New podcast: INTERRUPTIONS #18. Vox et repetitio, by Eduard Escoffet
#soundpoetry
In this new instalment, we capture some of the infinite instances of voice
and repetition in
Eduard Escoffet's sound poetry collection.
http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/interruptions-eduard-escoffet/capsula
‘Repetition is a form of change.’
Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, *Oblique Strategies*
Repetition is one of the core elements of poetry; it is engraved into the
DNA of what poetry is or what it has tried to be. The idea of repetition
(and reproduction) can be traced back to its origins: poetry was born
because of its capacity to capture and conserve a story or a thought –in
the absence of writing, rhymed verse aids in the memorisation and
reproduction of a text– and the capacity of the spoken word to transport
both speaker and listener, to transcend the moment thanks to repetition,
which is the foundation of trance rituals –the most spiritual aspect of
poetry.
And from that point on, we can detect the idea of repetition in various
aspects of poetry throughout history, from the most basic –rhyme, meter– to
formal strategies such as refrains and rhyming words in sestinas. In the
twentieh century repetition became more complex and pervasive –we shouldn’t
forget that this period saw the birth of pop and of mass cultural
communication: nothing requires repetition and variations on a single
element as much as a message that aspires to spreading everywhere and
reaching everybody–, and new experimental genres began to emerge, such as
echoes, in which the poet’s voice is repeated. It was the start of a desire
to push repetition further: to repeat the voice, the sound of the poet, and
create a vocal canon with oneself.
Throughout the ages, poetry has ultimately always been a kind of voice
recording machine. But actual recording was not an option until the
twentieth century, when technology made it possible to record, play back,
process and multiply the voice of the poet. One source, infinite layers. A
machine for expressing the multiplicity that exists in every voice, in
every person. This led to the birth of a new genre, a new path that is in
reality simply a revival of the original poetry which existed before print:
voice and repetition.
In my own case, the idea of repetition has always accompanied me to the
point where I can say it almost obsessed me. I see repetition in the
origins of poetry, and also in the melody that weaves over a constant loop
during an endless dawn at a club, and in the infinite variations of baroque
music –everything is already invented, there is only variation, as Baltasar
Gracián said. And repetition is also the noise that makes it possible to
climb the ladder of escape, and absence, and the death instinct, and a
change, and the door that indicates that there is a way out of here. To me,
all of this –sound poetry, repetition– maps out a zone of convergence
between technological innovation, the return to original poetry and the
avant-garde in the sense of the transformation of reading and writing
systems. Repeating a word over and over strips it of its ordinary
definition and reveals an unexpected sound and meaning, freed from the
word’s accumulated history. And repeating the same voice over itself makes
it possible to add layers of meaning that a univocal poem cannot transmit.
That’s what poetry is: to speak again, to silence words, to rediscover,
repeat and feel the variations.
Enjoy!