2009 piscu on ide's poetics
denisa mirena piscu:
“the code-revolutions of the authors” breaks the linear code of the letters succession and the word regains its inherent powers
(...) this (christian ide hintze's) attempt to discover a different language comes from his awareness of the “literary code” being obsolete, for which he argues in his essay, “the code-revolutions of the authors” (1). “writing” has the following flaws: it is consecutive, causal, linear, and mono-directional; moreover, it represents a control instrument of the literary societies which is going to be replaced by the equipment of electronic data processing in as many fields as industry, economics, science, traffic. it is gradually losing its importance against the code of the internet and the audio-visual media: photography, cd, video, sampling, the antenna and the computer based media; radio, television and the internet are the new tools of communication which are taking the place of the weak written word. consequently, “the audio, visual and computerized network-codes will not only change our definition of history, it will also revolutionize art, politics, pedagogy, communication, spirituality, sexuality and especially literature, poetry, the art of the poets” (2).
historically speaking, we can refer to three important stages: the “mythical time” which was “oral-pictorally and most of all communally defined”, the “historical time”, defined by writing and an “advancing personal isolation”, and the time to come, which doesn’t yet have a name, but which has many things in common rather with the mythical time, than with the historical one. among the common aspects, ide counts the similarity between oral-pictorial and audio-video, as well as the high interest into sharing information and creation – either by working in the community, or by using the internet network in order to get interactive responses from the audience. not only this, but hintze thinks that “the new media also stimulate a new interest in very old forms of poetry that we have forgotten, because we are only used to writing and reading” (3).
according to ide, the first steps of the literary revolution against writing were taken in paris, in the early 1950's, by the "poetes sonores" - francois dufrêne, henri chopin and bernard heidsieck, who created poetry based on electronic devices such as tape recorders, microphones and loudspeakers, at about the same time that the "beat generation" was performing in the usa and the "viennese" in austria.
the “poetes sonores” marked a switch of focus from the (written) word - which had been overestimated, to the sound - which was now granted its just place: “their slogan "au commencement est le son" - "in the beginning there was sound, there was the spoken sound, the spoken tone" - was an outrageous attack against the standards of the ruling culture-mogules, who had gradually, more and more falsely, interpreted the biblical "in the beginning there was the word" into "in the beginning there was the written word” (4). they became aware that writing was “an instrument of amputation, because it severs the voice and the body” and they replaced the succession of letters by the magnetic and electro-acoustic signals, refusing to use any other graphic codes for their poems.
the word was, indeed, at the beginning of world creation, but it was neither the written word, nor the simple word as a speech unit. its power comes from the three energies that are, according to ide, the keys to a complete and successful communication: "logos" seen only in a literary framework does not tell you anything about logos. logos - and the meaning you can derive from it - was always a complex of body, voice and situation. after the invention of the writing the dimension of script was added. after the invention of audio and video audio and video was added. now in the times of digitalisation and internet digitalisation and internet is added” (5). the word - in this complex meaning – is the solid base on which subsequent layers of meaning and expression are added, according to the advances of time.
the active, rebellious “wild and free” poetry of the present time
for ide hintze, “sound poetry” - the achievement of the european revolutionary poets – means “a body of language composed on the sounding of phonemes, consonants and vowels, technically and vocally, spontaneously and via scores” (6). still, as far as content is concerned, all the definitions that ide gives to sound poetry are made by contrast to something prior to this moment: “a few thousand years after the invention of writing, a few hundred years after the invention of printing, a few decades after the invention of the typewriter it was suddenly possible, with the help of one single piece of equipment - or ensemble of equipment - to not only create poetry and to codify, to manipulate, to multiply, and to publicize, but also to rebel.” (7) sound poetry comes as a form of rebellion against the domination of writing.
it is valuable, once again, for the following distinctive features, by contrast with literary poetry: “that it breaks all forms of standardized, nationalized, hierarchic and politically misusable language & communication. that it opens up your senses for a more archetypic, archaic, a more personal - and at the same time: more global - language and communication. (...) literary poetry has a tendency to promote a controllable, nationalistic view on language ("keep it clean, our mothertongue", "stick to the regulations of orthography" etc.). sound poetry has a tendency to be more open, wild and free. it overcomes national boundaries more easily. i am against orthography and thesis / antithesis. i am pro phonography and synthesis” (8).
poetry has, thus, an active task, according to ide: it has either to “rebel” (against something) or to “break” (the former literary forms). ide gives a definition which goes from general - language and communication, to the particular – poetry: sound vs. writing. there is always a dual view upon things: on the one hand, we have the negative features of the “literary”, on the other hand, the improvements brought by the liberation from this code: standardized vs. more personal; nationalized vs. more global; hierarchical vs. archetypical; controllable vs. open. his solution, so far, is the creation of a global language that could be understood by everybody – and this can only be done through sound. further on, he opposes the following pairs: orthography vs. phonographic and thesis/antithesis vs. synthesis. he is not interested into correctness and categories, but into mixture, richness, expressivity. (...)
“a good poetry is when the author succeeds to compose language in a manner that there are more levels at the same time, this is the great art of poetry. and in sound, you have the possibilities to work with more meanings at the same time” (9). for ide, that is the very difference between poetry and dictatorship, in fact: the situation when the poet opens up the meanings for the audience, as opposed to the author’s attempt to control everything.
(1) bulatov, dmitry; homo sonorous – an international anthology of sound poetry, national center for contemporary arts, kaliningrad-russia, 2002; pp. 276-282
(2) idem
(3) recorded interview with christian ide hintze, 27th of november, 2008, vienna
(4) bulatov, dmitry; homo sonorous – an international anthology of sound poetry, national center for contemporary arts, kaliningrad-russia, 2002; p. 276
(5) answers to a questionnaire on sound poetry, titled “global creole perspective”, june 25, 2008
(6) answers to a questionnaire on sound poetry, titled “global creole perspective”, sent to me by email on june 25, 2008
(7) bulatov, dmitry; homo sonorous – an international anthology of sound poetry, national center for contemporary arts, kaliningrad-russia, 2002; p. 278
(8) answers to a questionnaire on sound poetry, titled “global creole perspective”, sent to me by email on june 25, 2008
(9) recorded interview with christian ide hintze, 27th of november, 2008, vienna
(denisa mirena piscu: “the code-revolutions of the authors” breaks the linear code of the letters succession and the word regains its inherent powers, in: sound poetry – three poets trying to escape the abusive domination of word: henri chopin, sainkho namtchylak, christian ide hintze. master thesis (lucrare de disertatie). university of bucuresti. bucuresti, romania 2009)
“the code-revolutions of the authors” breaks the linear code of the letters succession and the word regains its inherent powers
(...) this (christian ide hintze's) attempt to discover a different language comes from his awareness of the “literary code” being obsolete, for which he argues in his essay, “the code-revolutions of the authors” (1). “writing” has the following flaws: it is consecutive, causal, linear, and mono-directional; moreover, it represents a control instrument of the literary societies which is going to be replaced by the equipment of electronic data processing in as many fields as industry, economics, science, traffic. it is gradually losing its importance against the code of the internet and the audio-visual media: photography, cd, video, sampling, the antenna and the computer based media; radio, television and the internet are the new tools of communication which are taking the place of the weak written word. consequently, “the audio, visual and computerized network-codes will not only change our definition of history, it will also revolutionize art, politics, pedagogy, communication, spirituality, sexuality and especially literature, poetry, the art of the poets” (2).
historically speaking, we can refer to three important stages: the “mythical time” which was “oral-pictorally and most of all communally defined”, the “historical time”, defined by writing and an “advancing personal isolation”, and the time to come, which doesn’t yet have a name, but which has many things in common rather with the mythical time, than with the historical one. among the common aspects, ide counts the similarity between oral-pictorial and audio-video, as well as the high interest into sharing information and creation – either by working in the community, or by using the internet network in order to get interactive responses from the audience. not only this, but hintze thinks that “the new media also stimulate a new interest in very old forms of poetry that we have forgotten, because we are only used to writing and reading” (3).
according to ide, the first steps of the literary revolution against writing were taken in paris, in the early 1950's, by the "poetes sonores" - francois dufrêne, henri chopin and bernard heidsieck, who created poetry based on electronic devices such as tape recorders, microphones and loudspeakers, at about the same time that the "beat generation" was performing in the usa and the "viennese" in austria.
the “poetes sonores” marked a switch of focus from the (written) word - which had been overestimated, to the sound - which was now granted its just place: “their slogan "au commencement est le son" - "in the beginning there was sound, there was the spoken sound, the spoken tone" - was an outrageous attack against the standards of the ruling culture-mogules, who had gradually, more and more falsely, interpreted the biblical "in the beginning there was the word" into "in the beginning there was the written word” (4). they became aware that writing was “an instrument of amputation, because it severs the voice and the body” and they replaced the succession of letters by the magnetic and electro-acoustic signals, refusing to use any other graphic codes for their poems.
the word was, indeed, at the beginning of world creation, but it was neither the written word, nor the simple word as a speech unit. its power comes from the three energies that are, according to ide, the keys to a complete and successful communication: "logos" seen only in a literary framework does not tell you anything about logos. logos - and the meaning you can derive from it - was always a complex of body, voice and situation. after the invention of the writing the dimension of script was added. after the invention of audio and video audio and video was added. now in the times of digitalisation and internet digitalisation and internet is added” (5). the word - in this complex meaning – is the solid base on which subsequent layers of meaning and expression are added, according to the advances of time.
the active, rebellious “wild and free” poetry of the present time
for ide hintze, “sound poetry” - the achievement of the european revolutionary poets – means “a body of language composed on the sounding of phonemes, consonants and vowels, technically and vocally, spontaneously and via scores” (6). still, as far as content is concerned, all the definitions that ide gives to sound poetry are made by contrast to something prior to this moment: “a few thousand years after the invention of writing, a few hundred years after the invention of printing, a few decades after the invention of the typewriter it was suddenly possible, with the help of one single piece of equipment - or ensemble of equipment - to not only create poetry and to codify, to manipulate, to multiply, and to publicize, but also to rebel.” (7) sound poetry comes as a form of rebellion against the domination of writing.
it is valuable, once again, for the following distinctive features, by contrast with literary poetry: “that it breaks all forms of standardized, nationalized, hierarchic and politically misusable language & communication. that it opens up your senses for a more archetypic, archaic, a more personal - and at the same time: more global - language and communication. (...) literary poetry has a tendency to promote a controllable, nationalistic view on language ("keep it clean, our mothertongue", "stick to the regulations of orthography" etc.). sound poetry has a tendency to be more open, wild and free. it overcomes national boundaries more easily. i am against orthography and thesis / antithesis. i am pro phonography and synthesis” (8).
poetry has, thus, an active task, according to ide: it has either to “rebel” (against something) or to “break” (the former literary forms). ide gives a definition which goes from general - language and communication, to the particular – poetry: sound vs. writing. there is always a dual view upon things: on the one hand, we have the negative features of the “literary”, on the other hand, the improvements brought by the liberation from this code: standardized vs. more personal; nationalized vs. more global; hierarchical vs. archetypical; controllable vs. open. his solution, so far, is the creation of a global language that could be understood by everybody – and this can only be done through sound. further on, he opposes the following pairs: orthography vs. phonographic and thesis/antithesis vs. synthesis. he is not interested into correctness and categories, but into mixture, richness, expressivity. (...)
“a good poetry is when the author succeeds to compose language in a manner that there are more levels at the same time, this is the great art of poetry. and in sound, you have the possibilities to work with more meanings at the same time” (9). for ide, that is the very difference between poetry and dictatorship, in fact: the situation when the poet opens up the meanings for the audience, as opposed to the author’s attempt to control everything.
(1) bulatov, dmitry; homo sonorous – an international anthology of sound poetry, national center for contemporary arts, kaliningrad-russia, 2002; pp. 276-282
(2) idem
(3) recorded interview with christian ide hintze, 27th of november, 2008, vienna
(4) bulatov, dmitry; homo sonorous – an international anthology of sound poetry, national center for contemporary arts, kaliningrad-russia, 2002; p. 276
(5) answers to a questionnaire on sound poetry, titled “global creole perspective”, june 25, 2008
(6) answers to a questionnaire on sound poetry, titled “global creole perspective”, sent to me by email on june 25, 2008
(7) bulatov, dmitry; homo sonorous – an international anthology of sound poetry, national center for contemporary arts, kaliningrad-russia, 2002; p. 278
(8) answers to a questionnaire on sound poetry, titled “global creole perspective”, sent to me by email on june 25, 2008
(9) recorded interview with christian ide hintze, 27th of november, 2008, vienna
(denisa mirena piscu: “the code-revolutions of the authors” breaks the linear code of the letters succession and the word regains its inherent powers, in: sound poetry – three poets trying to escape the abusive domination of word: henri chopin, sainkho namtchylak, christian ide hintze. master thesis (lucrare de disertatie). university of bucuresti. bucuresti, romania 2009)