scene per second
absence of linearity produces its own stories
continual reset playing on the screen leinwand
line-wand “Words have no power to impress
the mind without the exquisite horror
of their reality” “the movie will begin in 5 moments
the mindless voice announced… did you
have a good world when you died?
Enough to base a movie on?”
The Exorcist stretched over 24 hours
“Ghosts crowd the young child’s
fragile eggshell mind” the stories
include auto mutilation
Try to shoot yourself in the face
Handcuffed in a police car the coppers
Tell stories the stories include
Infractions on bodies protected
& destroyed by law the strong arm
through the door where you live
bodies manners of queer different
monsters in town what one needs
for another what it takes to become
ultra-evil very fine broken sprayed
dazzled blind fragile body slash / mind
suppositions tumbleweed snow a child
wails by her mother walks away into
the hands of pretty certain scumbag death
Maria Santos Gorrostieta mayor of a Mexican
Drug hole survives 2 attempts torture the holes
In her body of her husband subtracted ’I
wanted to show them my wounded, mutilated,
humiliated body, because I’m not ashamed
because it is the product of the great misfortunes
that have scarred my life.” gang of two
riddles 137 bullets into two individuals in car
the gang wears blue & badge of siren
Ich weiß nicht… bedeuten…traurig
A circle of strange friends reciprocally
Listen respond communal stutter
Strange fruit strange stranger face
Mirrored in bad places most every
Nearly where at close to over all
Cobblestone stories shiny curved
Opaque heelways repaved for
Fewer stumbles do rocks & stars live
From death or crumble into life?
exploding stardust bodies the creatures
reassemble centres overlapping disintegrating
circles a leaning forward into the scribbled word
prosthetic text organises its prosthetic body,
virus machine disperses evenly distance
in all directions phonemes into thoughts
piezoelectric crystalline administration
of routes enter the body of folded
outside into into inside the foetus
baby makes the organs fit inside
new places doors opening & unstuck
from all sides of the walls of the spaces
coming undone from surfaces grace
to wake up to & / or spiral away from
studying the blind spots she crashes
open fontanelle into solid surface
couples her infinite desire with a
series of the self-inflicted blows
constant gearshift of perceiving
angles of perceptions one wonders
about not everything to be said
she thinks alongside not about
scribbles her spacious time into the
thought that thinks her all
the people must be right telling
her exclusive stories circles of
Venn diagrams none of which overlap
what or from what surface? littered
with prepositions prepositionally
littered they share a city certain
shops, spheres of circumambulations
feasts of friends, but rarely interlocute
the words or even physicalities he dives
into his prime position palimpsest
of superpositions ducks into a corner
of the moment exploding rather infinite
traversing the contents of his head
& the uncounted singularities itself
emits uneven line intersecting right
angles & the perfect lineations determine
possibilities of people’s bodies puncture
the many affects of desire a finger
draws a line in dust & slips, regains
its constant movement a bulldozer
does chin ups from ledges wasted
proper heaps of chaos childrens’
utopic playground effortless re-
organization ecstatic questions
elemental pieces rubble
of their new beginnings part of
the landscape a flailing limb a
wailing father 5 cameras spent
& broken documents of technologies
of war love of recording machines
amanuensis servant from the hand
transcribes accident into his master’s
text the hand shifts apparatus into gear
“the mind is in the bones” I sees myself
From every angle except my window
To the world beside myself where I am
Not I needle of first person personal
Pronoun threads sutures gaps between eva-
nascent lungings after longings &
noisy machinations of the body crepitus,
…
A try at counter counter point
for gramma
Shifting plates of constellations, push of points into point against point after point against point. She sits straight & strong & fading. Plays precise with movements, yet with the mistakes, with the faults of shifting plate tectonic, grind of time inside the bones & skin & matter of her core. Presses piano into piano keys. Grandson, grown & in another room, not far, steps only, away. Spacetime curves perverted, the bodies one of grandson & one of grandma, into awful counterpoints of distances. She plays, already hardly there, no more; he hears both totally his memory & sees her fully in his sight; straight back, slender spotted hands, proud touch & smile. she forces point & counterpoint; she grabs him by the throat with memories of memory & distinct & precise charges staccato rushing, changing routes of veins; general rewiring; & tightening of cables where they were before unnoticed in their grind & chafe. He holds her in his arms smaller than a tiny human animal, becoming indiscernible, in singular position made purely up of speed, traverses infinite, condenses vibrant into being,
A try at growling mad
She slides against her wall, slides with her back into between a duvet & a white bed sheet; he growls at her, a slow continuous growl, almost a humming, coming from nearly everywhere, a plane of threat & squeeze into her face, a pretty pleasing gargling of the throat strings, love song on the disc of wind that cuts the air at latitude of neck & face. She stares, ahead, at him, through him, middle distance, into a spot of air behind the man, imagining the parallax, the shift, between her present middle-distance stare from tucked between the sheets & her stare at that same point were, in this same moment, she hangs, around his neck, with arms around his neck, head resting on his shoulder or on her forearms on his shoulder. He moves forward, throwing his body somehow right onto the bed, scorpion tail, snake head; she winces & she does not flinch a thing; his body ruminates, the body of his, moves left to right & back and forth, but slow as turtle pace & silent but with the pressure of a pushing draft & always facing her. His feet tell patterns, & when they stop his words take up a scribbling, that, meant perhaps as words or thoughts express a dog in heat, a dog that plays at terrified, is terrified of play. He walks away from, after hours, her room, basic four cornered deal, a simple wooden bed. She waits for him to enter his own house; she has already helped herself inside, sits on a bench that holds her well, around her piles of broken household objects. Extended arm, extended arm, flat face, erased from affect, she holds his head against her chest; he hangs the full weight of his head into her hands, he sobs with tearless heaves, he turns to right & fall his hands & fingers into themselves, into their lap, head hung down, with baldness pointing into his pile of broken mirrors. She walks upright, she trails herself behind, she wanders in a straight line, into outside his door. the bald head screams into its potted hands, practices some words, hollers hands; the body slump heaves hiccups all directions, all at once, faces face forward, widening his smiling face until it cracks,
