Stephanie Rowden is a professor from the University of Michigan School of Art & Design who works primarily with sound installations and recordings. Her contribution to the Bathhouse Reading Series event this past Tuesday was in the form of a lecture which included a presentation of selections from her body of work.
Early in her lecture, she implored the audience to go on a "sound walk" with her, whereby she guided the audience through different audio landscapes such as a meadow and a 24-hour diner using field recordings that she triggered with a laptop computer. She stated that sound is a "nimble medium," one which is capable of "transporting" a listener by invoking images that "stick to the brain."
Before her presentation began, a group of her students (and one ex-student) performed Is That Wool Hat My Hat? by Jackson Mac Low. This is an interesting poem consisting of various intonations and permutations of the five different words which are found in the title of the piece. Experiencing the poem being performed live reminded me of seeing David Ives' play Phillip Glass Buys a Loaf of Bread. One of the most obvious similarities between the two (and, I suspect, the reason why it came to mind) is the use of rhythm in both pieces. The deliberate and regulated repetition of words and sounds is at the heart of both compositions. Interestingly enough, rhythm is something that I don't recall ever being specifically mentioned during Stephanie Rowden's presentation. Her work is rooted in field recordings and, in several of her examples that we witnessed, the manipulation and installation of said recordings. At one point during the question-and-answer portion of the event, she referenced the fact that she does not, in fact, consider herself a "performer" per sae.
It was an interesting juxtaposition to Stephen Benson, whose work is heavily informed by improvisational performance and composition. Benson is a poet from New Jersey, who moved to San Francisco in 1976 and is credited with being instrumental in the then-burgeoning language poetry movement. His presented a live performance at the Bathhouse event, which consisted of the author somewhat randomly choosing selections from his work and presenting them as a larger unified piece.
The set for his presentation consisted of a couch at stage left and a desk and chair at upper stage right. The only other props were a mobile white board, some dry erase markers, several pieces of paper, a plastic bag of books (most of which were his own), and a bottle of water. With these devices in tow, the author proceded to walk, crawl, and run about the stage, grabbing scraps of paper from the desk, reading them or discarding them for later, then moving to the couch or the floor to read from other pieces of paper or books or, at times, material from both almost simultaneously.
It was difficult, at times, to tell if his movements had been blocked ahead of time and likewise, if he was actually reading from the books and the pieces of paper or if he was reciting his work. Afterwards, during the question-and-answer period, he addressed those questions by stating that he had, indeed, been reading from the texts and implying that his movements were not blocked ahead of time.
Stephen Benson stated that frequently during his performances there are times when he feels like he is connecting with his audience and times where he feels their attention waning. I certainly observed this to some degree during his performance both from my own perspective and by observing the reactions of other spectators. Interestingly, the lines that oftentimes garnered the biggest response were (intentionally or coincidentally) self-referential. For instance, much of the crowd reacted quite verbally (in the form of laughter) when he read a line of text that questioned why the reading series is entitled "Bathhouse." During his performance, there were some serious problems with the engineering of the audio system. At one point, two of the event's organizers left the main seating area and were standing behind a wall which seperates the entrance to the room from the seating area. They were discussing the situation concerning the audio system loudly enough that at least a portion of the audience could hear them speaking. This situation happened to coincide with a line that the author was reading which referenced two people talking in the next room. A student from the audience brought this occurrance up during the question-and-answer session and asked if the line had been an intentional response to the situation that was unfolding at the time. The author hadn't realized that the situation was even occurring - he had no idea that there was a problem with the sound or that there were two people talking in the next room when he delivered the line (much less that it was a moment that resonated with at least one, if not more, spectators).
An interesting aspect of this event was how different both the content and the form of each of the presentations were. While Stephanie Rowden's video & slide presentationd dealt primarily with capturing and manipulating sounds and the relation of sound to memory and the human experience, Stephen Benson's very physical performance was more of an exploration of the process by which language occurs and exists. Both dealt with an aspect of sound and communication, but in very different and fascinating ways.
really great response.
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