Department of Critical Thought
1 primary work
Book 1
Body of Text is a collection of concrete poems made by marrying poetry with body-based performance art and documentary photography. Dressed in a full black body-suit, Michael V. Smith is photographed by David Ellingsen in hundreds of poses which resemble Greco-Roman letters, Asian characters, hieroglyphs, or Rorschach inkblots. These are then arranged in book form, to a maximum of three images per page. In the same spirit of ï¿"moving beyond language' as heard in the sound poetry of Christian Bï¿"k, the poems in Body of Text occupy a liminal space between poetry and visual art. The body is made word, is made ï¿"site,' ï¿"object' and ï¿"subject.' The body is symbol.