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Phonica Season on Hotel Magazine

I recently had the opportunity to programme a season of mixed media publications for Hotel magazine (London) expanding on selected performances from across our nine Phonica events (Dublin, January 2016 - November 2018). These publications appeared at regular intervals between April and August 2021, and the season is now complete.

Phonica is a Dublin-based performance series rooted in Word and Sound, with an emphasis on multiformity and the experimental. Directed, programmed and hosted by myself and Olesya Zdorovetska, Phonica aims to explore compositional and performative ideas and to encourage a melting pot of audiences and artists from across artforms and borders. It has been in receipt of financial and operational support from the Arts Council of Ireland, Dublin City Council, Poetry Ireland and Smock Alley Theatre, as well as a range of international partners. The full Phonica history is documented here.

After nine iterations, activities were interrupted due to a number of factors, notably the onset of Covid-19. Invited earlier this year by Hotel editor Dominic Jaeckle to put together a Phonica archive to inaugurate a 'Seasons' strand for the online extension of the magazine, I took the opportunity to curate a reflection on the procedural, improvisational, event-specific and provisional aspects of the series, with particular relation to some of the language-based performances and presentations.

For this season, then, a selection of writers and artists contribute texts and/or audiovisual material presented, connected to, derived from, or developed out of their performances at Phonica, along with contextualising notes. Click on the titles below for links to each individual entry, or here for the Season's main page:

Suzanne Walsh: 'Precipice of an End'
Roy Claire Potter: 'Carrer Dels Escudellers'
Robert Herbert McClean: 'No Apocalypse Poetry Slam'
Alice Lyons & Justyn Hunia: 'Rosehip Syrup'

With thanks to Dominic Jaeckle for the proposal and invitation, and for offering us the space on Hotel to experiment with the archive. My thanks also to all contributors for their generosity and their extended partnership with Phonica.


  

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