Some of the Parts

Words & Concept: Beth Porter, Sound & Image: Guy Denning

This is a piece about invention and reinvention. About choices. About identity. It is based on creative traditions spanning centuries and cultures. Ultimately it is a work for tomorrow.

Choices make the difference between a life and a work of art. What to include. What to leave out. The juxtaposition of the precise image to word to sound. Providing shape and validity and meaning.

The Fusion: to combine some of the parts to make the whole. Part paint. Part electron. Part song. Part noise. Part colour. Part chiaroscuro. Part stasis. Part whirlwind. Part familiar. Part whisper. Part BANG!

Art is the bullet in the weapon of understanding ourselves. This is a work of identity, the theme, the leitmotif. A journey of glimpses.

Imagine you're in your granny's attic and stumble upon a box of old photos. Snaps of a life. Frozen moments. You sift through in no particular order, not recognising the people who recur in images. Frozen time. Reaching the endtime, having fed on some of the parts, you have a sense of the whole. Somehow you now know these people. And, because your view is filtered through your own experience, you are brought closer to understanding yourself. Even more, you have become the archivist of your own life.

Ingredients:

A series of haiku/images/sounds. They are not mere text, mere picture, mere audio. They are parts of a greater integrated whole. Some sit still. Others twist and samba and flail. Some writhe in pain, emitting screams. Or float like whale-song. Meaning comes not from the words. Not just from the words. And sometimes meaning emerges from the very clouds of confusion. The poem/soundscape paintings are a series of keys unlocking identity.

[The haiku are the photos in your granny's attic.]

Any other information: We are seeking funding for a simultaneous live/electronic event version of Some of the Parts, presenting a giant triptych screen contrasting our Haiku series with contributions from the audience. They'll be given random words and images to re-combine into their own haiku, and the results transmitted to the screen. In this way the collective poem can grow and evolve, just as the Renga poems did when Haiku was invented.

Some of the Parts is about personal identity and choices. We've chosen. Now you choose.

Click the jumbled letters to get to an interactive menu. The choice is yours, there's no right or wrong way to start. Each click brings you one of 17 haiku picture soundscapes. The big green button gets you back to the menu. What's left at the end is the final haiku in the series. By the time you're done you'll have an understanding of the whole made up of its parts. And of yourself, part of the process. Because you choose the order, you'll have a unique experience.