Tag Archives: videopoetry

Upcoming PoetryFilm appearances and events

It’s been a while since I last (in a March 17, 2015 post) featured PoetryFilm. Here’s the latest from the organization’s Oct. 2015 newsletter,

Forthcoming
  • I have been invited to join the International Jury for the CYCLOP International Videopoetry Festival, 20-22 November 2015 (Kiev, Ukraine)
  • PoetryFilm Paradox events, featuring poetry films about love, as part of the BFI LOVE season, 6 and 22 December 2015 (London, UK)
  • PoetryFilm screening + Zata Banks in conversation with filmmaker Roxana Vilk at The Scottish Poetry Library, 3 December 2015 (Scotland, UK)
  • I have been invited to judge the Carbon Culture Review poetry film competition (USA)
  • poetryfilmkanal in Germany recently invited me to write an article about the poetry film artform – it can be read here

FYI, the “I” in the announcement’s text is for Zata Banks, the founder and director of PoetryFilm since 2002.

There’s more about the CYCLOP International Videopoetry Festival in a Sept. 13, 2015 posting on the PoetryFilm website,

*The 5th CYCLOP International Videopoetry Festival will take place on 20 – 22 November 2015 in Ukraine (Kyiv). The festival programme features video poetry-related lectures, workshops, round tables, discussions, presentations of international contests and festivals, as well as a demonstration of the best examples of Ukrainian and world videopoetry, a competitive programme, an awards ceremony and other related projects.

One of the projects is a new Contest for International poetry films within the framework of the CYCLOP festival. The International Jury: Alastair Cook (Filmpoem Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland), Zata Banks (PoetryFilm, London, United Kingdom), Javier Robledo (VideoBardo, Buenos Aires, Argentina), John Bennet (videopoet, USA),  Alice Lyons (Videopoet, Sligo, Ireland), Sigrun Hoellrigl (Art Visuals & Poetry, Vienna, Austria), Lucy English (Liberated Words, Bristol, United Kingdom), Tom Konyves (poet, video producer, educator and a pioneer in the field of videopoetry, British Columbia, Canada), Polina Horodyska (CYCLOP Videopoetry Festival, Kyiv, Ukraine) and Thomas Zandegiacomo (ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, Berlin, Germany).

*Copy taken from the CYCLOP website

You can find the CYCLOP website here but you will need Ukrainian language reading skills.

I can’t find a website for the Carbon Culture Review poetry film competition or a webpage for it on the Carbon Culture Review website but  here’s what they have to say about themselves on the journal’s About page,

Carbon Culture Review is a journal at the intersection of new literature, art, technology and contemporary culture. We define culture broadly as the values, attitudes, actions and inventions of our global society and its subcultures in our modern age. Carbon Culture Review is distributed in the United States and countries throughout the world by Publisher’s Distribution Group, Inc. and Annas International as well as digitally through 0s&1s, Magzter and Amazon. CCR is a member of Councils of Literary Magazines and Presses and also publishes monthly online issues.

The last item from the announcement that I’m highlighting is Zata’s essay for poetryfilmkanal ,

Poetry films offer creative opportunities for exploring new semiotic modes and for communicating messages and meanings in innovative ways. Poetry films open up new methods of engagement, new audiences, and new means of self-expression, and also provide rich potential for the creation, perception and experience of emotion and meaning.

We are surrounded by communicative signs in literature, art, culture and in the world at large. Whilst words represent one system of communicating, there are many other ways of making meanings, for instance, colour semiotics, typographic design, and haptic, olfactive, gustatory and durational experiences – indeed, a comprehensive list could be infinite. The uses of spoken and written words to communicate represent just two approaches among many. Through using meaning-making systems other than words, by communicating without words, or by not using words alone, we can bypass these direct signifiers and tap directly into pools of meaning, or the signifieds, associated with those words. Different combinations of systems, or modes, can reinforce each other, render meanings more complex and subtle, or contrast with each other to illuminate different perspectives. Powerful juxtapositions, associations and new meanings can therefore emerge.

The essay is a good introduction for beginners and a good refresher for those in need. Btw, I understand Zata got married in March 2015. Congratulations to Zata and Joe!

Hearing like a dolphin and seeing like a cat; videopoetry; GI Joe’s nanotechnology; Casimir force research

As I’ve been exploring ideas around multimodal discourse and sensing, this article, Tech gives humans animal senses, caught my eye. Animals see and/or hear more than humans do unless the human had access to a virtual reality display at the SIGGRAPH09 conference (August 3 – 7, 2009) in New Orleans. From the article by Jason Palmer on BBC News,

The virtual reality scene is based loosely on Cocos Island, west of Costa Rica, and visitors to the exhibit can wander through the island’s forests or swim in its tropical waters, navigating with the aid of a modified Nintendo Wii game controller.

They can switch between ranges of sounds or sights that they might see.

An ultraviolet setting paints a picture rich with both normal colour and reflections we can’t normally see. Visualisation expert Fred Parke has designed the system such that it corrects for perspective as users navigate the space. The programme allows visitors to hear the infrasound vocalisations of whales or the ultrasound clicks of tiger moths.

(There’s more here including a video [prefaced by a Blackberry ad featuring U2] of visitors enjoying the display.) The article goes on to mention that animals have senses that we don’t, for example, “sharks’ ability to sense electric fields.” It’s true true you don’t have that sense unless you’re a body hacker,  “a subculture of people who embed magnetic chips into their bodies so they can sense magnetic and electromagnetic fields thereby giving themselves a sixth sense.” (I posted about body hackers here in my exploratory series about robotics and human enhancement) I’m not coming to any conclusions; I’m exploring possible connections and in that context, the interest in extending senses beyond their ‘normal’ range or adding senses come from various sectors seems significant.

On another note, it seems like a good time to mention Heather Haley’s videopoetry event which will take place in Vancouver at Pacific Cinémathèque (usually) in November. Right now she’s asking for submissions,

SEE THE VOICE: Visible Verse 2009

Call For Entries

Nearing 10 years of screenings! Please help spread the word. Thanks!

Pacific Cinémathèque and curator Heather Haley are seeking videopoem submissions from around the world for the annual Visible Verse screening and performance poetry celebration. SEE THE VOICE: Visible Verse is North America’s sustaining venue for the presentation of new and artistically significant poetry video and film.

Official guidelines:

* Visible Verse seeks videopoems, with a 15 minutes maximum duration.
* Either official language of Canada is acceptable, though if the video is in French, an English-dubbed or-subtitled version is required for consideration. Videos may originate in any part of the world, however.
* Works will be judged on true literary merit. The ideal videopoem is a wedding of word and image, the voice seen as well as heard.
* Please, do not send documentaries, as they are outside the featured genre.
* Videopoem producers should provide a brief bio, full name, and contact information in a cover letter. There is no official application form nor entry fee.

Send, at your own risk, videopoems and poetry films/preview copies (which cannot be returned) in DVD NTSC format to: VISIBLE VERSE c/o Pacific Cinémathèque, 200–1131 Howe Street, Vancouver, BC, V6Z 2L7, Canada. Selected artists will be notified and receive a screening fee.

DEADLINE: Sept. 1, 2009

For more information contact Heather Haley at: hshaley@emspace.com

You can also check out her website here.

Moving from the artsy to the commercial, the movie GI Joe opened this weekend with a villain determined to take over the world by using nanotechnology weapons. Yes, nanobots or, for this movie, nanomites. Unfortunately, the critics are more interested in excoriating the film than in explaining the ‘technology’ and my eardrums are not up to the task of watching the film but it does seem that this is another variation of K. Eric Drexler’s nanoassemblers eating up the world scenario from his book, Engines of Creation. In contrast, scientists continue their every day nanotechnology research, (from the media release on Phyorg.com)

Today’s advances in nanofabrication include the manufacture of micro- and nano-machines with moving parts separated by distances less than a micron (a micron is a millionth of a meter; a single strand of hair is approximately 100 microns). Because the distances are extremely small, the Casimir force needs to be considered in the design and function of the micro/nano-machines for efficient operation.

“The Casimir force, which is usually attractive, is also large at short separation distances between objects,” explained Mohideen, a professor of physics and the principal investigator of the grant.