Found text︎︎︎
Text in-and-of itself can be a great starting point for creation. Many contemporary poetry techniques provide ways to begin creating, often by using found text. Procedural techniques, erasure poems, cut-ups and found poems all can become the building blocks of a work, as a script, a score, as visual elements or simply as a process for opening up new ideas. Here are a few immediate and accessible techniques for a group to develop material from found text.
Found Poems: In a visual world surrounded by text, we're also surrounded by poetry. Found poems can be created by taking a selection of text out of context and presenting it on its own. This can involve cutting phrases out of newspapers and paper ephemera, or taking photos of text in public spaces.
Erasure Poems: This involves taking an existing text and erasing portions of it to produce a new meaning or even a critique of the existing meaning of the text. This can easily be applied to books, newspapers, magazine or any other dense collection of text.
Cut-ups: This is a technique made popular by Byron Gysin and William S. Burroughs. Artists can take any existing text and cut it up into pieces of varying size. They then take those pieces and arrange them into a new text at random. It relies on chance and the surreal to create new texts that produce unexpected meanings and associations.
Procedural Poetry: This is a kind of conceptual poetry that can range from highly sophisticated to very simple. The artist takes a set of limitations and produces a collection of text. These limitations can include sources (twitter, a school book, the poetry of Basho, song titles on spotify), formal types (only words starting with the letter E, proper names, adjective/noun combinations), or a particular process (using search engines, opening random pages, picking the first sentence on every page of a book). There's an almost endless variation and these can be as random or intentional as desired.
Found Poems: In a visual world surrounded by text, we're also surrounded by poetry. Found poems can be created by taking a selection of text out of context and presenting it on its own. This can involve cutting phrases out of newspapers and paper ephemera, or taking photos of text in public spaces.
Erasure Poems: This involves taking an existing text and erasing portions of it to produce a new meaning or even a critique of the existing meaning of the text. This can easily be applied to books, newspapers, magazine or any other dense collection of text.
Cut-ups: This is a technique made popular by Byron Gysin and William S. Burroughs. Artists can take any existing text and cut it up into pieces of varying size. They then take those pieces and arrange them into a new text at random. It relies on chance and the surreal to create new texts that produce unexpected meanings and associations.
Procedural Poetry: This is a kind of conceptual poetry that can range from highly sophisticated to very simple. The artist takes a set of limitations and produces a collection of text. These limitations can include sources (twitter, a school book, the poetry of Basho, song titles on spotify), formal types (only words starting with the letter E, proper names, adjective/noun combinations), or a particular process (using search engines, opening random pages, picking the first sentence on every page of a book). There's an almost endless variation and these can be as random or intentional as desired.
︎︎︎from Gabriel Saloman
Welcome to mapping collaboration, a toolbox for workshopping and creating across disciplines...
In spite of a long history of interdisciplinary creation, from our earliest recorded arts to our present moment, artistic pedagogy has created divisions between disciplines. This has left artists in a "post-Babel" condition where we don't share the same language and definitions. It’s also encouraged artists to develop practices for devising, creating and composing work that are distinct to their disciplines.
In spite of a long history of interdisciplinary creation, from our earliest recorded arts to our present moment, artistic pedagogy has created divisions between disciplines. This has left artists in a "post-Babel" condition where we don't share the same language and definitions. It’s also encouraged artists to develop practices for devising, creating and composing work that are distinct to their disciplines.
The inspiration for this project came from faculty and students at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts where BFA, MFA and PhD programs in Dance, Theatre Production and Design, Visual Art, Film, and Music and Sound all work together in studio settings and playfully experiment with processes of art-making.
We wanted to create a database of projects, assignments and theory that we collect inside the studio and from research happening in other places. We are curious about how we collaborate and how structures reoccur, translate and deviate from one discipline to another.
Composition is central to these processes and offers a base for our approaches and experiments. We are excited about what our students are doing and inspired by the new languages in contemporary art and performance we continue to see develop.
︎︎︎select a category above to build assignments, learn more about how artists process ideas across disciplines and to create a collaborative process of your own
︎︎︎these tools are collected and used in workshops and classes; some are resources from artists; some are quotes about art-making and how bodies think and listen; others are ideas to expand and disrupt your own training and processes.
︎︎︎Each idea is intentially short- and not meant to be executed as written, but to be adapted to your own practice and specific project/context. Some may be taken in parts or combined with others to spark new ways of training and making together.
︎︎︎submit your own ideas and tools so we can keep building this site!
︎︎︎select a category above to build assignments, learn more about how artists process ideas across disciplines and to create a collaborative process of your own
︎︎︎these tools are collected and used in workshops and classes; some are resources from artists; some are quotes about art-making and how bodies think and listen; others are ideas to expand and disrupt your own training and processes.
︎︎︎Each idea is intentially short- and not meant to be executed as written, but to be adapted to your own practice and specific project/context. Some may be taken in parts or combined with others to spark new ways of training and making together.
︎︎︎submit your own ideas and tools so we can keep building this site!
