Language Moment

The trailblazer event of the Text Festival took place last night at the Green Room. I was pleased with how the juxtapositions of artists worked - a great gig. These pictures were taken during the sound checks. More pictures, films and a soundtrack will be available in due course.

Maggie O'Sullivan

Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl

Phil Minton

The Olympics and Poetry

In 2009 I was shortlisted for one of the 2012 Olympic commissions called "Artists Taking The Lead" - which would develop an international language festival featuring many of the world's leading poets, sound and media artists. Held in Manchester in 2012, The Language Moment would be the largest ever celebration and dialogue of language in the arts.
http://www.artiststakingthelead.org.uk/north-west/info


Simon Armitage was shortlisted for "Any Distance Greater than a Single Span", which would see an epic poem carved into the rock on Ilkley Moor and a range of spectacular performances. Neither of us got the final commission - mine was beaten by the proposal for a crap fountain in Liverpool; I dont know who beat Armitage but I like to think that his proposal was beaten by the offensiveness of its own egomania.

When the powers that be realised that the 2012 Cultural Olympiad was becoming shambolic, they brought in respected cultural leader Ruth MacKenzie to give it new direction. Various people said to me: MacKenzie is a shrewd judge of a good project, re-submit the Language Moment, she might have more insight than the previous discredited judging panels. So I did. I got a reply that she would pass it on to her team to consider. I heard nothing more and readers here will know the Language Moment has continued to develop and will subsequently be the legacy project I take forward after the Text Festival (freed from any constraints that the Olympics would have imposed).

Suddenly the BBC announced yesterday "An ambitious project to assemble poets from all of the Olympic nations in 2012 has been launched in London."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11674308 apparently"Simon Armitage, the poet behind the idea, said: 'My hunch is this will be the biggest poetry event ever - a truly global coming together of poets.' The fucking poet behind the idea! Jude Kelly, the Southbank Centre's artistic director, (which is hosting the event) said: "Poetry has always been so associated with the Olympics - It seems appropriate to make poetry this central idea of something that is about a world gathering." Tony Trehy of the Language Moment said (in 2009 and again to the new Olympic Culture people in 2010): "Poetry was as much a feature of the ancient Olympics as sport. By the 21st Century the concept of global friendship has become central to the Olympiad without recognition of the role that the language arts could play in enhancing this world dialogue."

Apparently they are aiming for 200 poets from all continents. Hmmm... the Language Moment had 200 poets signed up from all continents. The only differences I can see is that the event will happen in London where the Language Moment happened in Manchester - to which people living in the north will no doubt look askance sky-ward, tutting "the usual story". And the other difference is that Hegemony of the Banal continue to limit the possibilities of language in poetry thus ignoring its relationship and dialogue with sound art, visual art, multimedia, etc.

Does the Cambridge School exist when you are in Dortmund?

Before going to Dortmund I was too busy to read much of the discussion of Robert Archambeau’s essay in the Cambridge Literary Review positing the existence of a Cambridge School (of poetry) by Andrea Brady and others in various posts, forum discussions and blogs. At least some of the debate revolved around whether or not the CS exists, but I remember the phrase that came absent-mindedly as it was going on in my background was: “What would it mean if the Cambridge School existed?” Before setting off to Germany I printed off as much of the debate as I could find to read on the planes/trains. Of course, coming to a debate after everyone has had their say and moved on is a bit of a cheat, as you can pick your way through all the previous ideas, the clever analysis and look to be bringing something fresh, even if you’re not. So acknowledging my connivance, I found that reading the Cambridge School debate conflated with the discussions of European cultural policy and social inclusion strategies. Indeed, although not formulated in the CS context, the insight I came to, that the imposition of social inclusion bureaucracy on cultural practice leads to the exclusion of artists themselves, was as much a feeling about the claims of a Cambridge School; that the effects of institutionalisation of the arts in the UK are, in my mind, replicated by the constrictions of academia. And so that question kept recurring: What would it mean if the Cambridge School existed?

The discussion frequently veered into questions about whether poetry could be politically effective, which I won’t pursue here. Part of the question relates to the word ‘School’. Unpicking this ambiguity raises doubts about the whole claim: a school is not a movement – the comparisons made between L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E and Cambridge don’t stack up. The best you can claim for a school is that it is a source of influence, a generator of ideas. Clearly individuals who are being mentioned in this discussion are poets who command attention but I wouldn’t say that that constitutes an ‘incorporative’ effect across the UK poetry scene. Certainly, though I have read some but not all of the poets mentioned in connection with the CS epithet, I would have to say I don’t recognise any influence on my writing and I’m not sure I can see any particular influence on many other writers in the north. That might sound like a parochial observation from ‘up north’ but Chris Hamilton-Emery’s comment that “The British experimental crowd for whom Cambridge serves as a centre of gravity …” needs to be challenged. If anything, the thing that is most exciting about the UK is the ‘decentralisation’ of practice, the multiple and mobility of ‘centres of gravity’. I think it was Keston Sutherland who replied about the developments going on in Brighton for instance; I would identify what is happening in Manchester – practice, which I think influenced by the Text Festival, interweaves possibilities with the city’s sound art/performance art scenes.

And then there is the problem of ‘Cambridge’; from Dortmund (and the context of 300 delegates of 15 nationalities), the CS discussion seemed an increasingly localised irrelevance. Comments from Andrea Brady and Ken Edwards seemed to encapsulate the crux of the counter argument, a position I’d assume everyone who is not part of Cambridge or academics who want the association of reference would take. (“The problem of shipping everything under this CS bill…is that a great deal of really important poetry gets lost” and “Cambridge Poetry itself is NOT an adequate metonym for British innovative poetry”) To me the claims for it as a brand or a rallying point or even an actual School of poetry are irrelevant “springes to catch woodcocks”. Robert Archambeau commented that “what’s happening is that geography has become incidental, just as publication in L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E became incidental to what was meant by Language Poetry. I use the term because that’s the term that seems to be coming into use.” Not round our way! My immediate response to the question what would it mean if the Cambridge School existed was: nothing. I have no contact with anything happening in Cambridge – I imagine that there are great people there, but, as far as I can tell, if it exists it has no influence on me or anyone I know, and don’t have any feeling that I am missing anything. If this term is coming into use, it is less than useless.

In Dortmund I reflected that there is more to the issue, especially viewed from outside the UK. It is surely self-evident that 21st Century cultural practice is globalised – geography is indeed becoming incidental. But the act of naming posits a future and a definition, a definition that has major implications if it is loaded with a geographic location and a particular history. Unchallenged, pinning the ‘British experimental crowd’ to Cambridge as ‘a centre of gravity’ limits UK innovative practice to a global (and local) perception of tradition – I don’t think anyone can see the word 'Cambridge' and it not trigger historic images. On top of this, Cambridge is globally synonymous with the University – what else is Cambridge known for? So putting aside the fact that the epithet does not represent the actual ecology of British experimental poetry, if the CS existed it could significantly distort UK poetics viewed from outside. Of course if CS existed it would carry an additional pejorative connotation within the UK which associates ‘Cambridge’ with elitism (in the English tradition of suspicion of the intelligentsia), allowing the mainstream hegemony of the banal (Armitage, Duffy, Motion, et al) easy unchallenged rejection of experimental practice.

So if the Cambridge School existed, if only for marketing reasons, it would need to drop the Cambridge. The ‘School’ is also a problem as above. In a way, the academic labelling of whatever is or has recently gone on in Cambridge is a decelerating act itself. I recall Ron Silliman telling us last year at the Text Festival that the meaningful label that ultimately sticks to a movement more often than not comes from your enemies. The leading players of something new are not usually that interested in labelling themselves. That is a little worrying for UK innovative poetry as the hegemony of the banal doesn’t have the imagination to come up with something good. The fact that the British mainstream hasn’t bothered to engage in naming its opposition indicates how little threat innovative practice is to its hegemony. However, I regard the institutionalising effects of the academy itself as one of the problems with British poetic development, much as the institutionalisation of other artforms through the State centralisation of culture have damaged UK artistic practice in general – and led to the exclusion of artists, I perceived in Dortmund.

In the Text Festival, I have been very conscious to locate it away from debates in poetry; as Ron Silliman observed of the last one: “Situating poetry in the arts, rather than in the academy, is of course exactly the right idea.” And to avoid the risk of institutionalisation, the 2011 Text Festival will be the last. As Geof Huth wrote in his excellent blogs about 2009: “Whenever you think you’re doing something right, you need to do something different. Otherwise, you’ll keep doing the same thing but think you’re moving forward. The good thing, though, is that Tony knows how to kill himself.” The process of the last Text Festival will inform the concept of what comes next – although it will probably go in the direction of the Language Moment concept which was developed last year.

(By the way Festival submissions have been coming in and more are welcome. There are some pretty exciting things which will be announced soon).

Lightboxes

Manchester's Piccadilly Metro station features a set of nine lightboxes facing the platforms which are devoted to display of artworks. Originally part of the Text Festival but delayed due to engineering works, the station has just reopened with text works selected by me supported by the Hamilton Project.

Various artists featured including Madrid-based Finn, Riiko Sakkinen (Future Cola) (below) http://www.riikosakkinen.com/

"Some Infinities are larger than others" part of a text work by me in collaboration with Kerry Morrison,

plus a couple of works by Márton Koppány from Budapest (introduced to me by Geof Huth).

40,000 people a day stand on these platforms looking at the work while they wait for their trams - an exposure reaching nearly 2 million by the end of the display in February. It would have been nice if the Station had not located those awful yellow "Piccadilly" signs next to the lightboxes, though.

Kill Tony Trehy

There was a moment when I was pulling together the Language Moment structure when I knew that all the major organisational issues had been resolved. At that instant, even though I was very tired, I also knew that this would mean that by the time the event actually happened (if it did) I would have to have moved beyond it to stop myself being bored. I was reminded of Geof Huth’s proposal for my ‘death’ back in June during the Text Festival Thinking Environment workshop. We were considering the question: “What are the assumptions + obstacles that prevent the extension + intensification of the connective + transformative model which the Text Festival represents?” In one of the circuits through the participants, Ron Silliman suggested that the solution would be ‘to clone Tony Trehy’. Geof Huth picks up the story on his blog at the time (http://dbqp.blogspot.com/2009/05/it-was-metaphor.html ) “By the time the conversation wended its way around our circle to me—I was two people away from Ron, so it didn’t take long—I said something like, “I apologize, Tony, for what I’m about to say. But what we need to do is kill Tony. Whenever you think you’re doing something right, you need to do something different. Otherwise, you’ll keep doing the same thing but think you’re moving forward. The good thing, though, is that Tony knows how to kill himself. Over the past two days, in conversations with me, he’s shown how he is trying to find new ways to do things, to become something else than Tony Trehy.” It has been fun teasing Geof about the death threat, I think he apologised again in Finland. As I recover from the intense draining effort of getting the Language Moment ready, Tony Trehy had already been killed before it was submitted and now to finding the new things. The ambitious conception of the last six weeks or so has opened up global possibilities with new collaborators whom I look forward to creating new thinking with, but I look forward most to my own new thinking.

This week Sue and I are in Nice.

The Language Moment

Yesterday was the big day - the Language Moment was presented to the North West Panel of the Olympic Artists Taking the Lead Commission. I was accompanied in the presentation by Phil Davenport and Diana Hamilton from the Hamilton Project
http://www.thehamiltonproject.co.uk/projects/. I haven't said much about the proposal here or anywhere else really - basically because I was working too hard on it to the last minute. But now it's in and we await the decision - it will be announced on 22 October.

The Language Moment is a festival of international language in art, recognising and creating a cross-artform dialogue from poetry to sound art, from sculpture to multimedia. The Commission would create new worldwide possibilities for art and communication. In so doing, it aspires to change the course and discourse of contemporary art and poetics establishing a new definition and a new field of international linguistic art practice and dialogue. It would locate Manchester at the centre of this breakthrough.

Its structure is envisaged in three interconnected parts:

Seeds. Truce. Legacy.

Seeds (2010-2012)

Building audiences in the North West and beyond, creating a sense of excitement, engagement and understanding about creative uses of language and the possibilities of dialogue between languages. Working with regional arts development agencies, Time to Read, North West libraries and local arts services, venues and artists, it will feature:

• Community and schools projects – integrated into the Olympic Get Set structure
• Taster performances and temporary installations
• Academic symposia engaging with theory & analysis of contemporary language art
• Global networking of text-based artists
• Pre-festival professional development workshops
• Negotiation with artists and partners in identifying sites/forms for new commissions
• Programme development and planning
• First phase marketing activities

Truce

Mirroring the Ancient Olympic truce, in which the Greeks stopped fighting so they could train and compete, the Language Moment would run for the same symbolic 60 day period – referred to as the Language Truce.

Through April-May 2012, the festival would celebrate and make accessible language in all art forms

• Exhibitions in most of Manchester’s major galleries & museums
• Public art commissions and world premiers of new performance works
• Temporary installations (sound, visual, multimedia, etc) in arts and non-arts locations
• Poetry and other language performances across multiple venues and in public spaces
• Community projects and workshops
• Broadcasts of community projects locally and across the Live Site Screens
• New publications and launch events
• Residencies & artist dialogues with artists from all over the world coming to Manchester

Legacy

I think it is fairly obvious that the language moment is coming - looking at any artform shows artists engaging with language as a material and field of enquiry; though the understanding of the possibilities are clearly variable. There is an historic possibility to grasp. Fundamentally as the Commission concept focuses on the importance of the artist in celebration of the Olympics, it is also celebrates the pursuit of risk, of the artistic unknown, of innovation, of discoveries yet to be made – and the Language Moment by its very nature grasps for something new. Its ultimate legacy will be the legacy of the new.

In the insanely short time I was allowed to develop the idea I managed to confirm more than 100 artists from 24 countries - it could have been much bigger with more development time - supported by most of the galleries in greater Manchester plus various other partners such as Shisha (South Asian Arts Agency), Mid-Pennine Arts, the North West Libraries network, etc. To all the partners who helped and all the artists who trusted me to pull them into a conducive moment, I say thank you. In addition, I pulled together a delivery team, which in the words of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard in the last episode of Star Trek Next Generation, "I would trust with my life". To all of them who worked hard to develop their sections of the proposal, I would offer my thanks.

BBC interview

A very conducive interview for BBC north west by Steve Rawling about the Language Moment. Apparently the BBC are filming all 5 of the shortlisted candidates and will show them just before the public announcement.

He filmed me in front of Shaun Pickard's neon text "Darwin" and the video animation "Grin Variations" edited by Phil Davenport from his work with schools in Bury and the Hague.

I'm Back

Well except for the project in Finland, the last 6 weeks have been completely taken up with preparation of the final submission of the Language Moment. The process of drawing it together, as well as being exhausting, has been remarkable for the massive extension of my global contacts and the universal excitement it has generated from everyone I have been discussing it with. I don't want to say too much about the project yet, it seems a little like tempting fate when I still have the presentation to do to the Panel on 29 September. After that I'll describe it in more detail - suffice it to say that it will involve more than 100 artists and most of the main venues in Manchester. The team I have pulled together who will help deliver it could change the world given the chance - so let's hope we get it.

Anyway, normal service is resumed here now.

Back to Finland

From tomorrow, I am back in my favourite Finnish city, Tampere. Cultural mobility is the buzz phrase in most debates about globalisation, but usually this refers to artist mobility. My take on it is broader, including communities themselves. Bury had previously taken a group of older people to Stuttgart who were learning to write plays. I was presenting this experience to a European Museums seminar in Bertinoro, Italy after which the Finnish delegation approached me to do a similar project with them. So here we are. The group we are taking are older people who are participating in a dance project led by Ruth Tyson-Jones. The programme includes dance workshops, meeting Finnish older people to exchange experience, seeing museums, etc, etc. Personally, I'm looking forward to the Sara Hilden Art Museum opening on Friday http://www.tampere.fi/english/sarahilden/
Saunas will be ubiquitious; but I draw the line at jumping into lakes - that degree of closeness to nature verges on psychosis.

I'll also be meeting Karri Kokko the poet-organiser of the Vispo Residency back in July. We'll be looking at Finnish involvement in the Language Moment. I've been too busy on it to say here much about progress with it. It has been and continues to be an intense piece of work. Whether it comes off or not, I guess that just this phase has tripled the size of my network - and at last time of counting I had nearly 100 artists confirmed from 23 countries.

Back from London

A really productive time in London - met with the Live Arts Development Agency, Carol Watts and Hans Ulrich Obrist, all to discuss plans for the Language Moment. Yet more meetings on returning up north and things are taking shape. My mailbox overflows with emails from all over the world from artists and writers confirming they want to be involved. The deadline to pull all this together for the final selection panel is insanely short - hence my cursory presence here.

Food and drink are always more important than art, so I am pleased to announce Sue has launched her own blog in which she gives her latest lifestyle and food tips - soon to become unmissable I predict:

http://sue-trehy.blogspot.com/

Language Moment progresses

I don't really have time to blog much at the moment. The Language Moment proposal has to be presented by mid-September, which is intense - create a plan for an International Language Event in 2012 with confirmed artists and venues. Things are coming on very well with many artists and writers from many countries and many languages already signed up. Tomorrow, I go down to London for various meetings to pull more elements together.

Artists Taking The Lead: The Langauge Moment

The London 2012 Olympic Committee and the Arts Council announce today the shortlist for Artists Taking The Lead - twelve commissions of £500,000 each for projects linked to celebration of the London Olympic Games. 2163 UK artists made proposals and 59 were shortlisted. I am one of the 59. The commissions are allocated regionally so I am down to the last five competing for the North West commission.

It's been a very strange ten days or so - we were told a while back but it has all been strickly embargoed, so I have been working on it without being able to tell anyone. My 'mystery' trip down to London over the last two days (more about this later) was to receive a briefing on what happens next and tour the Olympic Park development prior to today's announcement. The website for the commission is www.artiststakingthelead.org.uk where you can read more about my proposal (below) as it develops and see the other shortlisted artists - though when I looked it had been overloaded by too many people logging onto it. Bodes well for the level of interest, I guess.

So what got me this far?

The Language Moment
In the ancient Olympics poetry was a key part of the celebration of athletic achievement. The 21st Century Olympiad has become a symbol of developing global friendship and so needs again to celebrate the importance of languages in world dialogue. The idea of “The Language Moment” is to create an international gathering of the world’s most innovative artists who use language – from web artists to poets, sound artists to sculptors. The event will include performances, exhibitions, films, readings, sound and media installations, internet projects, broadcasts, public art commissions, publications, schools and community events. It aims to create a moment in which language itself becomes the vehicle for celebration.

I have 7 weeks to map out what this will involve. This event is the opportunity for poets and artists who work with language to carry forward the ideas of the Text Festival to a new level of global profile. I will be inviting many many people to participate and I am particularly open to proposals for projects you would like to see in the event - but you have to be quick.