Dedicated to Alan
Xmas 2009 — New Year 2011
Video-installation with live performance reading.
A power point presentation of the poem layout was created in 2011 — also a DVD (36:08 minutes) with soundtrack for projection was created in 2011 – trailer half dimensional poems no.15, 1:25 minutes.
For the première in the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf 24.2.2011 Ury played back the video-installation and read the text unsynchronised.
A documentation (39 minutes 45 seconds) of the half dimensional poems presentation in the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf 24.2.2011, was filmed, edited and produced by Sukyun Yang & Insook Ju (6.2011) (trailer 7 minutes 48 seconds).
A documentation (8.21 minutes) of the half dimensional poems presentation in the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf 24.2.2011, with on a mat appear -, improvised poetry in WP8 Düsseldorf 12.3.2011, was filmed, edited and produced by Maximilian Hoffs.
These unorthodox poems are a compilation of words, thoughts that routinely run through the mind, usually discarded, forgotten — a stream of unconscious notated; the sounds of words, onomatopeia re-interpreted, their meaning deconstructed; words read or heard, misread, misheard, slips of the mind, wordplay, poems that write themselves; all put together so that a different sense may be intuited.
“And what of unconscious meanings, which are by definition not deliberately intended? ‘I really do think with my pen’, Wittgenstein observes, ‘because my head often knows nothing about what my hand is writing.’”
Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Culture and Value”, Chicago 1984, 17e, quoted on p.47,
of “The Meaning of Life”, Terry Eagleton, Oxford University Press, 2007,
ISBN 978−0−19−953217−9
Tanya Ury commenced writing the bi-lingual half dimensional poems Xmas 2009. This collection of one-liners was continued in 2010, during the time of breakdown, discovery, treatment for breast cancer, falling in and out of love, breakdown again. The 28 poems were completed a year later, New Year 2011.
“Certain slips of the tongue in the course of a phrase give us sudden insight into ourselves by substituting one word for another, and the unwelcome word is ameans whereby poetry escapes and perfumes the phrase. These words are a danger to the practical understanding of discourse. In like manner, certain acts. Faults sometimes – they are deeds – produce poetry. Though beautiful, these deeds are none the less a danger.”
P.42 “Miracle of the Rose”, Jean Genet 1951, Penguin Books 1971,
ISBN 0−14−018054−0
An example of this phenomenon is to be found in Genet’s text:
“Darling is merely a fraud (‘an adorable fraud,’ Divine calls him), and he
must remain one in order to preserve that appearance of a rock walking
blindly through my tale (I left out the d in blindly, I wrote ‘blinly’).* The
words in italics do not appear in the revised edition. (Translator’s note.)”
P. 26 of Jean-Paul Sartre’s introduction to “Our Lady of the Flowers”,
Jean Genet 1951, Granada Publishing 1973 586 02039 X 2
In its style and intention the concrete poetry is a collection of jumbled, abstract ideas that reflect the day-to-day life and mood of the artist. Above all, it is improvised and written down immediately — in essence it is automatic writing.
Tanya Ury’s written poetry may be regarded as “concrete” because of its visual design, and unconventional aural effect when spoken — the texts thereby gain in dimension beyond accepted meaning.
Ury has also created other artworks that might be considered visual poetry. Moving Message 1992, incorporates an LED sign displaying the words: you are why; Sonata in Sea 1999 – 2000 is a photo series combined with poetry and wrestlewithyourangel 2001, is a neon sign produced together with the neon sign neonazi 2001; the title of a double photo portrait lesser is me more or less 2003 plays on the name of the German Post-Impressionist Lesser Ury, as does the title of a further double portrait or else 2007, which refers to the German writer Else Ury. The title of a third photo-portrait Beelzebularin 2005 (in the Promised Land series) reveals itself to be an anagram of the biblical Bezalel Ben Uri. half dimensional — semi detached 2010, combines the first of the half dimensional poems with the photograph semi detached.
concrete – a collection of works (including poetry series)
- femininity – femininiation 2011
- Moving Message 1992
- Word-fore-play – Recipe for Love 1995
- Sonata in Sea 1999 – 2000
- wish 2000
- wrestlewithyourangel 2001
- neonazi 2001
- Poker Poems 2003
- elle la poésie 2003
- lesser is me more or less 2003
- Promised Land – a collection of works 2005
- Mid Summer 2005
- Un 2006
- or else 2007
- half dimensional poems 2009 – 2011
- half dimensional – semi detached 2010
- cement (Befestigte Gedichte) 2011
- on a mat appear 2011 -
- Lost Poems 2011
- weißer neger (white nigger) 2011
- informed 1.3.2011
- concrete party 2011
- oral call 2011
- cross word 2011 – 2012
- toned poems 2011 – 2012
- two toned 2012
- pommes 2012
- taste of space 2012 – 2013
- leeres archiv 2013
- archive burn out 2011 – 2014
- hero of your own saga 2013 – 2014
- magical reality 2014 – 2015
Presentation
2010 (10.7) semi detached – half dimensional poems, record cover design by Ury (1989−2010), group exhibition: kjubh KUNSTVEREIN (Art Centre), ZEHN JAHRE (10 years), with music by popnoname, 7 pm, in the cabinet of the Kölnischer Kunstverein (Cologne Art Centre) Hahnen Strasse 6 (D)
2011 (24.2) Tanya Ury presented half dimensional poems as video projection and live performance (a parallel but unsychronised reading), 7 pm, as part of the Jewish Cultural Days, at the Great Art Exhibition North Rhine Westphalia, in the Donnerhall, at the Kunst Palast, Kulturzentrum in Düsseldorf (D) DIE_GROSSE_Kunstausstellung_NRW_Duesseldorf.pdf
Information
Poems, design and recording Tanya Ury
Video edit Mirco Sanftleben
Text editor Amin Farzanefar