toned poems 2011 – 2012

Tanya Ury & Kasander Nilist 2011 – 2013 

From 2011 on, Tanya Ury started recording 12 of the more tradi­tional poems to be found in her poetry series in a working part­ner­ship with Kasander Nilist (double bass, sound and mix). 

These toned poems are:
Artemis 2:05 minutes (from oral call 20, poem 2011, music & sound mix 2012)
cells 40 seconds (from cross word 06, poem, sounds & sound mix 2012)
cicada 35 seconds (from oral call 04, poem, sounds & sound mix 2011)
duel 41 seconds (from half dimen­sional poems 15, poem, music & sound mix 2011)
Ovid 1:28 minutes (from oral call 11) (poem, music & sound mix 2011)
Annika 32 seconds (from cross word 12, poem, sounds & sound mix 2012)
green gloves 20 seconds (from cross word 05, poem, music & sound mix 2012)
Lolita 1:16 minutes (from weisser neger (white nigger) 17, poem, sounds & sound mix 2012)
Ondine 42 seconds (from cross word 04, poem, music & sound mix 2012)
born this way 8 seconds (from cross word 03, poem & sound mix 2012)
Frost 10 seconds (from half dimen­sional poems 26, poem, music & sound mix 2012)
Recipe for Love ca. 1.46 minutes (poem 1995, music & sound mix 2012)
you kali ca. 21 seconds (from oral call 24, poem & sound mix 2012)
stalling (Impro­vi­sa­tion 2012)
Saline Solu­tion (from two toned 22, music & sound mix 2013) 

Ury has been writing poems daily on Post-it notepaper with a ball­point pen contin­u­ously, since late 2009. These scraps, in English, some­times in German, are often merely lists of words related by sound or asso­ci­a­tion; some­times these are perceived in a dream, or part of a conver­sa­tion is caught on a train. The lists are collected, trans­ferred to the laptop and written with a visual compo­si­tion in mind for future presentation.

“The book writes itself, and if by chance the person oppo­site should ask you what you are writing, you have nothing to say since you don’t know.”
P. 100, ​“Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing”, Hélène Cixous, 1993, Columbia Univer­sity Press /​New York, ISBN 0−231−07659−2

Occa­sion­ally lines with specific import are devel­oped beyond quip, into poems, which are longer. It is these that have inspired Kasander Nilist to develop a partly contrasting, partially encom­passing soundtrack.

The sounds range from bronze singing bowls, the whip­ping sound of a duelling sword and sound collage, to the double base being bowed and plucked; the subject matter is wide:
Artemis, poetry about Artemis Ephesus, the goddess of the hunt.
cells, thoughts on poverty and exploitation.
cicada, a poem about the song of the cicada.
duel, a duel as a race against time.
Ovid, an ode about Ovid’s Ode, Ovid and his mistress.
Annika, a woman who possibly speaks a lot of rubbish.
green gloves, about the duel over a woman.
Lolita, about child abuse.
Ondine, a few lines about thirsty Ondine.
born this way, thoughts on sexual incli­na­tion – nature or culture?
Frost, a poem about not choosing the easier path.
Recipe for Love, word fore­play oriented around oral and aural desire.
you kali, is a salute to Kurt Weill
stalling, a nonsense poem
Saline Solu­tion, a poem about self-destruction

go diva
misheard
two timing waltz in three
l’hiver forever
turquoise quink 

Kasander Nilist
Born in 1971, Kasander Nilist has been playing double bass since he was young. In 1996 he inten­si­fied his musical engage­ment with the estab­lish­ment of the band ​“Edelobst“. There followed several bands and band projects with chan­sons char­ac­terised by punk and acoustic under­ground elements — a crossover between the rough and ready rock of ​“Hack Mack Jackson“, the maverick jazz of ​“Kasach­stan Express“, the free jazz aesthetic of ​“Anako­luth Ersatz“ and ​“Bonobo Bastards“. Parallel to that were addi­tional jazz activ­i­ties with ​“String Time Trio“ amongst others, as with German chanson perfor­mances. Apart from that the work together with the musi­cian Matti Rouse has resulted in a singer-song­writing coöper­a­tion. Nilist has further­more created the ​“toned poems” together with the Cologne artist Tanya Ury. Along­side regular atten­dances in the Düssel­dorf session scene, there have also been other conceived cultural works:
 — Involve­ment (as a double bass player) in impro­vised theatre pieces.
 — Co-founder of the open mic series ​“Kasander’s moth box”.
 — Collab­o­ra­tion as an actor in the produc­tion ​“Paradise and the Peri” at the Schu­mann Festival, Düssel­dorf, 2004.

***

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)


Presen­ta­tion

2012 (11.6) Tanya Ury is the featured artist with new works in the June edition online of Imag­i­na­tions: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies, Univer­sity of Alberta, Canada, with Videos: Inti­macy, cement & dark room; a series of 17 concrete poems, the photo­graph Alibi­jude, Selec­tion from the Who’s Boss series, and 8 photos from Soul Brothers & Sisters, also 3 photos of Occupy in Stras­bourg, from the Fading into the Fore­ground series; further­more 5 toned poems (sounds, music and sound mix Kasander Nilist) and a peer review inter­view (text and Skype video) with Claude Desmarais, (CA)
www​.csj​.ualberta​.ca/im…

2012 (13.7) SONGS WITH WORDS, a concert, with toned poems by Tanya Ury (poems in English and German) and Kasander Nilist (double bass and sound mix), 2012, and Impro­vi­sa­tion – free impro­vised music: Kasander Nilist (double bass), Hans Salz (percus­sion), Peter Alexius Worringer (elec­tric guitar), Featuring Tanya Ury (on a mat appear – lautquälerei, impro­vised poetry mostly in English with German), 7.30 pm, Kunstraum St. Michael, Brüs­seler Platz, Cologne (D)
2013 (11.7. – 7.9) ​“Righting the Image” — The Liter­a­ture Collec­tion in Cologne (LiK) and the Cologne City Library, present an exhi­bi­tion of Tanya Ury’s work, including a CD of the 11 toned poems with Kasander Nilist (double bass and sound mix.

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