ah
when I say _sonic emphatic_ I mean _sonic semantic_
old tired brain tripping over its own cliches
L
---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Re: poetry video
From: "Lawrence Upton" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, August 24, 2012 16:39
To: [log in to unmask]
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Well, I read Chris's post earlier; and thought about it; and decided that
I had nothing much to say.
I shall try to pick my words carefully... if I can. I don't wish to offend
or tell anyone I am right and they are wrong. Not on this case... I think
the best thing I can do is say what I don't want to do and why!
> Poetry video, as in music video.
Immediately puts me off! Not that I see many music videos these days. I
*can enjoy them. I can put myself in that mode. (Now and then I go to
McDonalds.)
But I get little out of it when they tell stories floating off from the
song. Or when they show pictures of the famous people singing in mid
celebrity strut. It all begins to blur for me; and though they are
different they all look the same in my memory.
But that is where I am now. I was quite up to my ears in some kinds of pop
into the 80s. I remember one of my partner's kids sort of boasting sort of
moaning how much we were into pop music... I also remember a seemingly
interminable intellectual argument manqué with his sister when I failed to
agree that Jesus and Mary Chain owed nothing to Velvet Underground. (She
played me hers and I said Velvet Underground and she said What's Velvet
Underground?)
Let me show my age and refer to the video of Dylan's subterranean homesick
blues. I really liked that. That was doing something. I still don't know
what and I value that.
Then a while after there was a video (I use the term loosely) of LIKE A
ROLLING STONE and that was him getting on and off planes and looking
remarkably like John Cooper Clarke.
Not very interesting.
I remember the Peter Gabriel Sledgehammer video and I quite liked that.
And recently I have been getting into some Kate Bush videos though some of
the more interesting ones have disappeared from the web.
So in terms of music videos, maybe I am not the best person...
I think what I can draw from this paucity of examples (as one draws
treacle from a treacle well) is that I am most interested when something
happens *between the music and the image.
I am thinking of a musician, I won't quote the name because I am scared I
am misquoting slightly, who says I believe that he doesn't need a visual
with the sound work – we're talking electronic and electro-acoustic here
& I can understand that but something else may happen when genres are put
beside each other and maybe he is just not that visual
so when Chris says
First you lay down and edit the sound
>> track which is a reading of the poem and then you collage visual video
>> images along with the sound track.
That's fine. I won't disparage it; but it doesnt engage me.
I was told off a while back by a friend who said “Lawrence you always say
that”, so I hesitate, but I cannot see the attraction.
I don't much like illustration. Illustration can support weak material and
it can expand strong material. Mostly it just sits there
I am more interested in use of the visual which treats the sonic-visual as
one thing, as the sonic-emphatic can be
I have seen a number of films going with poetry and found them soporific;
and I tend to think of a black beast I have mentioned here -- putting the
sound of wind and running water over Wordsworth's Prelude
Maybe no one's interest – and that's fine – so I'll shut up now and see if
there are any takers
L
On Fri, August 24, 2012 15:44, Douglas Barbour wrote:
> I suspect Lawrence could fill you in, her, Chris, but I know it's going
> on, although I havent paid too much attention. UBUWEB probably has
> some....
>
> Doug
> On 2012-08-23, at 8:25 PM, Chris Jones <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
>> Poetry video, as in music video. First you lay down and edit the sound
>> track which is a reading of the poem and then you collage visual video
>> images along with the sound track.
>>
>> I did this about 20 years ago and the analog videos went around the
>> world. But I have yet to see this again... surely i was not the first
>> and this must be happening again, esp given computers and multimedia
>> which in the analog days would cost tens of thousands of dollars.
>>
>> Anyway, must rush to catch the bus to buy a mike and headphones. (My
>> pro mike is back in Narrabri so it is much cheaper to buy a new one,
>> for now.) Watch out for me on youtube!
>>
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>
>
> Latest books:
> Continuations & Continuations 2 (with Sheila E Murphy)
> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=962
> Wednesdays'
> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10
> .html
>
>
>
> Why can’t words mean what they say?
>
>
> Robert Kroetsch
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
-----
Lawrence Upton
http://sho-zyg.com/upton.html
Visiting Fellow, Music Dept,
Goldsmiths, University of London
New Cross, London SE14 6NW
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Lawrence Upton
http://sho-zyg.com/upton.html
Visiting Fellow, Music Dept,
Goldsmiths, University of London
New Cross, London SE14 6NW
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