“Face the Others” is an essay on the work of German artist Anna Oppermann (1940-1993), who created complex installations consisting of thousands of papers, drawings, found objects and photos that she termed “ensembles”. Seemingly an archive presented for public display with an array of references, Oppermann was concerned with her method, which was a constant evaluation and renegotiation of a thematic issue through understanding connections and arrangements. Throughout her work, she was interested in mirrors, both in her creation of mise-en-abyme and the use of physical mirrors in her ensembles, alternating between their potential for self-examination and revelation and their illusory qualities.

In this essay, the theme of this reading event is revealed in its opening line: “In her ensembles, Anna Oppermann let others speak for her.” Throughout this performance, you will be reading the words of others.

The image of Anna Oppermann working appears in the video work. I am beginning the reading event with a description of an artist that is in some ways similar to me. I was directed to her by someone who thought there was a certain affinity with our work. The essay touches on points and questions that could be speaking about the work in the SIGHTINGS cube, but at other points clearly is speaking about historical events and figures that are not present, and echoes the mirror as a tool of illusion.

“Poetry: I, too, dislike it:” – Marianne Moore

The first reading of this theme is a collection of short poems of poets working at different moments and geographical locations.

An image of Marianne Moore from a magazine from the 1970s appears alongside a library checkout card of her book O to be a dragon in one of the videos. As I researched Moore’s process, I learned that she was a collector of images and news clippings and often constructed poems out of quotations and fragments of found material (speaking through the words of others). She shared this collage-like technique with Joseph Cornell, known for his boxed assemblage of objects, with whom she had a longtime correspondence and exchange.

Staying home “with potato salad, green beans, pork chops, and Bergson” – Lorine Niedecker

Lorine Niedecker, was a rural poet, largely self-educated, and although she was recognized by other poets of her time, worked relatively isolated. I came across her work when I was researching dialects and accents of the region where I grew up. I became interested in her work after I listened to this 1970 recording. The poem selected here, NEXT YEAR OR I FLY MY ROUNDS, TEMPESTUOUS, was pasted in assemblage onto sections of a calendar of 1935, made as a single-edition artists’ book. The poem was unknown, until the scholar Jenny Penberthy found it in the archives of another poet.

Closing the selection, a short poem by Ingeborg Bachmann, returning to roses. I saw her manuscript pages, with burn marks, at the Austrian Literature Museum, a pamphlet for which appears several times in the videos. I have also included a selection of a longer Bachmann poem (in German).

The next reading in this theme is by Lisa Robertson is a contemporary writer and poet. She has written about Lorine Niedecker, with an interest in the presence of listening in her work. Robertson’s own introduction of Niedecker’s work was while working in the Contemporary Literature Collection at Simon Fraser University. She listened to the 1970 recording, particularly interested in this section. For the reading, I’ve chosen some selections from Debbie an Epic.

Throughout Hotel Atlas, studio portraits of screen stars appear. Moore, Niedecker, and Bachmann were working when this imagery was created in the Mid-Twentieth Century. As a kind of parallel discussion, I am including a selection from another contemporary writer, Anne Carson. I have made a selection from norma jeane baker of troy, a re-imagining of Marilyn Monroe as Helen of Troy.

There is a sense of convention and narrative form in these texts, but they also ask why we use such conventions and forms. Often playing with of expectations, they engage in world building, institutional critique, and daring creation of fictional space.

These selections include an excerpt from Maurice Blanchot’s novel Thomas, The Obscure. Blanchot’s writing has been important in the development of several of my projects. A quotation from The Space of Literature is included in the text that accompanies this project. In this short novel, Blanchot tackles interior life and philosophical questions about the relationship between oblivion and knowing.

Heart of the Heart is a fictionalized account of the mathematician Alexander Grothendieck. It is from When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut, translated by Adrian Nathan West. I came to this book because I follow the work of the translator. He translated the work of the Austrian writer Marianne Fritz that I researched. I asked him how he came to Fritz’s work. It was from following a note about one of WG Sebald’s poems. I became interested in his work, how he chooses the texts he translates, and what he is saying in his choices. This text follows his interests around the complexities around creative pursuit, the navigation of creation in social conditions, and the inexhaustible search for understanding.

My thoughts turned to boxes when I started to work on this project. This short story about a fitting room by Yukiko Motoya came to mind, which I thought about for a long time after I read it. Albertine Sarrazin deals with a box of another kind. I’ve included the first chapter of her novel L’astragale, in which her character jumps from her cell to earth.