An Ornithological Recitation of Kurt Schwitters’Ursonate excerpt:
There has never been a full agreement as to what were the key influences on Kurt Schwitters when he was preparing the Ursonate. An interest in bird songs and calls is known to have provided a lasting inspiration for Schwitters. A later poem, called Super-Bird-Song, written in 1946, at least claims by its title a direct contact between the lyric and the sounds of birds. I gladly trust in this.
Whether or not I am merely continuing the myth myself, I would like to give the Ursonate back to the birds.
During my research I got in contact with Prof. Dr. Gerhard
Spitzer, an ornithologist based in Vienna. We met in his office, listened to parts of the Ursonate recited by Kurt Schwitters himself, read the text out loud and tried to find the resemblance of bird songs within the piece. Having Dr. Spitzers advice as the fundament of my research,
I now work with ornithological field guides and encyclopaedias. And try to recreate in this way the entire Ursonate sung by birds.
This work is not finished yet —
it may grow and expand.
Astrid Seme [x] graduated from the "Werkplaats Typography" (WT) master program of ArtEZ Institute of the Arts.[x]
for more information about a preliminary excerpt [2'55"] on CD
go to: www.markpezinger.de