Laurel Beckman- THOMAS CURITORE 2

Laurel Beckman: International Velvet

After watching Laurel Beckman's Animation " International Velvet " I enjoyed the combination between our cultures processes of interaction as well as obsession with luxury and celebrity, the reference of Elizabeth Taylor is a nice juxtaposition to international cultural expression.

Laurel Beckman

Response to Oulipo- Thomas Curitore 1

Using the Oulipian Snowball Constraint

While in the Institution:

WE

CAN

MAKE

OTHER

PEOPLE

PROCESS

ANYTHING

CRITICALLY

Oulipo

Not exactly related to what was discussed in class, but interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OuLiPo

Brian Kim Stefans

In his pice, "Folk Poetry" he says the same line three times but changes the last word each time. It goes from leaf, beef, to teeth. Then it ends with "I am interested." It also appears to be signed by Oh! Oh! Oh!

We have teeth and we eat beef but I am not sure what to do with the leaf. He is maybe reflecting on natural human tendencies or our primal need to eat. He finds food and is excited by it, then eats it and enjoys it.

Laurel Beckman

love - trade - velvet

I am confused as to what this means and why it is in gif format. How does making it animated add more meaning to the piece? Would it be any different if they were simply three separate photographs put side by side? For me the animation aspect of it simply makes the words hard to read. Maybe that is what she wants but it seems confusing to me. Where is this work shown? Is ubuweb the only place it exists?

Maybe love, trade, velvet, means to love then have sex. I might just be adding my own meaning to it though. Maybe that's what she wants.

Word Cloud of This Blog

Here is a Word Cloud of the top 500 words used in this blog as of now.
The largest words are the ones used most frequently in the blog.

Nicole Dextras - Truth

Nicole Dextras' Truth piece is very interesting to me. It seems she is trying to find the truth through the exploration of environment. By putting the word in different places and photographing it from different angles she is placing more of her own meaning on it than one might initially read into it. The piece doesn't completely seem thought out to me. She has photographed only in one area of the country or at least in very similar areas. It might be nice to see her photograph one word in different parts of the country, or in different parts of the world. I also think, that with a word like "truth" it might be nice to see some of the people of that area in the photographs.

Laurel Beckman

This is visual poetry! Her piece Velvet is so open to many different interpretations, while still using text as the center point of the piece. The typography in the piece refrences the digital area with it's bit-mapped pixelization. And the rotation through text and colors will leave each viewer with a meaning of their own.

Brian Joseph Davis

As I listen to the CD that Brian gave to each of us in the class, I remember how great his work is.
The 1o CDs burned and played pieces are amazing. And it is exactly what I talked about in my Mid-Term about bridging the gap between sound poetry and music.
Because there is certainly a musical element to the pieces due to the source material, but through his process a different type of narrative take shape.
Great work, and what a great artist to come visit our class.

thoughts On Sound Poetry (cont'd)

In trying to reconcile my feeling that sound poetry often lacks deeper substance with my emergent desire to bring a certain academic reasonableness to my own work, I found that working with the written word and incorporating some aspects of the written word into my conceptual work has been a transforming experience for me as an artist. I have learned a lot about the commonplace inferences we make about words and word meanings at the same time as realizing how, as an artist, one can influence the viewers’ thought processes, as well as emotions, in a multitude of different ways. An artist can and does have a role to play in society if he so chooses to. Being a real artist is not pursuing a superfluous pastime. A true artist must earnestly produce work but may also strive for definite outcomes. To me, these meaningful pursuits require not only inspiration and hard work, but deep intellectual thought and high dignity as well.

Nicole Dextras

I LOVE Nicold Dextras' frozen word piece "View". It, I think, is the strongest of the three pieces because it puts the word in a context befitting the meaning. The view is stunning and word is magnificent in its ice. I also like that she didn't dye this one. It's stronger. The word is able to really become a part of its' surroundings. It becomes a part of the world it is living in. Which is striking in itself.

The End.

Brian Joseph Davis

I've been listening to the cd that Brian gave to us last class and I'm really enjoying a lot of it. It's interesting the things that worked and what didn't. There are definitely some tracks (especially the series of years--the number one hits) that create an ambient sound with a lot of oomph. There's a haunting complexity to what you're hearing as it builds and descends however slightly. Some of the others, like 1988 aren't as successful for me. In particular, 1988 really just sounds like a skipping record whereas many of the others stand on their own as their own as something separate. 1984 could be the opening to a song. 1963/2005 has a really great development and arc to it. Surprisingly interesting to listen to.

I still stick to what I said about "Voiceover", though. I think it would be more interesting and easier to get engaged in if it were really spoken as a piece of thoughtful text. If someone really told the story. I know it would kind of change around the whole idea behind a lot of it but it would take it in a nice direction. I'd listen to it.

I googled "sound poetry".

I googled "visual poetry".

I googled "vispo".

I googled "concrete poetry".

My ending thoughts

As the semester ends, I felt like it would be a good chance for me to give my thoughts on sound poetry. As an art form I enjoyed listening to the different pieces. However, I enjoy the more contemporary work. The work form DADA and Futurist movement seem to have no content just noise (granted I know this sounds shallow). But the work from Brian Davis and also I forget her name but she did wrote a piece on Baghdad seem to hold more content and are expressing an opinion and thought. Focusing more on the content then the output of there sound. I think this leads itself to have more interesting work with allot more meaning. What I enjoyed about some of the older artist we looked at was the actually writing of there work how they scored there works in a typographic way. I definitely want to keep learning more about sound poetry, but will focus on looking at contemporary artist working in that medium.

Daniel

Bruce Andrews has some ideas that i can really get down on. its so random to me and is always changing. i like when u can really see versatility in peoples art. i found his piece Love Song No 38 to really catch my attention i like the simple and plain look that he gives out. i find that people on think things are simple if they are not looking hard or deep enough to the piece.

-shawnn allenn

Some great type work

This site is mostly graphic design, however it has really interesting ways of communicating something with type only. Its basically a blog that features different artist working with typography in interesting ways. Looking at some of the work you can see how influenced some designers are in sound poetry's type layout.

ENJOY!!!!

Daniel

so i went a little insane when i watched/listen to Julien d'Abrigeon's big bang. i watched it for like 10 minuets straight and all i could do is just keep watching i went through so many different emotions while watching it. i went through anger, confusion, happiness, content, remorse, apathy, and a want to destroy it. i really do like the piece but something while i was watching it made me really insane.

-shawnn allenn

It's interesting to bring a "poet" to class to talk about his works. Brian/Bryan Davis has very interesting works such as burning banned CDs and voiceovers. Him making use of popular arts and entertainment and distorting has a strange echo to the pop similarly or strangely. Other than that, to bring someone to explain more about his/her work is interesting enough to understand the process of creating and reason behind the work. I wonder how many poets would you, Timmons, bring if you can?

sincee whenn

yes. no. well lets go. no. no. no. why do you look at me like that. yes. yes. no. yes. no okay! yes. well can we at least speak our thoughts. no. no. no. why not. yes. yes. yes. yes. no. welcome to my hell. why. no. no. yes. since when. okay. fuck you pal. no. no. yes. yes. goodbye. no. no! no no no no no!!!!! fuck you get out of here. no. please stay. why? okay....

in respone to Legion (II) by Craig Dworkin i found this to be really awesome. i dont know what his process is but what i have come to realize is that this is a good outlet for me. i have started to do this in my free time and it has been a great way to let out my emotions and extra baggage.

-shawnn allenn