A note on : 10 years of sound poetry - HIPOGLOTE podcast

This is something I’m really happy with - a podcast in the remarkable HIPOGLOTE series, thanks entirely to the amazing Tiago Swabl - which recounts my ten years in sound poetry this year, 2010 to 2020. A unique audio document, I was invited to provide performances and commentary explaining my path though the noise poems as part of their Carte Blanche series.

It traces my first steps as part of the post Bob Cobbing Writers Forum, my early improvised vocalisation work with Ben Morris and Dylan Nyoukis and at the British Museum, then my travels around Europe working with Zuzana Husarova and Maja Jantar amongst others, then my Soundings project with Wellcome Library, my participation in the Palais de Tokyo sound poetry retrospective and works with British artists I admire like Nathan Walker and the legendary Phil Minton. All this with brand new works made for the show, loads of solo works I’ve dug out of my archive and cover versions of Cobbing and bp nichol, also new for this ambitious hour.

It’s pleasing to not only have had the invitation, but to have Tiago’s editorial assistance (he did it all!) in making this document. It succinctly looks back on so much work I’ve found myself doing in a field which has always intimidated / excited me and it’s made me realise things, in making this summation, that had escaped me. More than anything, it’s made me realise I want to do more sound poetry. https://www.mixcloud.com/Hipoglote/183o-hipoglote_2020-08-17_-carte-blanche_-steven-j-fowler/

A note on: my collaborators for European Poetry Festival 2019

As part of the oncoming European Poetry Festival I have the opportunity to collaborate six times with six poets from six places. With Maja Jantar, Patrick Savolainen, Fabian Faltin, Morten Langeland, Krisjanis Zelgis and Tom Jenks. From April 6th to April 13th, one week, I do six new performative collaborations. It is one of the most exciting parts of the fest, this constant collective creative output, in live settings, making new things, writing them, negotiating in cafes, changing plans minutes before the event starts, having to also announce the lineup, help all the other poets, work the venue, then perform too. Making new friendships also, I have never worked with Patrick, Krisjanis and Fabian before. Cementing friendships too, Tom, Maja and Morten are all very close and dear friends. It is obvious terrible for them they have to work with me but sacrifices must be made on the altar of poetry.

Check out when and where here www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/programme

A note on: Illumations - Thomas Bernhard at Austrian Cultural Forum

]another grand entry into this event series i'm lucky to be curating for the austrian cultural forum, this time celebrating thomas bernhard, an author who has always been important to me, seeing the world as it is, and not the plastic rendition of optimism that creates an opposite feeling in the hearts of those with their bloody eyes open. 

The lineup was really stellar, I got to work with the amazing Maja Jantar once more, and the equally inspiring Tereza Stehlikova, and discover two visiting austrian poets, Raphaela Edelbauer and Sophie-Carolin Wagner, who i had naturally researched but never seen perform live.

as ever what the artists do in these events, recreating the authors in question through such innovative means, is inspiring, and the ACF couldnt be cooler to work for http://www.theenemiesproject.com/illuminations

A note on: Lunalia: a lunar sound project with Maja Jantar

One of the most comprehensive sound collaborations I've ever undertaken. One month of recordings, an entire lunar cycle, Maja Jantar and I exchanged sonic responses to the moon over the summer, including poem, songs, found recordings, mixed for publication. I was the 11th collaborator in Maja’s remarkable series. This was a brilliant, often intense process, another lovely moment in a series of works I’ve had the pleasure to collaborate on with Maja. And as before, I learned an extraordinary amount working with her, with her in my mind as I tried to keep up to the daily recording schedule. I’m proud of the result, it’s extensive, a real record of a time in my life.

All 30 files with adjoining blogs are available http://www.stevenjfowler.com/lunalia

Week One

August 18th: Worm-moon Wormwood Scrubs is a place most in London would associate with its adjacent prison. Outside of London it’s hardly known. It’s where I go to exercise, often at night, especially in the summer. It’s totally dark, surrounded by a belt of light, and the industrial trains entering and exiting Willesden Junction. From the middle of the scrubs I can see the moon, first 2/3 blood moon, and by the end of my exercise, the full red moon. I took the recorder to the middle of the open expanse of grass, empty of people aside from the odd dog walker emerging from the darkness and let my exhausted breathing ebb as I watched up. By complete chance, a genuine coincidence, earlier in the day, someone had said to me that I should watch for the super moon that night, that the celts called it the Dispute Moon, others the Hunger Moon, Corn Moon and Wolf Moon....

A note on: Summer performances 2016 - Poland, Holland, Serbia, Georgia & more

Summer performances from Miłosz Festival (Poland), Tbilisi Literature Festival (Georgia), Krokodil Festival (Serbia), Poetry International on Vlieland (Holland), South West Poetry Tour, Parasol Unit, CapLet and European Poetry Night (UK). www.stevenjfowler.com

Praxis at Parasol Unit, London. A new collaborative performance with Maja Jantar, on an evening curated by Simon Pomery and Lala Thorpe. 

South West Poetry Tour: A collaborative poetry tour of Cornwall, Devon and Somerset. New readings and performances with JR Carpenter, John Hall, Matti Spence, Annabel Banks and Camilla Nelson www.stevenjfowler.com/southwest/

Tbilisi International Literature Festival, Georgia: brand new reading and performance collaborations with Luke Kennard, Eley Williams, Zaza Koshkadze and Lia Liqokeli. Curated by Davit Gabunia www.stevenjfowler.com/georgia

My Century / Mój wiek' at the Miłosz Festival, Krakow: a new UNESCO City of Literature Krakow commissioned performance with Tom Jenks and Weronika Lewandowska. Curated by Justyna Jochym. www.stevenjfowler.com/krakow

Krokodil Festival, Museum of Yugoslav History, Belgrade: 8th edition of the Krokodil Festival in Serbia hosted CROWD literature's Omnibus project. www.stevenjfowler.com/belgrade

Poetry International at Stortemelk, Vlieland Holland: Reading of new poems, translated by Tsead Bruinja, hosted by Tsead and Bas Kwakman.
www.stevenjfowler.com/vlieland

CapLet, London: A new performance with Prudence Chamberlain, launching the collaborative poetry collection, House of House. CapLet reading series is curated by Jonathan Mann www.stevenjfowler.com/houseofmouse

European Poetry Night: part of European Literature Festival in 2016, a new collaborative performance with Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir www.theenemiesproject.com/epn

A note on: Praxis at Parasol Unit - collaborating with Maja Jantar: July 15th

One of the most generous and definitive collaborative relationships that I have, working with Maja Jantar. She's so brilliant, and such a pleasure to work with, this collaboration, so full of play, of song, of physicality and intensity, really is the kind of work I want to do. Really great to do it with such a lovely audience at Parasol Unit and with the curatorial support of Simon Pomery and Lala Thorpe. A memorable experience.

A note on: States of Mind events I & II at Wellcome Collection: July 7th & 14th

A highpoint to speak and curate at Wellcome Collection for these three events as part of their States of Mind: Tracing the edge of consciousness exhibition. I've had the chance to bring together some of the finest neuroscientists, psychologists, artists, speakers and thinkers working today, and curate these evenings as complimentary in their differences, letting new questions be asked through the presentations, rather than trying to tie together complex threads on a very complex issue - consciousness itself.

The first event focused on poetry and consciousness, language really, and the second on sound and consciousness. Both were a pleasure to put together and amazing to witness. Daniel Margulies, Noah Hutton, Jen Calleja, Maja Jantar, Nick Ryan, Vincent Moon and John Gruzelier have all spoken wonderfully, insightfully and the sold out audiences have seemed engaged and pleasantly surprised by the variance of expertise.

I also had the chance to speak at the first event, talking about poetry and consciousness, which has been a concern of mine for sometime, in the sense that I studied philosophy with an emphasis on phenomenology towards the end and am always trying to probe at the why underneath my practise and the genre in general, especially through recent teaching experiences. Unfortunately during this talk I had to wear a headset and look like a member of a 90s boyband, but you can't have it all. I looked how I felt. 

A note on: Praxis 3 performing with Maja Jantar - July 15th Parasol Unit

PRAXIS 3 - Áine O'Dwyer, Maja Jantar & Steven J Fowler (duo), Cali Dux (Moot Press) Friday 15th of July, at Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, 14 Wharf Road, London N1 7RW
Third instalment o ivativ poetry serie, part of RH Poetics Research Centr
7.30 pm ∙ £5 suggested donation ∙ Booking require Please email: lala@parasol-unit.org

PRAXIS is an innovative live poetry series that seeks to bring experimental, digital, sound and visual poetry to the Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, inviting artists to perform original works and to collaborate in response to exhibitions at Parasol. This new series of workshops and events is curated by Simon Pomery and Lala Thorpe in association with the Royal Holloway Poetics Research Centre.

 

    A note on: Kakania Berlin – May 9th at Österreichisches Kulturforum

    A wonderful thing to be able to travel to curate something, to be able to leave my home and bring together artists who genuinely excite me, in Berlin. A chance to watch people who offer permission to push boundaries and to learn. Thanks to the generosity of the Österreichisches Kulturforum, I was able to put together a Kakania project in Berlin. I brought together 5 artists from across Europe and each presented a new work responding to a figure of the Habsburg Era, 100 years ago or so. We were in the grand performance space of the Österreichisches Kulturforum itself, just off Tiergarten, an imposing curved hall with giant curtains and high ceilings. The Österreichisches Kulturforum couldn’t have been easier to work with and the performances on the night had some real highlights, definitively making an impact on the audience with some of the best sound poets in the world interspersed with conceptual text performances. There was a really dynamic energy to the evening and a clear enthusiasm and intensity, as I’ve often felt in Berlin. Just great to spend time around so many artists I admire under such professional conditions, and to visit Berlin again, having time to bop down Kurfürstenstraße with old friends.

    All the performances are here http://www.theenemiesproject.com/kakaniaberlin

    Kakania Berlin - May 9th : 7.30pm at Österreichisches Kulturforum

    7.30pm at Österreichisches Kulturforum Berlin kulturforum berlin: kulturforumberlin.at 
    ree Entry - May Monday 9th 2016
    Stauffenbergstraße 1, 10785 Berlin. T: +49 30 202 87-114 E: berlin-kf (at) bmeia.gv.at

    Very happy to announce that the Kakania project will debut in Berlin, with six new literary performance commissions from contemporary artists, each of whom will present a work that celebrates / responds to a figure from the Habsburg era. The event is free to attend if you're in Berlin, please share with friends in the city if you're not http://www.theenemiesproject.com/kakaniaberlin

    Book your place here: http://www.kulturforumberlin.at/veranstaltung/kakania/

    Max Höfler on Ludwig Wittgenstein
    Maja Jantar on Lou Andreas Salome
    Stephen Emmerson on Rainer Maria Rilke
    Tomomi Adachi on Josef Matthias Hauer
    Ernesto Estrella on Gustav Mahler
    Ann Cotten on Otto Neurath

    This is the first of two Kakania events that will take place in Berlin in 2016, supported by Österreichisches Kulturforum Berlin and follows six events, a symposium, two publications and over fifty new artist commissions in London from 2014 to 2016 thanks to the Austrian Cultural Forum. www.kakania.co.uk 

    About Kakania

    There has been no one city's culture, at one singular time in modern history, more widely influential on contemporary thought than that of Habsburg Vienna a century ago. A time so densely constituted with intellectual revolution in fields as diverse as poetry, fiction, journalism, music, composition, philosophy, psychology, art … that it seems it can often only be evoked through a wistfulness that belies the melancholy, the energy and the seismic change that constituted it.

    With Kakania, decidedly contemporary, avant-garde, original works of text and art are presented in an attempt to be as complex and genre testing as the works, and the people, they are responsive to. This is a project where the past, and our understanding of it, is not be refracted through historical analysis, but the creative process, and one that is utterly contemporary. Kakania is an opportunity for audiences to discover the Habsburg era in a wholly new guise, as our era.

    A note on: Praxis at Parasol Unit, performing alongside Maja Jantar, Sharon Gal et al

    I'm really excited to perform at Parasol Unit on March 3rd, as part of Simon Pomery's brilliant new series Praxis alongside a remarkable lineup, including two artists who've influenced me so much, Maja Jantar and Sharon Gal. http://parasol-unit.org/poetry-innovations-praxis

    I'll be presenting a brand new performance piece and then collaborating with Sharon and Maja, responding to Julien Charriere's exhibition, currently in situe at Parasol Unit, a gallery and institution I've admired for years. Nice this is the occasion I first get to perform there, and here is the last time Maja and I collaborated, for Soundings. 

    PRAXIS is an innovative poetry and sound art series curated by Simon Pomery and Lala Thorpe of the Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, as part of the Poetics Research Centre Events at Royal Holloway. The inaugural PRAXIS will be held at Parasol on Thursday the 3rd of March, 2016, 7-9pm. 

    Maja Jantar is a multilingual and polysonic voice artist living in Ghent, Belgium, whose work spans the fields of performance, music theatre, poetry and visual arts. A co-founder of the group Krikri, she has been giving individual and collaborative performances throughout Europe and experimenting with poetic sound works since 1995 – weaving operatic, poetic, noise, and abstract influences together to vocal sound works. https://majajantar.wordpress.com/

    Sharon Gal - Artist, vocal experimentalist, musician, composer, and founding member of Resonance 104.4 FM. Her solo works have been released by Ash International/ Paradigm records/ Chocolate Monk / Emanem / Ecstatic Yod /American Tapes & The Tapeworm Labels, with the recent Voice Studies, on My Dance the Skull. http://www.sharon-gal.com/

    Steven J Fowler is a poet, artist, curator & vanguardist. He has published multiple collections of poetry and been commissioned by Tate Modern, the British Council, Tate Britain, Highlight Arts, Mercy, Penned in the Margins, the London Sinfonietta and the Wellcome Collection with Hubbub group. He is the poetry editor of 3am magazine, curator of the Enemies project, and teaches at Kingston University. Enthusiasm was published by Test Centre in 2015.  http://www.stevenjfowler.com/

    The event also features performances and readings from the excellent Will Montgomery http://selvageflame.com/ Robert Hampson, Gareth Damian Martin jumpovertheage.com and Simon Pomery himself  http://cargocollective.com/simonpomery  

    A note on: performance videos from Soundings I & III, with Emma Bennett and Maja Jantar

    Two highlights of 2015, amazing performers and artists both Emma and Maja. So excited I get to do 7 more of these collaborations in 2016 with the help of the Hubbub group in residence at Wellcome Collection and Wellcome Library www.stevenfowler.com/soundings

    Upcoming: Four events - aWwW / EVP / Globe Road / Soundings

    Nov 13th: A World Without Words IV
    Nov 14th: Electronic Voice Phenomena
    Nov 15th: Globe Road Festival Walking Tour
    Nov 18th: Soundings III

    November Friday 13th - A World without Words IV at the Frontline Club: 7pm
    The fourth event in the series exploring neuroscience, aphasia, the brain and language, this time at the incredible Frontline Club. With a talk by Professor Barry Smith and the screening of a series of anthropological short films from Vincent Moon. Curated by Lotje Sodderland, Thomas Duggan and I. http://www.frontlineclub.com/screening-and-discussion-a-world-without-words/

    November Saturday 14th - EVP Sessions at Shoreditch Town Hall: 8pm
    Electronic Voice Phenomena hits London once again, I'll be presenting a new commission in full skeleton embodiment, exploring disembodied voice and death http://shoreditchtownhall.com/theatre-performance/whats-on/event/theEVPsessions

    November Sunday 15th - Globe Road walking tour for the Globe Road Festival: 11am
    A Sunday morning stroll up Globe Road in the company of Gareth Evans, Elaine Mitchener and the Bohman brothers, all of whom will present brand new performance commissions related to the road itself, finishing with a reading in York Hall with Stephen Watts, Richard Scott and Jonathan Mann www.theenemiesproject.com/globeroad

    November Wednesday 18th - Soundings III with Maja Jantar at St Johns on Bethnal Green: 7pm A collaboration with the incomparable Maja Jantar for a new sound poetry / avant-garde music performance as part of the Soundings project with Hubbub at Wellcome Collection responding to prompts from the Wellcome Library. St Johns on Bethnal Green, an early 19th-century church, is an amazing venue too. www.stevenjfowler.com/soundings

    Upcoming: November 2015 - Events, Performances & Projects

    My 'A Language Art' course runs on Monday nights throughout November with sesssions exploring the intersections of avant-garde poetry and modern art in the galleries of Tate Modern and in the Tate stores.

    November Wednesday 4th - Pugilistica at Apiary Studios
    A chance for me to launch my book Fights, in it's 2nd edition from Veer Books, alongside some amazing journalists, novelists, poets and art historians, all exploring the literature of boxing. www.theenemiesproject.com/pugilistica

    November Thursday 5th - Mondo: global avant-garde poetry at Poetry School
    A new course at the Poetry School, this time exploring avant-garde movements from Japan, Nigeria, Canada, Brazil and Syria / Iraq. Still a place or two left! Book here

    November Friday 6th - Symposium: Pulling Together/Pulling Apart: Forces in Creative Collaboration, OVADA, Oxford
    Thanks to artists Brook and Black, I'll have the chance to discuss collaboration at OVADA, alongside Tamarin Norwood and others http://www.ovada.org.uk/arkitektoniske-kramper/

    November Saturday 7th - Nemici: an Italian Enemies project at the Rich Mix
    A really ambitious Enemies project I'm curating with ten Italian artists and poets visiting London, each writing new collaborations with British poets. I'll be presenting a new work with Alessandro Burbank. Should be special www.theenemiesproject.com/nemici

    November Friday 13th - A World without Words IV at the Frontline Club
    The fourth event in the series curated by Lotje Sodderland, Thomas Duggan and myself, exploring neuroscience, aphasia, the brain and art, this time at the incredible Frontline Club. With a talk by Barry Smith and anthropological short films from Vincent Moon. http://www.frontlineclub.com/screening-and-discussion-a-world-without-words/

    November Saturday 14th - EVP Sessions at Shoreditch Town Hall
    Electronic Voice Phenomena hits London once again, I'll be presenting a new commission in full skeleton embodiment, exploring disembodied voice http://shoreditchtownhall.com/theatre-performance/whats-on/event/theEVPsessions

    November Sunday 15th - Globe Road walking tour for the Globe Road Festival
    Happy to be leading a Sunday morning stroll up Globe Road in the company of Gareth Evans, Elaine Mitchener and the Bohman brothers www.theenemiesproject.com/globeroad

    November Wednesday 18th - Soundings III with Maja Jantar at St Johns on Bethnal Green
    So excited to collaborate with the incredible Maja Jantar for a new performance as part of the Soundings project with Hubbub at Wellcome Collection responding to prompts from the Wellcome Library. St Johns on Bethnal Green is an amazing venue too. www.stevenjfowler.com/soundings

    November Friday 20th - The European Camarade at Freeword Centre
    A mini festival of European poetry in collaboration, so pleased to have the chance to curate this night and present a new collaboration with Endre Ruset. Some of these poets are doing the most exciting work in their nations, not to be missed www.theenemiesproject.com/europeancamarade

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    Upcoming: Soundings - a project with Hubbub & Wellcome Library

    Soundings is a series of collaborative performances I will be presenting from August 2015 to October 2016, in conjunction with Hubbub and the Wellcome Library. There will be ten editions, each in a different location in and around London, each with a different collaborator.www.stevenjfowler.com/soundings

    Soundings

    Each edition of Soundings will begin with Wellcome library staff raiding the library's extensive collection to suggest items, including images, manuscripts and books, in response to a title inspired by the Hubbub's research strands and initiated by Hubbub curators. These prompts will form the basis for the public performances of sound poetry, sonic art or conceptual performance, devised each time by myself and my collaborator. Collaborators include Emma Bennett, Dylan Nyoukis, Maja Jantar, Patrick Coyle, Sharon Gal, Tamarin Norwood and James Wilkes, with more to be announced.

    Hubbub are the first residents of The Hub at Wellcome Collection, an international team of scientists, humanists, artists, clinicians, public health experts, broadcasters and public engagement professionals. We explore the dynamics of rest, noise, tumult, activity and work, as they operate in mental health, neuroscience, the arts and the everyday. I'm fortunate to be part of this extraordinary enterprise, as a poet and artist in residence, and you can read more about my work with Hubbub here: www.stevenjfowler.com/hubbubor www.hubbubgroup.org 

    Soundings #1: August 18th
    at Camley Street Natural Park
    with Emma Bennett
    Time: 1pm – 2pm (12 Camley Street, London N1C 4PW). Free entrance.
    www.hubbubgroup.org/soundings

    Soundings #2: September 4th 
    at Wellcome Collection Late
    with Dylan Nyoukis
    Time: 19.40 and 21.30 (183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE). Free Entrance 
    www.wellcomecollection.org/events/friday-late-spectacular-hubbub

    Soundings #3: November 18th
    at St Johns on Bethnal Green
    with Maja Jantar
    Time: 8pm to 9pm (200 Cambridge Heath Road. London E2 9PA). Free Entrance.
    www.stjohnonbethnalgreen.org

    my performance in a Parisienne circus for Festina Lente

    I've read in Paris before, but I read, and I hope, relatively speaking, those days are temporarily coming to a close. Now is a time to read in public far less, and perform more. So this was an invitation I was grateful to receive from the amazing and intense Chilean poet Martin Bakero, who lives in Paris and curates the Festina Lente in the Circus Electrique, part of the Pantheon of Poets festival in the city. This was all sound poets and sonic artists, and as I've felt with the art writers of my generation in London who've influenced me so much, and are now friends (Pat Coyle, Holly Pester, Hannah Silva etc) this is a real community in Europe. After meeting Jorg Piringer and Heike Feidler last year, here I got to connect to Julien d'abrigeon and the wonderful Maja Jantar, whose performance was spellbinding and I learnt masses from just by watching. It's a privilege to be part of that community, if even peripherally, it is defined by exciting work, by real exploration and intensity and I feel very welcome by the people who seem to be defining it.

    My performance piece, mort & homme, was an attempt to utilise mantra like repetition through different vocal ranges, beginning with something like murky song into ulluation and finishing with doom. That was to be contrasted against electronic chinese music, and then a conceptual element Ive wanted to do for awhile, book sawing. I don't really care if the result is a success, but it was a satisfying experience, as I had to go out of my comfort zone, and that's all I want to do at the moment. The piece was new, an experiment and a departure with the only goal that it didn't seem that way. I'm not interested in thinking about the quality of the work, just the experience of making it. I had a wonderful time. Video below. I also managed to snag some videos of some of the other amazing performances that made up the day, one of a series now set up in Paris over the next few years.
    Maja Jantar & Martin Bakero https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rdM9zGA2hY