iSUN: AN ILLUMINATED TEXT

I titled the third immersive/intensive experience iSun: An Illuminated Text, which is a reading of Matthew Henriksen's Ordinary Sun.

While iSun contains familiar elements (e.g. an "Homage to Matthew Henriksen," erasures, paste-ins, etc), I once again sought to enhance my engagement with the text in order to push the reading experience to new levels of interaction. To some extent, I understand this immersive/intensive experience as the pinnacle of my reading experiments. Indeed, iSun contains several techniques and strategies I had not used before, nor have used since. For instance, my first act upon the book was to drill a hole through it. Afterward, I burned a hole through one of the title pages by holding it over the flame of a lit candle. Additionally, I stapled some erasures the poet Matt McBride had sent me around that time, so that, at least briefly, there was another collaborator involved with this project.

But, to my mind, the most radical innovation in this immersive/intensive reading was the manner in which I challenge my Luddite sensibilities and material engagements by creating a rupture in my reading practice via digital technology. This was most notable in my "Making Of" videos. For example, when I drilled the aforementioned hole through the book, or burned one of the title pages with a candle, I made sure to record the process using my iPhone, then uploaded them to Youtube; after uploading them, I would feed the affected page through my typewriter and inscribe the video's URL onto it. Here are the making of those videos, in order of appearance:

The final video in the collection, though, was actually one of the very first videos I recorded. Since, as I mention in the video, these immersive/intensive readings are emotionally, psychologically, and creatively draining, I was unsure if I would actually complete the book. I suppose, in many regards, this was a pre-recorded apologia to myself and to Matthew in case I could not complete the task at hand:

In addition to performing erasures upon poems, augmenting them with visual collages, and coloring pages with pastels, I audio-recorded myself reciting every section from Henriksen's "The Talk," and then, subsequently, provided extemporaneous reactions to each of them. I would upload those recordings to SoundCloud and, just like the "Making Of" videos, feed each page through my typewriter and inscribe the audio file's URL onto the page. These recordings, as such, comprise another digital innovation or rupture that I employed when creating iSun.

My delivery on the first three audio files is choppy, halting, and stammering as I search for a comfortable register in which to speak and think (I post them here, mostly, for archival completeness, not, necessarily, for aesthetic pleasures). Beginning with the fourth recording, though, I access a more comfortable and consistent flow of speech and thought that continues to strengthen with each subsequent recording, offering listeners a more fully-realized, aesthetic experience. Below are all of the audio files:

Chapter 04: Backup Singers: The Illuminated Version