Conversations in Contemporary Poetics, a monthly reading and discussion series exploring the diverse ways in which poetry integrates with life, media, and politics, continues with readings by interdisciplinary artists Cat Tyc and Marie Ségolène. Cat Tyc will unravel a text in the form of a video projection with collaborators Scott Kiernan and Lea Bertucci. Marie Ségolène will present a performance work that embodies what happens when poetry is taken off the page and becomes an environment.

Organized by writer and curator, Jeffrey Grunthaner, Conversations in Contemporary Poetics foregrounds what goes on behind the making of a poem. Rather than simply presenting poems as completed works (books, or finalized texts), the series acts like a studio visit, showcasing aspects of a poet’s creative practice that might otherwise go unnoticed.

A collectible program, including texts by the readers and original artwork by Henry Gunderson, will be available at the event. Audio of the readings will be archived by Winston Taylor Records.

About the readers and series organizer:

Marie Ségolène C. Brault (b. 1988 Montreal, Qc) holds a BA in Creative Writing and a BFA in Intermedia Cyber Arts from Concordia University (Canada). She is currently completing her MFA in Performance at the School of Art Institute of Chicago. Marie’s work has been featured in Poetry is Dead Magazine and DRY MAGAZINE, and her books Proprioception (2015), Libation (2016), Aphrodite (2016) and Requiem (2016) have recently been published by Anteism. She has participated in several group exhibits, in spaces such as the Knockdown Center, Pioneer Works, City Bird Gallery (NYC), Vox Populi (Philadelphia), 8eleven (Toronto), Projet Pangée and Never Apart (Montreal). Marie was appointed the Guido Molinari prize from Concordia University in Spring 2016. She is currently curating a touring performance project entitled EROS.

Cat Tyc is a Brooklyn based writer/videomaker. She has two chapbooks, one from Dancing Girl Press called An Architectural Seance and the other out from Belladonna Collaborative called CONSUMES ME. Her video work has screened locally and internationally at spaces that include the Microscope Gallery, Anthology Film Archives, CUNY Graduate Center, Brooklyn Museum, Kassel Fest and the PDX International Festival and has directed music videos that have been added to the rotation on LOGO’s NewNowNext as well as MTVu. She teaches writing throughout New York City within the CUNY system and also works as the Program Coordinator at The Home School in Hudson, NY.

Scott Kiernan is a multi-disciplinary artist living and working in New York City. His work seeks alternate readings implicit in images and the technologies employed for their production. Kiernan is founder and co-director of E.S.P. TV (2011-present), a nomadic TV studio that explores televisual language and develops artist collaborations for broadcast. He also co-directs UNIT 11, a transmission based residency program which operates from a former ENG van turned mobile electronic studio. He has exhibited and performed internationally in venues such as New Museum, Museum of Arts and Design, Swiss Institute/Contemporary Art, Storefront for Art and Architecture, Whitney Museum of American Art, Harvard Art Museums, P.S.122, Mixed Greens, Ballroom Marfa, Southern Exposure, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Center for International Contemporary Art in Rome. He teaches in Hunter College’s Integrated Media Arts MFA program.

Lea Bertucci is an American composer and performer whose work describes relationships between acoustic phenomena and biological resonance. In addition to her instrumental practice, (alto saxophone and bass clarinet), her work often incorporates multi-channel speaker arrays, electroacoustic feedback, extended instrumental technique and tape collage. Her discography includes a number of solo and collaborative releases on independent labels, including I Dischi Del Barone, Obsolete Units, Telegraph Harp, Clandestine Compositions and NNA Tapes. She has performed extensively across the US and Europe at venues such as The Kitchen, PS1 MoMA, The Drawing Center, Anthology Film Archives, Abrons Arts, The Walker Museum, Madison Square Park, The Reniassance Society, Chicago, ISSUE Project Room, Pioneer Works, The Queens Museum, Roulette, Artists’ Space, Caramoor, The High Zero Festival, and Experimental Intermedia, among many others. She is a 2016 MacDowell Fellow in composition and a 2015 ISSUE Project Room Artist-in-Residence.

Jeffrey Grunthaner is a writer and curator based in New York. Their articles, reviews, poems and essays have appeared via Drag City Books, Hyperallergic, BOMB, Archinect, Folder, artnet News, the 2016 Queens International exhibition catalogue, Imperial Matters, and other venues. Their chapbook THE TTTROUBLEWWITH SUUNDAAYS was published by Louffa Press.

Image: Henry Gunderson, Untitled, 2017, Pen on paper, 9 x 12 in