sound poetry #2 : some avant gardes

For programme no.#2 of our four part sound poetry series, Avant Gardening traces a wandering path through the wider expanded field of experimental sound/voice in 20th century avant garde artistic practices and speculates on their effect on the forms of noise and voice found in poetic sound work, and poetries that emphasise the corporeality of reading and performativity. such 20th century historic avant garde language experiments include early dadaist experiments in language cut ups and explorations in destroying the linear sense of language via the public performance of 'nonsense' sounds, through john cage and jackson maclow's interest in re-composing (or "writing through") other texts via the i ching and mesostics, to the fluxus interest in language as 'prose score'. Along the way we listen to such singularly uncompromising audio pieces as Yoko Ono's 'Cough Piece', Kurt Schwitters' 'Ursonate (as read toward a somewhat airless perfection by Jaap Blonk), Joseph Beuys' c.1968 mantric tape piece Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee (in its entirety), and the 1963 radio play by Swedish artist Öyvind Fahlström, 'Fåglar i Sverige' ('Birds in Sweden'), the most sustained foregrounding of his experiments in creating new languages: 'birdo', based on American bird sounds, and 'fåglo', based on Swedish bird sounds.

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Playlist :

1. Hugo Ball, 'Karawane', from Dada for Now
2. Hugo Ball 'Wolken', from Dada for Now
3. Raoul Hausmann, 'Scoundrel', from Dada for Now
4. Kurt Schwitters 'Ursonate (Dritter Teil)', from Ursonate
5. Jaap Blonk, 'Ursonate (Erster Teil)', from Ursonate
6. John Cage, 'Mureau'
7. John Cage, 'Song, Derived from the Journals of Henri David Thoreau'
8. John Cage, Writing for the Second Time Through Finnegan's Wake'
9. Jackson Mac Low, from Open Secrets
10. Jackson Mac Low, from Open Secrets
11. Dick Higgins, 'Omnia Gallia', from Fluxus Anthology 30th Anniversary 1962-1992 
12. Yoko Ono, 'Lennon',
13. Yoko Ono, 'Cough Piece', taken from UbuWeb/Penn Sound Archive
14. Takehisa Kosugi, '75 Letters and Improvisation', from A Chance Operation, the John Cage Tribute (Disc 2)
15. William S Burroughs, 'Present Time Exercises', from Break Through in Grey Room
16. William S Burroughs, 'Origin and Theory of the Tape Cut Up', from Break Through in Grey Room
17. bpNichol, 'The Alphabet Game', from Ear Rational : Sound Poems 1966 - 1980
18. bpNichol, 'White Text Sure: Version 1', from Ear Rational : Sound Poems 1966 - 1980
19. Maurizio Nanucci, 'Cut Music - number 9', from Sound Poetry Today
20. Valeri Scherstjanoi, 'Trecho de Improvisation', from Sound Poetry Today
21. Arrigo Lora-Totino, 'Chiacchere', from Fylkingen Text-Sound Festivals - 10 Years
22. Charles Amirkhanian, 'Dzarim Bess Ga Korim', from Fylkingen Text-Sound Festivals - 10 Years
23. Ake Hodell, 'The Voyage to Labrador', from Fylkingen Text-Sound Festivals - 10 Years
24. Sten Hanson 'Au', from Fylkingen Text-Sound Festivals - 10 Years
25. Öyvind Fahlström, 'Fåglar i Sverige'
26. Joseph Beuys,  'Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee'