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READ CIRLOT
With
LECTURÆS DE CIRLOT, I have meant to transfer to the screen the
poetry and the world (and the no-world) of J.E. Cirlot (Barcelona,
1916-1973): a poet of the cursed species, but also a poet "of
cult". His versatile activity, his attention equally distributed
among art, literature, music and cinema, contemporaneity and antiquity,
the ruffle of avant-gardes as much as the serenity of eastern cultures
and religions, all of these (and I’m only synthesizing) are at
once reflected in his poetic creation, that takes on a multimedial
potential which I have tried to put into practice.
I am, of course, making profligate use of a faishonable term (which,
nevertheless, is in many instances improperly used), with regard to
some audiovisual (re)creations whereon different procedures and collaborations
take part , in whose realization I have purposely searched for the
complicity of people I knew, or felt, could tune in to Cirlot’s
experimental poetry -permutable, phonetic, alliterative... always
personal and surprising--, and thus go on to share the project of
a series of non-canonical readings, contemporary interpretations,
which could, at the same time, incite to read Cirlot.
In this sense, I would like to think that these videos could have
a "promotional" function --not that I have any direct interest
or service in them, though--, and that is why I sometimes have thought
of refering to this series of pieces as literary videoclips (a term
I don’t consider exactly fitting, neither as regards their lenght
nor as regards the documental elements they combine). On the other
hand, although the initial project was to make a unit program that
would bind toguether 12 poems or fragments, plus some documental insertions,
circumstances have propitiated a different, modular format, where
each piece can function by its own.
And introduction and a colophon in the form of "inhabited colour
bars" collect the statements of several people who are acquainted
with Cirlot’s life and work, bringing forward a concise but very
suggestive documental/testimonial frame that contextualizes and binds
toguether its various "readings". In this chromatic grate
intervene: Antonio Beneyto (artist and writer), Lourdes Cirlot (historian
of art), Victoria Cirlot (medievalist and symbologist), Antonio Fernández
Molina (writer), Carles Hac Mor (writer and art critic), Josep M.
Mestres Quadreny (composer), Jaime D. Parra (literary researcher and
poet) and Joan Perucho (writer and art critic).
The central point of each of these tapes is the reading or interpretation
of a poem, using different digital edition resources, informatic animation,
electronic sound processing, etc. Specific and different treatment
has been applied to each poem, with the contribution of Barbara Held
(composer), Eduardo Polonio (composer), Miquel Jordà (composer
and multimedia artist), Empar Rosselló (performance artist)
and Antonio Fernández Molina (poet and artist).
The poetic text has been kept as wording -words in mouvement-in CRISTO
CRISTAL and in EINAI, whereon Barbara Held and Eduardo Polonio respectively
have, from previously elaborated images, introduced the music. As
I had intended, sound is not redundant, but in harmony with, as much
as for the crystalline sonority created by Barbara -who uses mainly
crystal flutes-as for the phonetical particles gradually introduced
by Eduardo’s composition.
In VISIÓ SMARAGDINA , the words of the poem are doubly dissolved
in a liquid/cromatic flux and a sound/vocal flux (Miquel Jordà’s
composition). This is allusive to Cirlot’s attention to colour
and phonetic symbolism. On the other hand, maybe the abstraction of
images could be related to some given styles of painting which he
defended as a critic and an "artigrapher".
In INGER PERMUTACIONES and HOMENAJE A BÉCQUER it is the voice
that takes the lead, though they are neither canonical nor to the
letter readings. As regards the phonic permutations on the name of
Inger (the ill-fated actress Inger Stevens), I thought about Empar
Rosselló for her vocal work, and she then wished to introduce
as well an element of corporal action. Presumably, this one can be
considered the least canonical reading of them all. Particularly,
as compared to Javier Maderuelo’s version of the time he was
devoted to phonetical musics ("it sounds like a Mass", Empar
observed) and to Cirlot’s own views about the way his poems should
be read.
As regards Cirlot’s variations about Bécquer, I asked
Antonio Fernández Molina, a poet close to Cirlot (and also
to Bécquer), to do the reading of the original rhyme -the standard-poem,
as it were-to afterwards arrive, through editing and with intentional
abruptness, to the exchanges of verses and recombined words: Bécquer
x Cirlot (B x C, as if it was the case of an arithmetical operation).
At the same time, I here satisfied, partially, some old projects based
on programmed combinatorials of sequential images (something which,
nowadays, it’s much easier and less laborious to achieve, thanks
to the joined electronic means of video and informatics). Some people
think that, due to the way I have "un-handled"it, to follow
and understand Cirlot’s poem is difficult. But, couldn’t
the same be said about it, when read on paper for the first time?
On the other hand, I appreciate "cirlotian" Jaime Parra’s
comment: that my version "plunges the spectator in five minutes
of extreme anguish".
EUGENI BONET
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