This essay investigates the performative dimension of Charles Bernstein’s poems – with the transformations they undergo in terms of voice (metaphoric and literal voice), sensorial experience, audience participation, circulation and accessibility – as they migrate from the analog context of the page to the digital environment of the computer screen; from writing to orality in the forms of the poetry reading and the technologically mediated audiovisual text, which are all shared online. Examining the Veil series, from the visual performance on both page (printed edition) and computer screen (digital edition) to orality/aurality (digital audio-format), and Bernstein’s voiced texts, from poetry readings to audiovisual versions produced in collaboration with other artists, this reading foregrounds the way digital technology helps the poet achieve his poetic goals: the attack on voice and/as speech, on the illusion of immediacy, on sight and insight for an opposite poetics of vision that is characterized by process, multiple perspectives, and synesthetic experience. In the light of its change at every new ‘performance,’ the poem ceases to be a single, finished product. It becomes part of a larger network, of a poetic constellation that, based on interaction and interconnectivity, marks the end of the traditional lyric poem.

"From Page and Print to Voice and Computer Screen: Charles Bernstein and the Performance(s) of the Poem"

Floriana Puglisi
2021-01-01

Abstract

This essay investigates the performative dimension of Charles Bernstein’s poems – with the transformations they undergo in terms of voice (metaphoric and literal voice), sensorial experience, audience participation, circulation and accessibility – as they migrate from the analog context of the page to the digital environment of the computer screen; from writing to orality in the forms of the poetry reading and the technologically mediated audiovisual text, which are all shared online. Examining the Veil series, from the visual performance on both page (printed edition) and computer screen (digital edition) to orality/aurality (digital audio-format), and Bernstein’s voiced texts, from poetry readings to audiovisual versions produced in collaboration with other artists, this reading foregrounds the way digital technology helps the poet achieve his poetic goals: the attack on voice and/as speech, on the illusion of immediacy, on sight and insight for an opposite poetics of vision that is characterized by process, multiple perspectives, and synesthetic experience. In the light of its change at every new ‘performance,’ the poem ceases to be a single, finished product. It becomes part of a larger network, of a poetic constellation that, based on interaction and interconnectivity, marks the end of the traditional lyric poem.
2021
978-88-95285-70-2
Charles Bernstein - performance/performativity - intermediality - poetry reading - poetic voice - digital mediation and remediation- interart collaboration
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11769/509809
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