Concept | Direction | Spoken Word
Nicola Dahlinger
Textile installation
Jeanette Sendler
Video
Frank Vetter & Joanna Kane
Music
Kai Fagaschinski
Design
Sönke Hoof
Project Co-ordination & Production
Catherine Launay
Produced by emerging properties in co-production with Internationales Literatur Festival Berlin, papirossa - Netzmuseum für Sprache, GdK, Galerie der Künste e.V. with kind support from Ausland Berlin, Lychenerstr. 60, Traumfabrik Berlin and Goethe Institute Glasgow and Toulouse.
In Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens (1897-1955), the poet encounters a blackbird in a snowy winter landscape.
In each of the thirteen stanzas his image of the blackbird shifts slightly, continually placed in a different context. First he sees only its black eye, moving against the background of snowy mountains. In the eighth stanza he meditates on the sound of its voice and the connection between human being and bird. In the eleventh stanza he imagines a passenger in a glass coach mistaking the coach´s shadow for a flock of blackbirds.
The visual metamorphosis of the blackbird reveals a shift in the poet´s consciousness, oscillating between thoughts, perceptions and a state of meditation.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird is an encounter between video, installation, language and music. These media describe landscapes: audio-visual, physical and imaginary, or, as Wallace Stevens would say, "landscapes of sensibility". Rather than revealing the meaning of the poem, the performance creates a space, introduces a state of mind in which the poem can be heard.
March 2005, Traverse Vidéo, Toulouse
September 2004, 4. Internationales Literaturfestival, Berlin
March 2004, National Review of Live Art, Glasgow
November 2003, Instants Vidéos, Manosque
“Großartige Performance. Sie fließt nur so dahin.” Emma B. 25.09.04
„Schöne Installation, steht viele Gedanken frei, in Zusammenstellung von Musik, Video, Sprache ist viel Spannung.“ Eva 02.10.04
“At one point I thought I was flying.” Carmen