'I am not in love with the human race today! Ok, let's start!' he said.
3 people wondered through the parasol unit, the microphones and the recording device were being set up, while 18 marching band musicians stared statically to the 'abandoned building'. Bonney opened the door, behind him followed a sequito of admirers, friends and unknowns, that filled the gallery. A few more seconds of unresting wondering, and finally he sat in a egg shaped white chair, opened his handbag, form which he took a plastic bag, smiling to a woman that had just sit down among the small crowd. Pulling out a bunch of printed papers, he started to nervously reorder them while looking repetitively to the frosted glass door. Some one/thing was missing.
The introduction by parasol unit, made Bonney grin, while looking at the dedicated audience. Bonney raised, picked up his loose papers, and in two steps towards the door, turned to the crowd and said: 'I am not in a very good mood today!' Telling us about his pick pocket experience just the day before at his doorstep, he wrapped up: 'I am not in love with the human race today! Ok, let's start!'
[ image: Sean Bonney performing, in the background Troop by Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Brichler, 2005, 18 digital archival prints, each 96 x 89 cm, part of the exhibition Parades & Processions: Here Comes Everybody, Parasol Unit, 2009 ]
Sean Bonney was born in Brighton, grew up in the north of England and now lives in London, more precisely in the borough of Hackney (considered by many one of the worst neighbourhoods to live in the United Kingdom of her Majesty's, the Queen, the country of Tatcher and Blair, his nation). He is the author of Notes on Heresy (Writers Forum, 2002), Poisons, their antidotes (West House, 2003), Blade Pitch Control Unit (Salt, 2005) and numerous pamphlets, including Document: hexprogress and, most recently, Black Water (Yt Communication, 2006, the small company he runs with Frances Kruk, publishing the occasional pamphlet, chapbook, or circular). Poems, Diagrams, Manifestos: July 7th 2005 - June 27th 2007 (Barque Press) is the fully illustrated 90-page narrative running from the London suicide bombers through to Blair's resignation.
'Commons' opened the reading evening, blasting 'a highly rhythmic (or arrhythmic) object (the poem) that seeks through maximum density to communicate a dialectical relationship with the cosmos, and to explore the faultlines of official history and urbanism through which possibilities of liberation can be traced.' The second part, 'Commons 2', was exponentiated by a cellist improvisation, that disrupted Bonney's own arrythmic variations with profound soundscapes, combining formal experiment with 'a sarcastic voice rooted in punk' (which the so-called New Generation poets must have been dreaming of 20 years ago when they declared that poetry was the new rock n' roll) to provide an original account of the contemporary metropolis threatened psychogeography, suggesting new possibilities for political poetry and its relationship to the urban environment, while 'making clear that the protestor is also culpable', and 'charting of the effects of official mendacity on the psyche of any individual citizen who knows that all private experience is collective'.
Although some of these lines refer to reviews on his Blade Pitch Control Unit (Salt, 2005), Sean Bonney continues to deal on these issues, viscerally materialising them on a rather convulsive performance, taking advantages of flash spee linguistic games, and long paused words that try to grasp the contemporary reality, the reality of his own perspective on reality and on the metropolis full of 'abandoned buildings'. Curious enough, parasol unit was one of these abandoned former warehouse converted by architect Claudio Silverstrin into an exhibition space spanning two floors and a reading area, one more 'white cube' gallery with a clinic atmosphere, in grey and white concrete forms, an empty vessel.
Behind Sean Bonney, the 18 marching band troopers continued immobilized, looking pointingly at us, protesting silently. When I opened the frosted glass door, it was still day, the evening was still light and accross the road, a seemingly abandoned industrial landscape stood tall. His work-in-progress and notes on his readings can be found at these abandoned buildings, where I found uncommon extracts of his 'commons':
we are geometric problems
in the slots of loveliness
magnetic cores, for example
there goes Thatcher again
inside what I wasancient & elementary
slaughter the fascist BNP
I know, its obvious
to live in it like a language
that whistling, the law
in the privacy of our
threshold values, this serenity
- you know -
inside the hysteresis loop
"you have now reached
to put into practice
the knowledge you
you have acquired ghosts
in short, are ready
work / crime / magic
secret history number
the properties of ideas
put into ourselves
sorry, local residents
this is how you talk
the body’s acoustics
structurally / tearing
your playhouse down"
[ 'The Commons 2 (concluded)', post made by Sean Bonney on 22 May 2009 ]
3 people wondered through the parasol unit, the microphones and the recording device were being set up, while 18 marching band musicians stared statically to the 'abandoned building'. Bonney opened the door, behind him followed a sequito of admirers, friends and unknowns, that filled the gallery. A few more seconds of unresting wondering, and finally he sat in a egg shaped white chair, opened his handbag, form which he took a plastic bag, smiling to a woman that had just sit down among the small crowd. Pulling out a bunch of printed papers, he started to nervously reorder them while looking repetitively to the frosted glass door. Some one/thing was missing.
The introduction by parasol unit, made Bonney grin, while looking at the dedicated audience. Bonney raised, picked up his loose papers, and in two steps towards the door, turned to the crowd and said: 'I am not in a very good mood today!' Telling us about his pick pocket experience just the day before at his doorstep, he wrapped up: 'I am not in love with the human race today! Ok, let's start!'
[ image: Sean Bonney performing, in the background Troop by Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Brichler, 2005, 18 digital archival prints, each 96 x 89 cm, part of the exhibition Parades & Processions: Here Comes Everybody, Parasol Unit, 2009 ]
Sean Bonney was born in Brighton, grew up in the north of England and now lives in London, more precisely in the borough of Hackney (considered by many one of the worst neighbourhoods to live in the United Kingdom of her Majesty's, the Queen, the country of Tatcher and Blair, his nation). He is the author of Notes on Heresy (Writers Forum, 2002), Poisons, their antidotes (West House, 2003), Blade Pitch Control Unit (Salt, 2005) and numerous pamphlets, including Document: hexprogress and, most recently, Black Water (Yt Communication, 2006, the small company he runs with Frances Kruk, publishing the occasional pamphlet, chapbook, or circular). Poems, Diagrams, Manifestos: July 7th 2005 - June 27th 2007 (Barque Press) is the fully illustrated 90-page narrative running from the London suicide bombers through to Blair's resignation.
'Commons' opened the reading evening, blasting 'a highly rhythmic (or arrhythmic) object (the poem) that seeks through maximum density to communicate a dialectical relationship with the cosmos, and to explore the faultlines of official history and urbanism through which possibilities of liberation can be traced.' The second part, 'Commons 2', was exponentiated by a cellist improvisation, that disrupted Bonney's own arrythmic variations with profound soundscapes, combining formal experiment with 'a sarcastic voice rooted in punk' (which the so-called New Generation poets must have been dreaming of 20 years ago when they declared that poetry was the new rock n' roll) to provide an original account of the contemporary metropolis threatened psychogeography, suggesting new possibilities for political poetry and its relationship to the urban environment, while 'making clear that the protestor is also culpable', and 'charting of the effects of official mendacity on the psyche of any individual citizen who knows that all private experience is collective'.
Although some of these lines refer to reviews on his Blade Pitch Control Unit (Salt, 2005), Sean Bonney continues to deal on these issues, viscerally materialising them on a rather convulsive performance, taking advantages of flash spee linguistic games, and long paused words that try to grasp the contemporary reality, the reality of his own perspective on reality and on the metropolis full of 'abandoned buildings'. Curious enough, parasol unit was one of these abandoned former warehouse converted by architect Claudio Silverstrin into an exhibition space spanning two floors and a reading area, one more 'white cube' gallery with a clinic atmosphere, in grey and white concrete forms, an empty vessel.
Behind Sean Bonney, the 18 marching band troopers continued immobilized, looking pointingly at us, protesting silently. When I opened the frosted glass door, it was still day, the evening was still light and accross the road, a seemingly abandoned industrial landscape stood tall. His work-in-progress and notes on his readings can be found at these abandoned buildings, where I found uncommon extracts of his 'commons':
we are geometric problems
in the slots of loveliness
magnetic cores, for example
there goes Thatcher again
inside what I wasancient & elementary
slaughter the fascist BNP
I know, its obvious
to live in it like a language
that whistling, the law
in the privacy of our
threshold values, this serenity
- you know -
inside the hysteresis loop
"you have now reached
to put into practice
the knowledge you
you have acquired ghosts
in short, are ready
work / crime / magic
secret history number
the properties of ideas
put into ourselves
sorry, local residents
this is how you talk
the body’s acoustics
structurally / tearing
your playhouse down"
[ 'The Commons 2 (concluded)', post made by Sean Bonney on 22 May 2009 ]
0 Responses to “SORRY! I KNOW, ITS OBVIOUS”
Post a Comment