so in 1976 i moved to the bay area, living in oakland in the east bay — the storefront i ended up renting on macarthur blvd was pretty much equidistant between the headquarters of the black panthers and the hell’s angels —
so one day i was working on a process poem to be a score for a performance — and the process was that i was translating the original words of the poem into some words from their definitions in the oxford english dictionary — for example> original word = extra — replaced by definition = on the outside
and so i looked up context and BAM! there it was> the weaving together of language
so i immediately stopped working on that piece and made the first context – using some daisy-wheel printing paper i’d gotten a box of out of a dumpster in downtown san franciso which was still pretty rare then — so rather than overlaying the strips of the pages i had cut up i began to weave them on both the horizontal and vertical planes
so i continued to produce CONTEXTS periodically until around 1984
due to the transient circumstances of my life none of the original work from this period exists
however 1 polaroid of the original piece, a kodak of a piece from 1977, and a xerox of a photo of the largest context i ever produced do
from left to right then
the original, a black on black piece, JAEHIOQUV 22’x4′ context woven [from those letters] for the visuo-sonic poemetries show with m.s.bell at la mamelle august 1977
so one day i was working on a process poem to be a score for a performance — and the process was that i was translating the original words of the poem into some words from their definitions in the oxford english dictionary — for example> original word = extra — replaced by definition = on the outside
and so i looked up context and BAM! there it was> the weaving together of language
so i immediately stopped working on that piece and made the first context – using some daisy-wheel printing paper i’d gotten a box of out of a dumpster in downtown san franciso which was still pretty rare then — so rather than overlaying the strips of the pages i had cut up i began to weave them on both the horizontal and vertical planes
so i continued to produce CONTEXTS periodically until around 1984
due to the transient circumstances of my life none of the original work from this period exists
however 1 polaroid of the original piece, a kodak of a piece from 1977, and a xerox of a photo of the largest context i ever produced do
from left to right then
the original, a black on black piece, JAEHIOQUV 22’x4′ context woven [from those letters] for the visuo-sonic poemetries show with m.s.bell at la mamelle august 1977
in the meantime i continued weaving contexts, and also applied that name as well to works using just overlaying
so in 1981 subterranean published a package of a 7″ 45 record of sound poetry and 12 visual poems by s.weisser
from left > right: the cover, a printed example, and then 2 examples of the original, which were laminated rather than scotch taped
and note that the source material was a box of old mimeographs of elementary school students writing assignments that i found in the barn at the house i lived in in winnetka california from 1972-1974
so in 1981 subterranean published a package of a 7″ 45 record of sound poetry and 12 visual poems by s.weisser
from left > right: the cover, a printed example, and then 2 examples of the original, which were laminated rather than scotch taped
and note that the source material was a box of old mimeographs of elementary school students writing assignments that i found in the barn at the house i lived in in winnetka california from 1972-1974
and here are the last contexts from my amsterdam period, produced in 1982
the first two images are a piece [and a detail] that still exists and is on a wall in the peckham house, the third image is a xerox from the catalog of a show the piece was created for at joseph semma’s stichting makkom in amsterdam, the fourth image was the piece made from the remainders of the makkom piece
the first two images are a piece [and a detail] that still exists and is on a wall in the peckham house, the third image is a xerox from the catalog of a show the piece was created for at joseph semma’s stichting makkom in amsterdam, the fourth image was the piece made from the remainders of the makkom piece