poetry

Oracles

I've been working on a project titled "Oracles" that combines digital stills with experimental writing pieces. The project emerged from an interest in the concept of "creative utterance", the ability to create by speaking specific words. The source text of all these pieces is the Egyptian Book of the Dead. To create these poems, this source text is run through translation software in dozens of languages to intentionally mistranslate them. Through this process spontaneous new content emerges. The results are unexpectedly lyrical and strikingly visual and the original text is completely transformed. The texts are then edited into short poems.

I would like to make these into an artist's book and video installation. Sight and sound shimmering in and out of focus. Interpreting the oracles.



Cataract

horses
come into sight 
as the stars 
come down 

it seems strange
this empty sky
an insomnia
of whiteness

a cataract
of gold
drawn
from the well


 

White Lepiota



We are walking together,
the alder and the oak.

Carrying
a desert of lapwings
under our coats.

Back to the beginning,
back to the seabirds and foam.
The bull slides across the pitch ocean floor 

All the names are gone
White lepiota grows

our mossy hearts - the grind of planets -
songs of tallow and bone.

One foot in the water
- two far travelers -
Setting fires along the road.


- Marianne Dages, 2013














Oculus Song

I'm working on a new artist's book, titled Ocular  Oculus Song. Right now, it is in the model stage, and I am trying to decide on a typeface. The book will include risograph and letterpress printing, maybe some hand painted details. The book will include some of my writing. It's never been easy for me to translate my ideas into writing, it can be like pulling teeth, but it's exhilarating too. 

:: testing typefaces ::

:: handset type ::

:: risograph printing and handmade paper cover ::

 :: risograph printing and tracing paper ::