I don’t usually do poetry direct to camera, but here is a little vid I did for Spoke N Slurred, an iconic Adelaide spoken word event that has gone on-line during the COVID-19 shut-downs of the bars where we usually perform. It was recorded in my studio / work room in one take and all the post-processing was done in one day.
ISOLATION PROCEDURES
“WE ARE CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE… MAINTAIN YOUR SOCIAL ISOLATION…”
After the pandemic has passed, the lockdowns persist: this is the new normal…
Recorded during the 2020 coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic mostly on location at Sleep’s Hill, Blackwood and Belair, South Australia, under partial lockdown conditions. The audio samples are made from birds, frogs and voices in the immediate neighbourhood. The text samples advice from various government, business and community organisations.
The video has been featured in Moving Poems (USA, April, 2020); selected for New Mediafest 1st Corona Festival and The Wake Up! Memorial (Cologne, Germany, April, 2020); and selected for Oblò TV (Cinéma Oblò, Lausanne, Switzerland, May 2020).
future perfect screens around the world
Amongst all the isolation and angst of COVID-19, some good things are happening… I’m totally amazed that my video future perfect has been selected for five (5!) international video festivals already this year: REELPoetry (Texas); Newlyn Short Film Festival (UK); Carmarthen Bay Film Festival (Wales); FILE Electronic Language International Festival (Sao Paolo, Brazil) and Cadence Video Poetry Festival (Seattle). It was first screened at the 8th International Video Poetry Festival in Athens last year.
Although these all were planned to be live theatre screenings, most of them will end up being on-line, so stay tuned for info as it comes to hand.
Here’s my blurb for the vid – maybe a harbinger of where we are and … Click here for more.
VESSEL 2020 at Hart’s Mill
VESSEL 2020 is a large joint exhibition at Hart’s Mill, Port Adelaide, curated by Tony Kearney and showing through February and March as part of the 2020 Adelaide Fringe Festival.
sloop in a silo (ship in a bottle) was constructed by Tony Kearney and Paul Atkins with a massive charcoal drawing by Amanda Sefton Hogg in a giant disused steel silo at Hart’s Mill. I made the soundscape to go with it. All the audio samples were recorded in the silo and include Amanda creating her charcoal drawing.
Listen to the complete soundscape on Bandcamp…
Here is Amanda creating her amazing work in the silo.
Colony Collapse published in Verity La
I’m delighted that my video poem Colony Collapse has been published in Verity La. When I made this, I had no idea just how relevant to current circumstances it would become…
Massive thanks to Michele Seminara, David Stavanger, Anne-Marie Te Whiu and the rest of the amazing team at Verity La.
The video also was screened at Lyra ’20: Bristol Poetry Festival – Poetry and Climate (UK, March, 2020).
three videos screened at REELpoetry/Houston TX 2020
Three of my videos – dog daze, future perfect and hexapod – have been selected for screening at the 2020 REELpoetry/Houston TX International Poetry Film Festival, showing in Houston, Texas, 24-26th January, 2020. The Festival is screening cinepoetry, mini-documentaries and videopoems from local, national and international poets and filmmakers, with panels, workshops & more. Featured guests include Dave Bonta, founder of Moving Poems, which has featured many of my videos over the last few years.
Firefront
As fires continue to burn vast swathes of Australia and the Federal Government continues to insist that it’s nothing much out of the ordinary, I was reminded of my poem Firefront which was originally published in The Inflectionist Review and then selected for The Best Australian Science Writing 2014. It also has been republished along with Questions of Impropriety in From The Ashes: A poetry collection in support of the 2019-2020 Australian Bushfire relief effort (ed CS Hughes, Maximum Felix Media, 2020). Of course, nothing can compare with the lived experience of those dealing with the fires.
Firefront… Click here for more.
The proposition:
floodtide and more at the 8th International Video Poetry Festival, Athens.
I was very excited to attend the 8th International Video Poetry Festival in Athens in December 2019. On the first night, I did a live spoken word performance with my video floodtide; my video future perfect was screened; and another video Game Over – Grand Final Edition was shown as part of a collection curated by Marie Craven. On the second day, I took part in an extended symposium / workshop on how we make video poems, and then performed some of my own poems as part of the multi-media concert that night. The whole Festival was an amazing and inspirational experience!
Click here for a summary / review of the Festival.