Selected journalism and academic works follow below
(Links in titles)
Available for freelance journalistic work/proofreading/copywriting by contacting {countess dazure at gmail dot com}
Interactive Futures: An Interview with NAVA
A lengthy dissertation arose from collected interviews conducted with the five originating members of Nordic Audio Visual Artists (NAVA) following their interactive installation Tiny/Massive on the façade of Reykjavik’s Harpa Music Hall in February 2019, and discussion on the current state of creative coding. The Appendices include a brief interview with a Reykjavik school teacher on coding and arts in Icelandic schools, and a contemporary of the NAVA crew who worked with them at Roskilde.
This could have been more thorough, but was originally written within an academic context at a limit of ~6,000 words and soon spiralled to twice that.
Interview with Eivør Pálsdóttir
Island Forests & Climate Change in Iceland – A discussion with Aðalsteinn Sigurgeirsson – Deputy Director of the Icelandic forestry commission
Essay – White Noise: Silence in an Echo Chamber
Another academic work so feels somewhat compressed, this essay was described as ‘really angry’ by my tutor, the gentle genius Dr. Suk-Jun Kim. This was after I had deliberated long and hard on how to take most of the anger out.
In hindsight, it is more of a manifesto than a friendly chat; but was the first work I had written following my choice to live as a woman: I was asked to write a survey of sonic arts, and could only see the strong white patriarchal values of western classical music tradition. Whilst marking the work, I was pleased that Jun was honest enough to state that he couldn’t argue with the observation that white male sonic arts run the risk of representing “sedentary onanism”.
A short beat prose eulogy to artist Paul Burwell of Bow Gamelan Ensemble who lived and worked in Hull in his winter years lovingly remembered by our creative community there.
A little political performance poetry:
The decision to post my interviews and writing on my blog came from being carelessly silenced by too many journalists.
The following work being ‘edited’ to the point of completely losing the message to avoid offence was the final straw.
I’m not a diva, but if I write a political work, I don’t expect it to be wrung out and dried up.
I’m more than happy to take freelance writing commissions, but my political voice is important to me and I won’t allow it to be silenced.
So here it is, in its disgustingly honest entirety.
for Pansy Boy
Annabel Strange, Aberdeen, September 2019
This isn’t really poetry
It’s the story
Of a thought process
Let’s start a movement.
Flit
Research has shown that those of us that move
Are more perceptive of movement
(Citation needed)
(Jola & Calmeiro 2017)
And what is movement?
Pansy
It’s a language
What do we tell people with our movement?
How we feel.
Homoerotic
And that flit feel of the pansy,
The classic dipped wrist *
Which is usually more something like this *
It’s a sign of a fluidity of movement
Ergo,
Fluidity of perception
Empathy.
So I saw Pansy Boy speak
And found that ‘pansy’
Was a homophobic slur
It comes from the Latin – Pense- to think.
So
to the ‘heteronormative’,
To flit
and think
is seen
As an insult
#gofuckyourselves
Now,
Having the ridonculous body I do,
I often have to tell myself to pull it together
I used to call myself a ‘pussy’ – like, ‘stop being such a pussy’.
And I saw that quote it now turns out was misattributed to Betty White
*citation needed*
That we shouldn’t ‘grow a pair’ –
because
It’s balls that are weak –
The humble ‘pussy’
Well,
Those things can really take a pounding.
*no citation needed*
So, this word was out,
in the context of my inner monologue and, well, it’s oppressive.
So what could I replace that word with?
‘Stop being such a pansy’
But then as I heard Pansy Boy speak, I realised,
That word, too, is the tool of the oppressor.
The ‘hate-riarchy’, if you will.
So I thought to myself,
What word should I replace it with?
And as I announced, my on the spot epiphany in the Q&A of Pansy Boy’s show, and much to the chagrin of my buttoned down and heteronormative then girlfriend,
That we shouldn’t be shaming ourselves for being weak.
The act of consideration means an act of replacement,
Or,
As we’re working on repairing our world
We get pause to see what needs replacing
from what comes from a hate model we no longer need
Think.
Feel.
Move.
See.
Empathise.
Let’s start a movement.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Annabel Strange 