sign language media artist inter-art, media, video, poetry, calligraphy, storytelling, performance, sign language

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Deconstruct W.O.R.D., 2010

This poetry performance Deconstruct W.O.R.D. was presented at the Edmonton Poetry Festival on April 23, 2010. The rich cinematic devices, imagery, textual performance, and metaphors are used in this poetry performance.

Literary media artist Jolanta Lapiak.
"See This / Hear Me", Edmonton Poetry Festival, April 23, 2010.
Latitude 53, Edmonton, Canada.
Documentation, 720x480px NTSC.

At the end of this performance, the literary performance artist (myself) stamped my personal red seal on my arm in the same way one stamps a red seal on the work of calligraphy. I am the text.

As you may see the patterns in my literary works, I was influenced by Jacques Derrida's literary criticism and philosophy within the themes of arche-writing, phonocentrism, trace, and so on. In addition, I'm also inspired by Japanese calligraphy which also influences in my works of art, performances, and other forms.

Literary artists
See This / Hear Me Visual Poetry exhibit, April 23, 2010. — with Jolanta Lapiak (third), Shawna Lemay (5th), Daniel Tysdal (6th) and Derek Beaulieu (last). Image source: Trisia Eddy.

artist/poet talk
See This / Hear Me Visual Poetry exhibit, April 23, 2010. — with Jolanta Lapiak and Helen Hajnoczky. Image source: Trisia Eddy.

artist/poet talk
Photo by Jack Bawden. Posted by Trisia Eddy. See This / Hear Me Visual Poetry exhibit, April 23, 2010. — with Jolanta Lapiak and Daniel Scott Tysdal.

Comments

"When one sees or hears "word", it is automatically assumed that it comes from spoken English but "word" itself have several meanings. And, Jolanta's act of "listening" to the dictionary reflects how much the hearing world relays on sound as the authoritative figure, yet the word printed in text doesn't make sound. A simple performative gesture to confront our mainstream critical thinking/attitude toward language(spoken). -- Peter Cook, June 2010 (FB).

"Jolanta, your video poem is just magical! Thanks so much for being part of the festival!" -- Alice Major, April 25, 2010.

Publications

This work piece, Deconstruct W.O.R.D., was also discussed in depth by Hannah Lutzenberger in her B.A. Thesis, "Buchstabe – Wort – Text – Sprache" with the focus, "Eine Untersuchung der Strukturalität einer manuellen poetischen Sprache im Hinblick auf ihre dekonstruktive Verwendung in Jolanta Lapiak Deconstruct W.O.R.D." in Hamburg, 2014.

Related work: Soundless in the Book.

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