A note on: the last soundings, performing with the great Phil Minton

An amazing privilege it was to perform an improvised vocal work with Phil Minton last October at Kings Place in London. The video of that work is now public, beautifully shot by Ed Prosser.

For over fifty years Phil Minton has been performing, singing, vocalising around the world. He absolutely has shaped, even defined, free vocalisation and improvised sound poetry since WWII. To get to work with him for the first time, with no prior preparation, no conversation about what we'd do before the performance even, was such an honour, and beautiful / terrifying in equal measure. So important for me to feel I'm crossing over with the greats of previous generations

A note on: Rest and Its Discontents exhibition at the Mile End Arts Pavilion

A beautiful job has been done, the exhibition runs until October 31st and is really well worth a visit. Some wonderful and works and installations by some brilliant artists and thinkers. http://hubbubresearch.org/event/rest-discontents/

DATE & TIME 30 September – 30 October 12:00 pm – 6:00 pm
VENUE: The Mile End Art Pavilion  Mile End Park, Clinton Road  London, E3 4QY United Kingdom

A note on: Soundings #6 with Sharon Gal

The Soundings project comes to an end for the time being this October with the 7th instalment and the end of the Hubbub residency and I've had an extraordinary time collaborating with 6 artists so far, the latest being Sharon Gal, a major figure on the London experimental music scene since the late 80s.

This is a work I'm very proud of. Sharon's work has been a real influence on me, so it was brilliant to work so closely with her developing a series of performances, embedded in some unusual and industrial / suburban hidden spots of west london, for film. Again working with Ed Prosser, who has filmed most of soundings to great effect, we spent a brilliant day roaming from Kilburn to Kensal, along the grand union canal and into wormwood scrubs, playing with soundscapes, found sounds and instruments. We utilised the possibilities of film, performing in scenes of a sort, to create something original in the edit. Such a privilege to have this opportunity, and once again responding to materials given by Wellcome Library in response to prompts given by Hubbub curators.

A note on: Rest and its discontents exhibition at Mile End Art Pavilion

Rest & its discontents, a new exhibition from Hubbub exploring the dynamics of rest, stress, sound, noise, work and mind-wandering. Rest & its discontents explores the dynamics of rest, stress, relaxation, sound, noise, work and mindwandering in an evolving laboratory of moving image, performance, drawing, poetry, data, sound, music and debate.

Rest & its discontents features a video installation of my Soundings project with Wellcome Library. A specially made highlight video, edited by Ed Prosser, shows my works with Maja Jantar, Emma Bennett, Tamarin Norwood and Sharon Gal.

DATE & TIME 30 September – 30 October : 12:00 pm – 6:00 pm
VENUE: The Mile End Art Pavilion, Mile End Park, Clinton Road, London, E3 4QY United Kingdom

 

A note on: filming Soundings #6 with Sharon Gal

The Soundings project comes to an end for the time being this October with the 7th instalment and the end of the Hubbub residency and I've had an extraordinary time collaborating with 6 artists so far, the latest being Sharon Gal, a major figure on the London experimental music scene since the late 80s. Sharon's work has been a real influence on me, so it was brilliant to work so closely with her developing a series of performances, embedded in some unusual and industrial / suburban hidden spots of west london, for film. Again working with Ed Prosser, who has filmed most of soundings to great effect, we spent a brilliant day roaming from Kilburn to Kensal, along the grand union canal and into wormwood scrubs, playing with soundscapes, found sounds and instruments. We utilised the possibilities of film, performing in scenes of a sort, to create something original in the edit. Such a privilege to have this opportunity, and once again responding to materials given by Wellcome Library in response to prompts given by Hubbub curators.

A note on: Soundings IV with Tamarin Norwood

The next instalment of the Soundings project, this time in Wellcome Library itself, with the brilliant Tamarin Norwood. The piece was fashioned just for the camera itself, a closed performance, intended to respond to and interrogate the notion of film editing or performance video, and how it relates to notions of authenticity and naturalness, while all the while following the process central to Soundings, that we respond to Wellcome Library resources provided to us by the librarians and 'sound them out' in conversing. Thanks to Ed Prosser for his brilliant camera work too. www.stevenjfowler.com/soundings

A note on: Upcoming performances & events in March and April

March 3rd: Praxis at Parasol Unit, London
Performing a new work responding to Julian Charriere's amazing exhibition, alongside Maja Jantar, Sharon Gal, Simon Pomery and others. http://parasol-unit.org/poetry-innovations-praxis

March 5th & 6th: Stanza Festival, St.Andrews, Scotland
On a panel exploring poetry and the body, responding to a film about bp nichol, and leading a workshop about collaboration, alongside two performances. http://stanzapoetry.org/festival/poets-artists/fowler

March 18th: Soundings IV with Tamarin Norwood
A performance work for video, situated in Wellcome Library itself, responding to materials given by the librarians for the artist Tamarin Norwood and I to respond to. http://www.stevenjfowler.com/soundings

March 20th: The Essex Book Festival, First site Gallery, Colchester
Curating a Camarade with 10 pairs of poets for the festival, and reading with David Berridge, to launch our book, 40 feet, from Knives forks and spoons press. http://www.theenemiesproject.com/essex

March 24th to 26th: The Iskele Kibatek International Poetry Festival in Cyprus
Part of the 7th Annual Iskele Municipality Culture and Art Days, this festival sees poets from around Europe present their work, including Nurduran Duman and Jennifer Williams.

March 31st: Kakania returns at Austrian Cultural Forum, London
Kakania in London once again, with new commissions in the evening and a symposium of new presentations in the day. New work from Steve Beresford, Diane Silverthorne, Declan Ryan & more. http://www.theenemiesproject.com/kakania2016

April 2nd: The English PEN Modern Literature Festival - Rich Mix, London
30 English writers celebrate 30 writers at risk currently supported by English PEN with brand new works of literature. 2pm til late, all over one day. http://www.theenemiesproject.com/englishpen

April 6th: The Night-time Economy Exhibition opening - The Riverfront, Newport, Wales
A new exhibition between myself and the photographer Kate Mercer, poetry and photography exploring the fractious energy of Newport's nightlife. http://www.theenemiesproject.com/nighttimeeconomy

April 23rd: The University Camarade
Curating a Camarade which pairs 20 students from creative writing departments of 5 different universities to create 10 new works in pairs. http://www.theenemiesproject.com/unicamarade

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

bpichol.jpg



A note on: Soundings #1 with Emma Bennett

The beginning of Soundings couldn't have gone better. Not only because the performance was unique and well attended and went to plan, but because it was also completely idiosyncratic and unexpected for the audience, and enjoyable. Emma and I have known each for a few year now, and been in collective work together, but never performed a duo. The performance itself and the entire preparation period could not have been easier and more fluid. We met up numerous times to make our performance not only responsive to the materials given by the Wellcome Library under the theme of 'Restless Cities' but also to make sure we responded very specifically to the amazing environmental of Camley Street Natural Park.

We knew people's experience of what we did would be defined by the surroundings, and decided in fact to put on a walking tour, one that fused elements of performance and immersive theatre all rooted in something like a slightly alternative version of the contemporary 'landscape' 'cityscape' 'mindfulness' lexicon. Our performance was a mix of improvisation, preparation for this and written text that lay somewhere between poetry and satire.

In the end we had a remarkable audience, those very generously helping us, Harriet Martin, James Wilkes, Kim Staines, bringing together lots of people so that it felt quite a significant event, marching 50 or so people around the small stone clearings and ponds of the park. A strange experience for them, I hope, a great experience for us.

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

Month one in residency at the Hub: Wellcome Collection - February 16th 2015 {#4}

I've got my rhythm now, and finding my purpose amidst the immense possibility of the Hub. Somehow I assumed I would be able to land here and spark collaborations immediately, but what I've realised, being here a few days a week for over a month now, is that's not even desireable, even if it was possible. At root this is because it's still hard for me to comprehend the freedom we have to explore new work on our terms, the real space we have to create interdisciplinary works. Anyway, my work with the Hub is evolving into these areas:

- Some experimental classes that take my martial arts teaching and develop them as wholly process orientated practises, to emphasise the students knowledge of their own bodies possibilities, integrities and corporeal limits / potentials. That is to say these classes will be about motion, mental focus, muscle memory and not about harming other bodies, through the developed exercises and techniques that originate toward the product of hurting bodies. 

- Video art performance pieces of me training, hitting the punchbag so far, and which emphasise the rest periods between this exertion in order to create vistas of human perception when altered by this exertion. A long time preoccupation of mine, this is taking form for me in the realm of video, which is exciting, and at the moment I'm tinkering with making these pieces glitchy and kitsch.

- A new series of collaborative sound poetry performances, called Soundings:
"Soundings in the Reading Room is a series of collaborative avant-garde sonic art & sound poetry performances which will present site-specific writing, composition and performance that explores how noise and silence mediate the relationship between the city and the text, artwork or musical score. Receptive to the unique surroundings of the Wellcome Collection Reading Room, Soundings will be an exploration of the potential poetics of sound amidst city noise and the profound effect it has on our experience of restfulness."

This last one is really an extraordinary platform for me to work with artists I admire in a beautiful new space.

I also helped build a hammock and have made lots of new friends.