christoph /project

Embodiment, This Embodiment: The Cut-Ups of a Confessional Poet

Updated: 12/6/2008

Example of the audio cutup with a rough draft of a cutup poem from Lady Lazarus and The Applicant, here.

A lexical anagram is a term that is self-descriptive. If an anagram is the rearrangement of letters from a given word or phrase to another, then a lexical anagram is the rearrangement of words or phrases from a given language to another. The proposal is to be a video installation consisting of phonetic fragments from individual words that correspond with each other to produce a seamless collage with the voice of a renowned confessional poet named Sylvia Plath.

Plath is known for her personal life as much as her poetry; her writing and poetry depict her struggle with depression before she notably committed suicide by placing her head in the kitchen oven to inhale gas. Critics argue whether her poetry foretold of her impending death as themes of her own depression and mental illness lay relevant to her work. The hope is to question the canonical representation of Plath by appropriating her famously self-indulgent poetry and turning it into its polar opposite; a disembodiment of her confessional references. Hence Plath is transformed into a phoneticist for the subversion of her own semantic form.

Plath represents an iconic figure that continues to live for another fifty years because of fictionalized elements in her writing. Her poems, which are usually written in first-person, enabled her to become an iconic figure by allowing readers to believe her poetry was a historical representation of her life before she died. Autobiographical references in her poetry like the relationship between her and her husband are formally debated by many writers and critics to be highly fictionalized. Plath established her poetics and writing in such a way as to mythologize and romanticize elements of her marriage and depression which in turn strip away the popular notion that she bears any kind of stark resemblance of who she really was. How people relate to Plath's work makes her a strangely hierarchical literary figure for the relatively scant amount of work that she published during her life and after she died in her early 30s.

This project will help free the image of Plath from its self-referential associations by showing her as a disembodied voice reading dissociative text that is not her own anymore. Each muttered word will be arranged to achieve a seamless collage in a semantically correct language that sounds fragmented. To understand the project, the viewer and listener must understand the importance of process and that this poem was appropriated from its original source text. The way Plath reads her poetry is firm and steady. The steady rhythm is ideal to cut and collage in order for words not to overlap.

To ensure the poem is organized and looks and sounds semantically correct, a transcript of Plath's poem will textually be collaged into a script for the sound to follow. The cut video stills will correspond to the sounds and segue from the frames which will begin the poem as a poetry reading. A poet representing the embodiment of Plath walks to the podium to start reading over a panel and then the video will transition into visual artifice that will help inflect a resonance of connection between the words and the poem. The resulting surrealist imagery will function a response against the hierarchical organization of reading poetic artifice that is subservient to sound.

Cut-ups from public texts have always existed but specifically go as far back as early forms of Futurism when poets extracted words that were from headlines of local newspapers to talk about the effects of technology in an era that has seen monumental inventions of transportation and utilities. And nearly every avant-garde literary movement in the 20th century has direct correlations to cut-ups from Tristan Tzara to William S. Burroughs. The Language poets in the 1970s connected words in random order that have achieved the unification of sound through cadence to show the rhythm and process of language is poetry. Currently there are movements like Flarf poetry and Spoetry that appropriate source texts exclusively linked to the internet like spam email.

Plath herself used the technique of cut-up in her poetry and notably made a series of political collages that represent a response to social and political discourse which was also very relevant to her poetry. The two poems to be cut up and assembled into one will be Lady Lazarus and The Applicant. As the title Lady Lazarus suggests, it references Plath herself and a biblical figure named Lazarus of Bethany who was resurrected from the dead. Images of fantasy and spectacle help construct the poem. Plath uses vernacular language to describe her own torture and suffering perhaps a little more acutely to the listener with references to identity during the holocaust. Meanwhile The Applicant is critical of the insider who is depicted by the outsider who eggs him on to join more of a conventional role in society, for example marriage.

The theme of the resulting hybrid from both of Plath's poems will only be unintentionally referential to their original source due to repetitive words relating to marriage or death. There is a fine line of balance to create an effective poem that doesn't border on facetious, dull and too allegorical of the previous poem. A large amount of time is needed to complete the poems as the words of Plath will be preserved and not digitally altered in order for the project to stay true to the nature of a seamless and strict collage. The poems should sufficiently function as new poems and not translations or allusions to Lady Lazarus and The Applicant by the separation of all words in order to disconnect all resonance of semantic meaning. The poem will reflect stark leaps that mimic recordings of the unfamiliar, disembodied and alienated through a pastiche of disjointed symbolism that resounds through its rhythm and cadence. References to the holocaust, bible and marriage will break away from their original context and form modifiers that aid in the lyric poem and resulting spoken word. Parallels may be inevitable to Plath's original poems and the interpreter is expected to assume that all symbolic connection is physical language.

Structural elements of the video will follow the rhythm of verse and line breaks to form a cohesive poem. Video poetics developed from the emission of light by artifacts found in public places will allude to Hollis Frampton's early film entitled Palindrome in which the exposed ends of film are systematically structured to demonstrate a biomorph that could allude to the rebirth of Plath. The direct emission of morning and evening light from public architecture will be recorded and collaged. The light will serve to modify and tone the association with sound and add a conceptual element of Plath's omnipresent 'ghost.' A poststructural collage of unsolicited light added to the constraint of spoken words or phrases form a dialectical element in relation to the overlap of sight and sound.

The first element of audience interaction will be an engaged debate about questions of authorship and whether the voice of the iconic figure of Plath turns into a representation of the new poem. The second element is dependent on contemplation over participation from the spectator on a fixed video screen. Although flexibility allows users to direct the articulation of the poem, the physical engagement with the poetry will not allow them to contemplate the poem as they're focus is directed to the technology and interactivity. The execution of spoken word would be most effective on a linear audio stream and without the user interacting with the verse. The second element, in order to allow more engagement, will be to add captions line by line at the bottom of the video to enable the viewer and listener to become a reader too. Other poems may be appended to the audio in order to have sufficient material to work with throughout the duration of two years.

Interactive poetics, like TRY ME should be dependent on its spoken verse and not of a phonetic chain of single words because that would emphasize on the focus of technology of creating semantics rather than poetry itself. The excess of single words would allow the viewer to embrace sound in the same way a child makes connections with poetry beads or magnets. The process would unintentionally cause the viewer to shy away from the esoteric nature of poetics by indulging in facetious and superficial connections. The solution would be to limit flexibility and allow the user to interact with previously constructed verse on an interactive screen that will enable him or her to choose a direction in which the voice may move and also enable the focus on poetics.

The project will be broken into several parts in order to establish a schedule from beginning to completion for the thesis exhibition in Spring 2010. The plan for the remainder of 2008 consists of textually collaging the two poems with a word processor with help from independent studies with faculty from the Literature Department. By May 2009, Plath's voice will be cut and fused with Soundtrack Pro aided by the script associated with the text. From June to August 2009, video will be recorded with a Canon video camera for the duration of time and video recording should be completed by the end of that summer. The video clips will then be edited and synced with the final poem by using Final Cut Pro from the UC Santa Cruz lab. Other electronics will not be used with the project unless there are logical parallels with textual inflection on the listener and viewer.

Materials for the installation will require walls for enclosure and consist of a video projector, a screen and two rows of benches. The video installation will be presented by running for about six minutes and loop from a provided projector that lights the screen from behind the audience in an enclosed room. The size of the enclosure is needed to be large enough to seat a handful of people on benches; and specific measurements are flexible and dependent on the availability of gallery space. The walls should be painted black and the lights set dim in order to symbolize a public spectacle with walls that should not attract the viewers' attention. The focal point of the projected video which will be centralized in the dark room over transparent and corrugated plastic in front of two simple benches to allow viewers to contemplate the installation. Also, a sensor might be incorporated into the installation space to allow the poem to start when it senses somebody enters the room and loop if he or she stays in the room; or if simultaneously somebody else enters inside the room.

The budget will include the cost of a Canon video camera to use off-campus during the summer quarter and materials for the installation including paint, benches and corrugated plastic. There are key issues to consider between installing in a private space and a public space. A private space represents enclosure and functions as a room outside of the public space but since the poetry depends on being heard as much as seen, the argument leans towards an enclosed space.

The hope is for accessibility more than user interaction meaning that a user may have similar experience and enjoyment of seeing the video on the internet versus in a gallery space. The gallery space is a formal and more open way for users who otherwise are not particularly interested in seeing my work to allow them the opportunity to build their awareness and perhaps support the literary movement of collage. The viewers should make their own connection to the work and their knowledge of Plath. The film and sound cut ups would hopefully enable the viewer to see poetry in a way he or she has not seen it before.

Narrative Biography (100, 300)

Christoph Girard is fascinated by the shared and marginalized identities of poets who are disconnected from life in ways he is not. Like the poet Clark Coolidge, who is interested in geological rock patterns, absorbing the population is how he connects with nature. He is interested in the chaos of communication as a journalist, artist and poet; and chooses to spend his free time as a recluse immersed in the bizarre psychodynamics of social interaction. How identity works itself into technical poetics is hard to articulate yet he believes there is a parallel between the components of a marginalized identity and the poetics of fragmentation.

He is interested in how the evolution of language can transform public texts into poetic artifice. The transition from original source material to the realm of disembodiment presents how process can be subverted into literature as linguistically challenging as poetry while it undermines the original grammar and syntax that commodifies different environments and mood sets into the illusion of a uniform experience. A common thread in the process is to show how textual manipulation can transform semantics to occupy a space between the tangible and fantastic.

In order to expand the semiotics of form, he approaches electronic literature with media like video to show the sustainability of the poetic medium by going from a linear-based interface into accessible applications. A sustainable form for uncommercial and experimental literature that inflects poetry through photography, video and hypertext can only be accessed through web-based applications. Most contemporary poets consider themselves lucky if they can find a small press that will publish their work for free but the dire reality is that the distribution of small presses can only reach a limited audience at best. The antiquated medium of dead tree editions are often inaccessible as almost all bookstores offer only a limited selection of poetry.

Two self-published and web-based projects that embrace text appropriated from web-based media include online chapbooks entitled TRY ME. and Ten and One Left. TRY ME. is a series of lexical anagrams translated from unsolicited bulk email collected over an eight month period and collaged with embedded literature. Excerpts include passages from Lord of the Rings and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Ten and One Left is a convergence of 11-line poems in which the number 11 functions as symbol for the imperfect and has a symbolic relationship with the exterior. Eleven is derived from the old english word "Endleofan" which means the base of one plus a second element. The second element is an appropriation of the author's teenage poetry posted on abandoned public blogs.

The struggle against the limits of symbolic representation in his semantic form parallels the anarchist critique of political representation. There are thematic links between anarchy and the historical influences of art and poetics that divert from the idea of fragmentation. The dialectic between two polar opposites provides a stimulus to revolt by engaging the spectator and poet in a process of change. Poetry essentially examines politics with the goal of subverting what is thwarting progress, and replacing its absurdity with ideas that have been marginalized through consumer complacency. The subversion is created in a way that brings acknowledgment of the world's disorder in the current structure as a step toward advocating both anarchism and poetry.

He graduated with an MFA in Writing from Otis College of Art & Design in 2008 and is currently pursuing his second MFA in Digital Arts and New Media at UC Santa Cruz. His installations appeared at Magnolia Editions in Oakland, San Francisco State University and Otis College of Art & Design in Los Angeles; and at coffee shops in Southern California.

Artist Statement (CV)

Christoph Girard is so detached to everything and everyone, that his own undertaking as a radical queer vegan straight edge iconoclast is very conventional. The way he labels himself within so many subcultures makes it ironic for me to take a stand against representation, but the fact that he is so disconnected allows him not to share a social identity but to embrace the systems as a dissident within labels. Anyone who meets him comprehends a fragmented part of himself and would have to conclude with a multifaceted interpretation of who he is because he is a contortionist in structural disguise.

He is fascinated by the shared and marginalized identities of others who are disconnected from life in ways he is not. Like the poet Clark Coolidge, who is interested in geological rock patterns, absorbing the population is how he connects with nature. he is interested in the chaos of communication as a journalist, artist and poet; and chooses to spend his free time as a recluse immersed in the bizarre psychodynamics of social interaction because he is better able to sort things out in his mind clearly while seeing how intricate and alive everything is. How identity works itself into technical poetics is hard to articulate yet he believes there is a parallel between the components of a marginalized identity and the poetics of fragmentation.

As a graduate student at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, he worked under the guidance of Paul Vangelisti, who actively translates and publishes Italian Futurist to Neo-Avant-Garde poetry. His first thesis addressed the obstruction of form through sound. He manipulates structures into a system of paradoxes in order to create lyric poetry through syntax, association and logic. A common thread in these disjointed texts is the way it can address detail and rhythm to ephemeral moments whose settings are unfamiliar, almost implausible to readers but still achieve a cadence within the realm of consciousness. These poems occupy a space between tangible and fantastic, commenting on lived life while simultaneously communicating how a transient existence can be experienced unexpectedly. His poetry won the 2006 Frances Jaffer Poetry Prize from the San Francisco State University Poetry Center.

His photography is a structural dialectic of two or four frames and has been exhibited at Magnolia Editions in Oakland, SFSU and coffee-shops. While he worked as an administrator for a commercial art gallery in Laguna Beach, he installed a large dialectical photo montage nearby at the former site of a Wyland mural on Pacific Coast Highway during Memorial Day weekend. The montage questioned the nature of exoticism as an idyllic holiday retreat with frames of a crooked sublime beach stacked on top and beside surreal shadows of palm trees. The giclée was reinstalled several times, as passersby moved the board; once to a garbage can. A coworker told him that a homeless person eventually sequestered the art.

Contextual Statement

To abolish the author's role in literature will in turn abolish self-referential subjects in literature by ceasing to reference specific excerpts that allude to the author. Authorship, as Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault argue, becomes a hierarchical focal point to the written word. The role of the author must be subverted for the sustainability of the text in order for the reader to connect to the work in a more meaningful way with public discourse. The reader, in turn, reflects the anarchic struggle of disembodiment and separation by way of transgressing the author and paper-based media.

Some solutions should be expanded to the ideas presented in Foucault's What Is An Author? by and Barthes' Death of the Author by understanding how text could be disseminated and read by the public without the subservience of the author and his or her own book. Examples of ongoing discourse is found in anarchy's role of the historical construction of the avant-garde that comes from the resistance to representation and authorship. The struggle against the limits of symbolic representation in literature is parallel to the anarchist critique of political representation. There are thematic links between anarchy and the historical influences of literature that divert from the fragment.

Embodiment and disembodiment is explored through the minimal process of interaction by the movement of the body via a sensor connected to an arduino board connected to a Macbook Pro. The physical presence of writing reflects the existence of the active reader in a room who engages in plural interpretations of the spoken text by activating a sensor to switch on the sound and video. The active reader's resistance to central authorship is put forth by the poststructuralism and postmodernism movements. The reader's plurality of truth is perceived as an army of metaphors that determines the semantics of meaning. The death of the author in writing connects to readership through movements of the body that conditions its rhythm and cadence.

Bibliography

Aarseth, Espen. Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.

Barthes, Roland. Image - Music - Text.
New York: Hill and Wang, 1978.

Foucault, Michel. The Foucault Reader.
New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.

Funkhouser, C. T. Prehistoric Digital Poetry: An Archaeology of Forms.
Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007.

Hayles, Katherine. Electronic Literature: New Horizons for the Literary.
Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008.

Heibach, Christiane and Karin Wenz, eds. P0Es1S: The Aesthetics Of Digital Poetry.
Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2004.

Holquist, Michae. Dialogism (Bakhtin).
London: Routledge, 2002.

Kittler, Friedrich. Gramophone, Film, Typewriter.
Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1999.

Landow, George. Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in an Era of Globalization.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.

Middleton, Peter. Distant Reading: Performance, Readership, and Consumption in Contemporary Poetry.
Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2005.

Morris, Adalaide, and Thomas Swiss, eds. New Media Poetics: Contexts, Technotexts, and Theories.
Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006.

Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word.
London: Routledge, 2002.

Wardrip-Fruin, Noah, and Nick Monfort, eds. The New Media Reader.
Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003.