{"id":10847,"date":"2022-11-30T23:09:44","date_gmt":"2022-11-30T23:09:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/?p=10847"},"modified":"2022-11-30T23:09:44","modified_gmt":"2022-11-30T23:09:44","slug":"entangled-threads-a-canadian-and-an-american-chart-videopoetry-throughout-their-lives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/?p=10847","title":{"rendered":"ENTANGLED THREADS: A Canadian and an American chart videopoetry throughout their lives"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0It’s been a wild ride! Presentation by Kurt Heintz and Heather Haley at the videpoetry symposium as part Tom Konyves’ Poets with a Video Camera exhibit at the Surrey Art Gallery, available to view until Dec 11, 1022.<\/p>\n

1973-10 (October) \u2013 Kurt<\/strong>
\nIt\u2019s the homecoming game at my high school. I\u2019m lucky enough to have access to a computer. My teacher runs statistics on the teams. I\u2019m there because the computer is open. I wrote a program that is supposed to generate poetry. It does. It sucks. But it works.<\/p>\n

1978-08 (August) \u2013 Kurt<\/strong>
\nI get my first computer, an Apple II. I write a paint program for it that ultimately digitizes video. I share the program with my college teacher. She shares it with her boyfriend, who then publishes a top-selling paint program for the Apple II. I question my teacher. She says my work is academic, and therefore outside copyright. Thus begins my adversarial relationship with the academy. The \u201cvideo output\u201d on my Apple II points me to television production, which I study and love.<\/p>\n

1980-01 (January) \u2013 Heather<\/strong>
\nI was a singer\/songwriter and front person of one of Vancouver\u2019s first all-female punk bands, the Zellots, when I abandoned everything and moved to Los Angeles with absolutely no doubt of rock stardom. Ah, the hubris of youth.<\/p>\n

1980-12 (December) Kurt<\/strong>
\nMy final project in advanced television features a suite of performance art pieces. (albeit, undergraduate caliber) It\u2019s titled \u201c463: a television experiment,\u201d the high point of my college years. The premiere party ends in depression, however, as news breaks during the show that John Lennon was murdered.<\/p>\n

1980-1992 \u2013 Heather<\/strong>
\nAlong with writing songs and fronting a band, I fully engaged in LA\u2019s diverse and vibrant art and coffee house scenes while working for the LA Weekly and the Woman\u2019s Building, a feminist gallery and mecca. An autodidact, I learned by doing about performing, writing, poetry, publishing, video, installation art, spoken word, performance art and collaboration, inspired by the city\u2019s rampant pollination between genres and disciplines, exposed to and influenced by the likes of Judy Chicago, Jeff Isaak, Branda Miller, Johanna Went, Rachel Rosenthal, the Guerilla Girls, Gronk, Daniel J Martinez and Judy Baca.<\/p>\n

1982 and later \u2013 Kurt<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m a bench tech for Western Electric in the Chicago suburbs, but I join the Center for New Television, Chicago, where I attend workshops and video art screenings. I meet video artists such as Steina and Woody Vasulka, and Bill Viola. This is way better than art school. Cheaper, too. Video art is real. But any such video art with a voice resembling poetry is simply called \u201cnarrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

1982-1987 \u2013 Heather<\/strong>
\nWith Peter Haskell, I edited and published the innovative and experimental poetry journal, Rattler, my first attempt at fusing text with image. It featured a parade of LA luminaries such as Linda Giurbino, Georganne Deen, Rocky Schenck, Jonathon Rosen, Kathi Norklun, Mark Mothersbaugh, Henry Rollins, Lydia Lunch, Exene Cervenka and Perry Farrell.<\/p>\n

1984 \u2013 Heather
\nI met Doug Knott-Poet and Beyond Baroque\/Lhasa Club impresario who would later produce videopoems and a cable show called POETRY TV. (4-DougKnott.png, unless there might be something more appropriate?) Also, the Olympic Arts Festival engendered an explosion of artistic expression. I believe its fallout had a direct impact on the city\u2019s culture along with me and my fellow artists.<\/p>\n

1986-01 (January) \u2013 Kurt<\/strong>
\nI discover Butchie\u2019s Get Me High Lounge, Chicago, home to Marc Smith\u2019s first weekly poetry open mic. At the time, we all call this \u201cperformance poetry.\u201d Performance first, is our credo. When this gig moves to the Green Mill, I witness the creation of slam poetry and I receive a wild, bar-side education on creative writing. No video and few books, but lots of voice.<\/p>\n

1987 \u2013 Heather<\/strong>
\nI bought my first computer, a Macintosh SE to run the office of the Ethical Pool, our recording studio in Silverlake.
\nWhat took you so long?-Kurt
\nI\u2019m not a geek. Neither am I rich. \ud83d\ude09\u00a0 -Heather<\/p>\n

1990-12 (December) \u2013 Kurt\u00a0<\/strong>
\nI bought an S-VHS tape editing system the previous year. So I create video and perform poetry for On Division at Wholesome Roc Gallery. It\u2019s about the dark side of gentrification and the rise of HIV. Susen James, a poet and a licensed nurse, draws a sample of my blood, which the audience sees in close-up over multiple monitors. I press the sealed, warm test tube against the cheeks of front-row guests and whisper in their ears, \u201cWhat do you feel through the glass?\u201d<\/p>\n

1991 \u2013 Heather<\/strong>
\nI attended Telepoetry events at the Electronic Caf\u00e9, founded by-Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz-in Santa Monica, witnessed videophone linkups with Boston, New York, Phoenix and Paris. \u00a0I met poet and facilitator Merilene Murphy.<\/p>\n

1991-06 (June) \u2013 Kurt<\/strong>
\nI am part of the Loofah Method, an ensemble that includes poet cin salach \u2013 one of Marc Smith\u2019s circle \u2013 and musicians and filmmakers. I add the video component to salach\u2019s live performance poetry. Patricia Smith and I are both fans of the Loofah Method. When we reminisce about them, we sing, \u201cI\u2019m your TV\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

1991-08 (August) \u2013 Kurt<\/strong>
\nI work with Quraysh Ali Lansana and Larry Winfield at the Guild Complex in Chicago to present the Guild\u2019s first Poetry Video Festival. We show videos to an audience at a nightclub called The Hothouse. The audience loves it. Larry made his video with his Radio Shack TRS-80 computer. We\u2019re definitely not \u201cbi-coastal.\u201d<\/p>\n

1992-93 \u2013 Heather<\/strong>
\nI was introduced to the Internet, or, the World Wide Web, by friends and associates and learned HTML.<\/p>\n

1992-09 (September) \u2013 Kurt<\/strong>
\nThe Guild\u2019s Poetry Video Festival features Bob Holman, who has also become part of Marc Smith\u2019s circle (then). This is a lot more curated. Open calls bring us jewels and crap for submissions. Filtering them is a bitch.
\nJean Howard, a poetry colleague of Marc Smith, brings me news of the Electronic Caf\u00e9 International and Merilene Murphy. For next year\u2019s Festival, we team with the Center for New Television and Merilene hosts a poetry workshop for us by videophone, from Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

1992-12 (December) \u2013 Kurt<\/strong>
\nI connect with the San Francisco Poetry Film Festival, and discover a (then) 17-year history of poetry and cinema there. I hold my own, scoring prizes for two of my videos.<\/p>\n

1993-94 \u2013 Heather (Edgewise ElectroLit Centre)<\/strong>
\nThe Art of Connecting People. Awarded an Explorations grant by the Canada Council for the Arts, I founded the Edgewise ElectroLit Centre in Vancouver with a mandate of employing technology, (the Internet and \u2018new media\u2019 to) advance the work of poets and artists.
\nWe procured Netscape, set up a web site and having been raised with television\/moving images, working with video came naturally, as I employed a camera to document events, produce Telepoetics linkups and videopoems.
\nVideo\u2019s history of experimentation is a fundamental aspect of the medium and its populist nature appeals to me. Accessibility and affordability are important considerations as well and as Robert Graves said, \u201cThere’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money, either.\u201d
\nSome participants included: Robert Bringhurst, Evelyn Lau, Sheri-D Wilson, Gregory Scofield, Larissa Lai, Roger Blenman, Adeena Karasick, Lillian Allen, Kate Braid, Wayde Compton, bill bissett, Terrie Hamazaki, Jen Lam, Bud Osborne, Phinder Dulai, Marilyn Dumont, Billeh Nickerson, Patricia Smith and Henry Mah.<\/p>\n

1993-01 (January) \u2013 Kurt
\nI make more poetry videos with Lisa Buscani, a member of the Neo-Futurists, and again with cin salach. The Loofah Method performances with salach are now in Live Bait Theater, not some soundstage but a real theater with a real reputation. Theater critic Hedy Weiss refuses to review us, however, since our poetry, \u201chas no conflict and therefore no drama.\u201d Baloney.<\/p>\n

1993-08 (August) \u2013 Kurt (Merilene Murphy)<\/strong>
\nThe American Film Institute, L.A., awards me a prize for a poetry video that I had to enter in AFI\u2019s music video category for Sony\/Visions of US. AFI didn\u2019t recognize poetry video, so music video was the next best category. Merilene Murphy attends the reception. Wow! After so many voice and video calls, I finally meet her in person. By the way, I came in second place to a group of LA rappers dressed as cowboys. They really did music. The late Bob Saget gave out the awards.<\/p>\n

1994-08 (August) \u2013 Heather (L.A. Times article on Telepoetics)<\/strong>
\nFirst Edgewise ElectroLit Centre event; Telepoetics link up with Los Angeles at the Western Front in Vancouver. The EEC spawned three major programs: the Edgewise Caf\u00e9, one of Canada\u2019s first online multimedia magazines, Telepoetics and the Vancouver Videopoem Festival, which evolved into Visible Verse at Pacific Cinematheque.<\/p>\n

1995-02 (Feb)\u2013 Heather (Cocteau\u2019s Blood of a Poet)<\/strong>
\nI saw Jean Cocteau\u2019s Blood of a Poet, considered to be a \u201cvisual poem.\u201d Made in 1932 I think of Cocteau as the first poet with a camera, at least that I\u2019m aware of. Surely, he melded word and image like no other. Intrigued, I researched and became aware of the works of Maya Deren, George Aquilar, Jill Battson, Herman Berlandt and others.<\/p>\n

1995-04 (Apr) \u2013 Heather<\/strong>
\nVerse volley with Kurt Heintz and Chicago’s U-Lab, a crucial facilitator and partner in the Telepoetics network which included far flung sites in Toronto, Calgary, San Francisco, Montreal, San Antonio, Alert Bay and New York. Kurt and I collaborated in virtuality for six or seven years before meeting in person.<\/p>\n

1996-09 (September) \u2013 Kurt (Quraysh Ali Lansana\u2019s poetry video Passage)<\/strong>
\nWTTW\/Chicago (PBS) gives me the Bob Award, usually reserved for video art, but in my case for a poetry video with Quraysh Ali Lansana, Passage. Poetry video is real at last, in Chicago.<\/p>\n

1997-04 (April) \u2013 Kurt (Ana\u00efs Nin in Bells of Atlantis)<\/strong>
\nI attend a conference at SUNY\/Buffalo and hear William Wees (McGill Univ.) speak about poetry video. He presents a reel with some ancient clips, one by Ana\u00efs Nin called Bells of Atlantis, which is older than I am. I\u2019m impressed. Jill Battson and I dish this, and I travel back to Toronto with her.<\/p>\n

1999-02 (February) \u2013 Kurt<\/strong>
\nIn a video link-up from the Neo-Futurarium, I join Heather for \u201cLove and Lust in North America,\u201d on a Valentine\u2019s tangent. Totally breaking the fourth wall, a Vancouver poet flirts with one of the Chicago audience members.<\/p>\n

1999-05 (May) \u2013 Kurt<\/strong>
\nI join Heather in a videophone link-up between Vancouver and Chicago poetry students: high school students. My kids are with Young Chicago Authors.
\nThis is in the aftermath of the Columbine School shooting. Chicago kids complain about not being allowed to talk about Columbine in class, and of metal detectors as they enter their school. This leaves the Vancouver kids dumbfounded. Never has the difference between Americans and Canadians been so sharp for me.
\n(Sadly, the differences appear to be blurring.\u201d-Heather)<\/p>\n

1999-11 (November) \u2013 Heather\u00a0 (Vancouver Videopoem Festival, 1999)<\/strong>
\nSee Or Be Seen-launched the Vancouver Videopoem Festival, the first festival of its kind in Canada. From the program: \u201cThis hybrid genre has received scant attention despite being a creative field of growing interest for Canadian poets and artists since the 70s. Vancouver\u2019s Edgewise ElectroLit Centre is hosting this inaugural event wherein the most innovative treatments are explored and presented. Work from Canada and beyond will give local audiences a survey of the accomplishments in videopoetry for the past 20 years.\u201d
\n(Vancouver Videopoem Festival, 2000)
\nWhen asked repeatedly to define videopoetry I answered, \u201cA wedding of word and image.\u201d The bottom line is language. We\u2019re language artists and the emphasis in a videopoem is language, not personality. Language in all its guises, including text, voice, image and sound, their integration the greatest challenge. And this is the year I met Tom Konyves, of the Vehicule poets, an innovator who characterized the hybrid genre as \u201cvideopoetry.\u201d<\/p>\n

2000-03 (March) \u2013 Kurt (Radio Free Monterey, Betts, Jess)<\/strong>
\nI link from Chicago to Barbara Steinberg at Radio Free Monterey (California). Our video contributes to their RealVideo livestream. Chat lines handle Q&A traffic between Monterey and my home, where Tara Betts and Tyehimba Jess are the featured poets. If only we\u2019d patented this. Our network design postulates what has since been used in distance learning. Barbara and I publish our \u201cexperiment\u201d in Mantis 1: poetry and community, by Stanford University. (BTW: Jess wins a Pulitzer for poetry, for Olio, in 2017.) As humble as our live stream was, we can say now that our videopoetry has touched the stars.<\/p>\n

2001-2012 \u2013 Heather (scenes from videopoems by Heather Haley)<\/strong>
\nProduced a series of videopoems, official selections at dozens of international film festivals. They may be found under mediapoet at VIMEO: https:\/\/vimeo.com\/mediapoet
\n2002-2015 \u2013 Heather<\/p>\n

See The Voice. Curated and hosted Visible Verse at Pacific Cinematheque in Vancouver, at one point the longest running videopoetry festival in North America. (Yes, it\u2019s safe to say I have invested significantly in this genre.)<\/p>\n

FYI, both the Rattler and Edgewise ElectroLit Centre archives are housed at Simon Fraser Library\u2019s Special Collection in Burnaby and open to the public. (EECArchve@SFULibrary.jpg)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0It’s been a wild ride! Presentation by Kurt Heintz and Heather Haley at the videpoetry symposium as part Tom Konyves’ Poets with a Video Camera exhibit at the Surrey Art Gallery, available to view until Dec 11, 1022. 1973-10 (October) \u2013 Kurt It\u2019s the homecoming game at my high school. I\u2019m lucky enough to have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10847"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10847"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10854,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10847\/revisions\/10854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}