I am happy to announce that the publication initiated by In Edit Mode Press, and in collaboration with Canadian poet Derek Beaulieu, Local Colour: Ghosts, variations is in the making.
The publication that will consist of scores, sound and poetry takes as its point of departure Paul Auster's novella Ghosts. Beaulieu's reworking of the text, Local Colour is the base for this project.
In Austers novella all the characters have colour names, i.e. Mr. Blue, Mr. Black and so on. In Beaulieu's work he has replaced the colour names with colour and removed all text, until what is left of the text by Auster is a 72-pages colourful pointillistic score.
My contribution to this is that I basically used the first paragraph of Paul Auster's novella and transcribed it into short piece of three movements to be played by double bass and/or voice.
This was done by isolating the letters C, D, E, F, G, A, B in the text and using them in a notational system to indicate pitch.
The absence of the characters in between the chosen letters indicate the durations/note values.
The 1. movement is the original text, the two following movements are versions of the paragraph that has been trough Google Translate so many times that the text is altered into strange sentences and meanings.
In June I will record this in Oslo with Per Zanussi (double bass) and Stine Janvin Motland (voice).
Local Colour: Ghosts, variations will available to purchase towards the end of 2012. The release of the publication will coincide with an event featuring live performances and readings in Malmö, Sweden. Besides me the contributing poets, artists and musicians include Steve Giasson, Eric Zboya, Helen White, Elisabeth Tonnard, Gary Barlow, Pär Thörn, Peder Alexis Olsson, Andreas Kurtsson, Cia Rinne, Martin Glaz Serup and Ola Lindefelt.
Referring to my older posts about this project here and here.