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Poetry General

Fidget

by (author) Kenneth Goldsmith

Publisher
Coach House Books
Initial publish date
Jan 1998
Category
General
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781770560642
    Publish Date
    Jan 1998
    List Price
    $10.95

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Description

Fidget is writer Kenneth Goldsmith's transcription of every movement made by his body during 13 hours on Bloomsday (June 16) 1997. It is a hypnotic work, strangely compelling and disorienting at the same time; you'll never think about your body in the same way again.

Originally commissioned by the Whitney Museum of American Art as a collaboration with vocalist Theo Bleckmann, Fidget attempts to reduce the body to a catalogue of mechanical movements by a strict act of observation. The stress of this rigorous exercise creates a condition of shifting reference points and multiple levels of observation that inevitably undermines the author's objective approach, and the trajectory of the work begins to change.

The text of Fidget is followed by an afterword written by Marjorie Perloff, which both explains the circumstances of the project's creation (including the important role Jack Daniel's plays in the latter part of the text) and explores its results.

About the author

Kenneth Goldsmith is the author of No. III 2.7.93-10.20.96 (The Figures, 1997) and 73 Poems, a collaboration with vocalist Joan La Barbara (Permanent Press, 1994, compact disc Lovely Music, 1994) - His visual works have been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide. Goldsmith is the editor of UbuWeb Visual, Concrete & Sound Poetry (www.ubu.com), a DJ at 91 .1 WFMU in New York City, and a music criticat New York Press.

Kenneth Goldsmith's profile page