<div dir="ltr"><div><h1><font><span style="font-family:georgia,serif">New podcast: INTERRUPTIONS #18. Vox et repetitio, by Eduard Escoffet #soundpoetry</span></font></h1><p> </p><font><span style="font-family:georgia,serif">In this new instalment, we capture some of the infinite instances of voice and repetition in<br>Eduard Escoffet's sound poetry collection.<br><br><a href="http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/interruptions-eduard-escoffet/capsula">http://rwm.macba.cat/en/curatorial/interruptions-eduard-escoffet/capsula</a><br><br></span></font>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font><span style="font-family:georgia,serif"><span style="color:black" lang="EN-GB">‘Repetition is a form of change.’</span></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font><span style="font-family:georgia,serif"><span style="color:black" lang="EN-GB">Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, </span><span style="color:black" lang="EN-GB"><i>Oblique Strategies</i></span><span style="color:black" lang="EN-GB"> </span></span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font><span style="font-family:georgia,serif"><span style="color:black" lang="EN-GB">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. </span></span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font><span style="font-family:georgia,serif"><span style="color:black" lang="EN-GB">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. </span></span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font><span style="font-family:georgia,serif"><span style="color:black" lang="EN-GB">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.</span></span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font><span style="font-family:georgia,serif"><span style="color:black" lang="EN-GB">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. </span></span></font></p>
<font><span style="font-family:georgia,serif"><br><br></span></font></div><font><span style="font-family:georgia,serif">Enjoy!<br></span></font><div><p><font><span style="font-family:georgia,serif"><br></span></font></p></div></div>