“I see that it’s important that we surrender ourselves and expose ourselves to things that we don’t necessarily understand, that through innocent, impassioned excitement we can’t help share.” – Lisa Gerrard
“To make the familiar strange, but also to use the materials of the familiar to make something highly recognizable and personal.” – Amina
“What matters isn’t what you could do but what you really did.” – Björk
formerly 537neon
a.rawlings' books and chapbooks
- Wide slumber for lepidopterists, Coach House Books 2006 (author), second printing
- W I D E R: B-sides, rarities, and remixes, belladonna* 2006 (author)
- Shift & Switch: New Canadian Poetry, The Mercury Press 2005 (co-editor), second printing
- A Sing Economy, Flim Forum Press 2008 (contributor with François Luong)
- 131.839 slög með bilum, 2007 (includes translated excerpt from WSfL)
- Strong Words: Year Two, Indiepolitik 2007 (contributor)
- Desire, Doom, & Vice, a Canadian Collection, Wingate Press 2005 (contributor)
- Pissing Ice: An Anthology of 'New' Canadian Poets, BookThug 2004 (contributor)
- [a,r] [s'c], housepress 2002 (co-written with Stephen Cain)
- The Common Sky: Canadian Writers Against the War, Three Squares Press 2002 (contributor)
a.rawlings in the classroom
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2008
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- Aural June
- Reading this Tuesday
- New Monk
- Adventures in Belgium: Brussels
- Adventures in Belgium: Post-Zaoem Snapshots
- Adventures in Belgium: Maja and a.raw Improvise Fl...
- Surrender strange matters
- Adventures in Belgium: Zaoem, Day Two
- Adventures in Belgium: eduard escoffet @ Zaoem
- Adventures in Belgium: Rozalie Hirs @ Zaoem
- Adventures in Belgium: a.rawlings @ Zaoem
- Adventures in Belgium: Leevi Lehto @ Zaoem
- Adventures in Belgium: Zaoem, Day One
- Adventures in Belgium: Ghent Arrival
- Adventures in Belgium: Kristof Lauwers' Burden Bir...
- Adventures in Belgium: Sebastian Bradt @ Logos
- Adventures in Belgium: Logos Foundation Tour
- KSW's Positions Colloquium
- Flemish recap
- Já, Eiki!
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2 comments:
That Björk quote has become an idiom in Icelandic art. People are not sure who "said it first", but it was either Einar Örn (other singer from Sugarcubes and now Ghostigital frontman) or Bragi Ólafsson (bass player from Sugarcubes, now poet/novelist). Einar said it first "on record", but I've heard he was paraphrasing something Bragi said. They were speaking of the punk-era in music, where the realization hit people that it wasn't how well you could technically control your instrument that mattered, but what you actually did with it. I find the origins fascinating in light of how many punk-artists - noisers etc. - have reacted to the digital-age of fucking with things, where they are of the opinion, suddenly, that not being able to analogically fuck with things means you have "lost control" (as if the analog world doesn't abide by it's own laws). That is to say, all of a sudden it's all about the tool and what you can do with it, instead of being what you DO do with it.
Thanks for the background on the quote, Eiki. I think I pulled it from the Screaming Masterpiece documentary on Icelandic music, which adds to / confirms your history of the statement. I've heard similar kinds of remarks elsewhere (particularly related to a punk aesthetic), but copied down Björk's as the most recent iteration to cross my path. The Amiina quote also comes from the same doc (if memory serves; it's been a few months since I watched it).
I thought to place this quote after our conversation in Brussels, where I've been feeling a need to research and learn assorted technologies in an holistic way before producing with them. I'm second-guessing that impulse since we spoke, and that feels like a positive thing for me.
More doing.
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