Data We Breathe Salon: Caroline Bergvall, Judd Morrissey, and Jennifer Scappettone, with special guest cris cheek

Sunday, February 27

6pm

Poetry, presence, data, drinks, all while breaking bread together. Caroline Bergvall, Judd Morrissey, and Jennifer Scappettone kick off their Gray Center experiment, The Data That We Breathe, which examines the physical and poetic dimensions of breath. Looking at the shared roots of the circulation of breath — through poetic inspiration, bodywork practices, molecular and data structures in the air, the channeling of architecture — the salon invites participants to delve into ideas of interconnection, transformation, and receptivity.

In this in-progress presentation of The Data That We Breathe, in the stripped housing of 6018North, Caroline Bergvall, Judd Morrissey, Jennifer Scappettone, and special guest cris cheek explore copper as a conductor: the material basis of historical and contemporary domestic interiors and telecommunications infrastructure. This is a topsoil performance of mining to be staged in the fall, sounding invisible data and exploitation pathways that connect the continents. Via the shared roots of breath’s circulation—through poetics, bodywork practices, particulate and data structures in the air, the channeling of architecture—the IN>TIME salon invites participants to listen for junctures of interconnection, transformation, and receptivity.

Bios

Caroline Bergvall, writer and artist based in London, works across art forms, media and languages. A strong exponent of writing methods adapted to contemporary audiovisual and multilingual and other contextual concerns. Starting-points and source materials readily emerge from both ancient cultural detail and contemporary cultural artifacts or political events. Projects alternate between textual pieces, audio works, drawings, installations, and live performances, often in collaboration. Most recent output Drift (Nightboat, 2014) awarded a Judith E. Wilson Fellowship in Poetry and Drama, University of Cambridge. The performance version of Drift for live voice, percussion (Ingar Zach) and electronic text (Thomas Köppel) toured the UK in 2014 and was presented at Olavsfestdagene, Norway, July 2015. Other publications: Meddle English (2011) and Fig (2005) as well as a DVD of earlier installations Ghost Pieces (2010). Solo exhibitions: John Hansard Gallery (Southampton 2010), Vita Kuben (Umeå, 2014), Callicoon (NY, 2015). Has presented works at: Tate Modern (London), Khoj Centre (New Delhi), Fondation Vuitton (Paris), Mamco Museum (Geneva), NorrlandsOperan (Umeå, Sweden), Powerplant (Toronto), Samtidsmuseet (Oslo), Fundacio Tapies (Barcelona), MCA Denver a.o. Writer-in-Residence, Whitechapel gallery, London, 2014. Current project in development: Raga Dawn, an outdoors sunrise performance. Prologue for 2 voices (w/Anouk Molendijk) premiered in Geneva (June15) and SALT festival, Northern Norway (August15). Full piece for vocal text and electronic bass-harp being prepared and composed for touring Summer 2016.

Jennifer Scappettone’s work with languages spans scholarly and creative modes of inquiry. Poetry collections include From Dame Quickly (Litmus, 2009) and Exit 43, an archaeology of Superfund terrain and opera of pop-up pastorals forthcoming from Atelos Press. Her critical study, Killing the Moonlight: Modernism in Venice, received Honorable Mention in the Modernist Studies Association’s annual book prize competition. Locomotrix: Selected Poetry and Prose of Amelia Rosselli, which she translated, won the Academy of American Poets’s Raiziss/De Palchi Prize; she has since founded PennSound Italiana, and is at work on translation of Venezianella the Futurist, by F.T. Marinetti. She has collaborated with musicians, dancers, and designers on site-specific projects, including most recently Marco Ariano, Walter Paradiso, and the Difforme Ensemble (on Exit 43 operettas for video and performance), Kathy Westwater and Seung Jae Lee (on the performance work PARK, with showings at Fresh Kills Landfill, Pratt Institute, New York Live Arts, and elsewhere), composer Paul Rudy and AGENCY architecture (on X Locus, documentary sound collages of the underground for the courtyard and tract of Trajan’s aqueduct at the American Academy in Rome). She is Associate Professor at the University of Chicago.

Judd Morrissey is a writer and code artist who creates poetic systems across a range of platforms incorporating computational text, internet art, live performance, and augmented reality. He is the creator of digital literary works including The Precession: An 80 Foot Long Internet Art Performance Poem (2011), The Last Performance [dot org] (2009), The Jew’s Daughter (Electronic Literature Collection, 2006), and My Name is Captain, Captain (Eastgate Systems, 2002). He is a recipient of acknowledgements including a Creative Capital / Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant and a Fulbright Scholar’s Award in Digital Culture. His projects have been included in a broad range of festivals, conferences and exhibitions with recent venues including Centro de Arte Contemporáneo (Buenos Aires), Zero1 Garage (San Jose), Eyebeam (NYC), Le Cube (Paris), Casa das Caldeiras (Coimbra), Anatomy Theater & Museum (London), Performing House (York), Center of Contemporary Culture Barcelona, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Landmark Kunsthalle (Bergen), House of World Cultures (Berlin), Teatre & TD (Zagreb), and the Chicago Cultural Center. His work has been the subject of numerous critical studies and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, The New Republic, RAINTAXI, and the Iowa Review. Judd is an Assistant Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Art and Technology Studies and Writing. In 2012, he co-founded the performance and technology collective Anatomical Theatres of Mixed Reality (ATOM-r). The group are in a long-term residency at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Chicago. Their first work, The Operature, premiered in 2014, and they are currently working on new large-scale project, Kjell Theøry, scheduled for completion in 2017. More about Judd Morrissey at judisdaid and atom-r.

and

"down with the dabs"
awake, i was consumed with desire, to make a small portrait of this place, documented right here by walks and talks instead of filtered through a machine online like a six foot tall owl, barely out of the woods pulling makeshift strings

within earshod to make this language a different language pod
re-spelled to de-note unvoiced sound

cris cheek is a documentary poet. He worked with the Consortium of London Presses in the mid 1970s to run a thriving free print shop. In 1981 he co-founded a collective resource in the east end of London at Chisenhale Dance Space, working alongside choreographers, musicians and performance artists to make creative collaborations. cris taught Performance Writing at Dartington College of Arts (1995-2002) and has been a professor at Miami University, Ohio since 2005. Most recent publications are the church, the school, the beer (Critical Documents, 2007) and part: short life housing (The Gig, 2009). He currently lives in Northside, Cincinnati. 

Images, from top to bottom: 

Caroline Bergvall, Judd Morrissey, Jen Scappettone, screenshot from The Data That We Breathe (February 2016). 

"North" section. Electronic text sample from Caroline Bergvall’s collaborative performance Drift (2014). Generated by Thomas Köppel.

Judd Morrissey, screenshot from The Last Performance [dot org] (2007).

Screen capture from Jennifer Scappettone’s Exit 43 as collaborative geotext installation, generated by Judd Morrissey (2013).