I think things are precious
Author Identifier (ORCID)
Non-Traditional Research Output
Original Creative Work
Document Type
Non-Traditional Research Output
Date of Publication
2023
Research Statement
Research Background
‘I think things are precious’ is a work of expanded short fiction about a kid set the task of writing 100 lines as a punishment. While a narrative drives the story, the topic of line-writing provides form and structure and addresses Axon journal’s Text | Page | Art issue question, ‘How are contemporary writers being visual?’ The work responds to Emmett Williams’s ‘Cellar Song for Five Voices’ (c. 1960) from An Anthology of Chance Operations (1963), an artists’ book produced by those who went on to form Fluxus.
Research Contribution
Much as An Anthology became a key site for the productive cross-pollination of arts practices, the work draws on Rosalind Krauss’s concept of an ‘Expanded Field’ (1979) and applies it to short fiction. ‘I think things are precious’ uses permutation, the mathematical theory and practice of changing the linear order of a set of items, with a score developed in response to ‘Cellar Song’. By giving the repeated lines a visual weight different from that of the frame narrative, readers engage with line variations as images and the work hovers between narrative and visual modes of expression and interpretation. As with ‘Cellar Song’, meaning is conveyed visually and musically, as patterns of words and spaces between them rhythmically change.
Research Significance
The work was published in visual-textual form in the international peer-reviewed journal Axon’s issue Text | Page | Art that aimed to bring together Australian and international work in textual book arts, visual poetry and essays. Guest Editor and book/text artist Caren Florance curated a selection of new works from inter/national book arts and visual poetry practitioners including Sarah Bodman, Alex Selenitsch and Linda Parr. Expanding the line permutation score into performance, ‘I think things are precious’ was performed as part of Outcome Unknown’s Exploratory Music Concerts series (#52, 2020).
Publication Title
Axon: Creative Explorations
Publisher
The Centre for Creative & Cultural Research, University of Canberra
School
Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA)
RAS ID
62458
Copyright
free_to_read
Comments
McKenzie, V. (2023). I think things are precious. Axon: Creative Explorations, 13(1), 1 - 6. https://doi.org/10.54375/001/k4vz5gp93t