Edwin Torres' poetry collections include, The Animal's Perception of Earth (DoubleCross Press), XoeteoX: the infinite word object (Wave Books), Ameriscopia (University of Arizona Press), Yes Thing No Thing (Roof Books), In The Function of External Circumstances (Nightboat), and editor of The Body In Language: An Anthology (Counterpath Press). He has performed his bodylingo poetics worldwide and received fellowships from; The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The New York Foundation for the Arts, The DIA Foundation, among others. Anthologies include, Fractured Ecologies, Who Will Speak For America, American Poets In The 21st Century: Poetics of Social Engagement, Kindergarde: Avant Garde Poems For Children, and Aloud: Voices From The Nuyorican Poets Café.
Stephen Vitiello is an electronic musician and media artist. CD, LP and digital releases have been published by New Albion, Sub Rosa, 12k, and Room 40. His sound installations and multi-channel works are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon. Over the last 25 years, Vitiello has collaborated with such artists and musicians as Pauline Oliveros, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Taylor Deupree, Joan Jonas, Tony Oursler, Steve Roden and Scanner. Vitiello has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for “Fine Arts,” a Creative Capital grant for “Emerging Fields” and an Alpert/Ucross Award for Music. Originally from New York, Vitiello is now based in Richmond, VA where he is a professor of Kinetic Imaging at Virginia Commonwealth University.
: walking gesture 1 : Edwin Torres (improvised text) & Stephen Vitiello (improvised audio) :
bell plumb-lined
daggered fault line
find the branches that overlay
find the cell structures the neighborhoods over each other
find the eyesight the eyeballs the cranium
the bodies aligned over each other in the ship in the sleep
in the bunk bed find your brother
find the vehicles the traffic jam
find the structures that form where light
intercedes interlaps interover the where we are
I saw a guy walk down the street
and kept walking right by me no mask
I saw exactly who he was not hidden
I saw exactly where he was coming from no path
no past no moving
I saw where he might have been
if it had been me so I saw where I was going
where I went is where he was so what did I see
the decisions that become the incisions that's too easy
the decisions that we choose propelled behind by where
we were just
it's not alignment that pushes you
if it's not alignment
that pushes you than if
is what pushes you
I saw what I thought I was finding but
I wrote about that already so why write about it again
I saw this other guy walk by and he wore a mask
easily everyone could see
his mask
everyone has one I wore my precovid mask
walking down the street no one knew who I was
I prefer it that way
I saw what I was walking towards against what I was
and what I wore was what I needed so
funny how we look at our alignment
as what we need not what we have or are or were
don't use your cell phone while you're walking don't drive
don't drive don't drive while folding
watch your distractions control your distractions don't walk
without a mask that's too easy
it's a matter of bringing the everything into the one
the every perspective into the one vantage point
isn't that what we do when we walk a top bottom left right
all around our 360 is a continual paradigm the story I'm telling
is continually revolving around me as I'm talking as I'm saying it
its continually revolving what I'm seeing is what I'm walking in
continually revolving what I'm walking in the things I see
as I walk do not stop anytime
like the sign says
I saw a sign on the street
no stopping anytime
one way one way
Torres photo by Jeffrey Pethybridge