Sound & Syntax International Festival of Sound Poetry (1978), CCA Glasgow - Gerhard Rühm (1978)
By Sound & Syntax International Festival of Sound Poetry
Footage of a series of poetry performances by Gerhard Ruhm. The tape begins with a shot of the audience, Bob Cobbing waiting in the background. Cobbing takes the stage, introduces the third session of the Sound & Syntax festival and reads a translated quote from Ruhm about sound poetry, which the Austrian refers to as ‘linguistic but non-verbal communication.’ The camera pans to Ruhm, who begins his first piece, a repetitive sound poem which lasts until about 9 minutes in and involves a small percussion instrument as well as a device that makes a sound like a cow. He then introduces (with the help of a translator) some early sound poems from 1952, involving strange, guttural noises. Several more poems follow, including one called ‘Prayer,’ with short syllables repeated like a mantra, ‘For As Long As You Can’ which involves Ruhm holding a one-syllable note for as long as he can with one breath, a poem using sounds abstracted from the Viennese dialect, a recorded piece with the sound of a typewriter (at which point the camera pans to show the rotating reels of the tape-machine), a short sound poem in 3 parts called ‘Hymn to Lesbians’, a poem whose vocabulary was set up by Ruhm whe…
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