Spotlight on … Christopher Knowles Typings (1979)

 

‘In The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat (1985) neurologist Oliver Sacks describes a case in which he studied the reaction of patients with aphasia and agnosia to a televised address by the late ‘Great Communicator’ Ronald Reagan. Unable, owing to their brain disorders to process the president’s words, but acutely attuned to the phony intonation and affected cadence of his voice, the aphasiacs collapsed with mirth. Conversely, an agnosiac patient, keyed-in to the speech but not its delivery, commented blankly that Reagan ‘didn’t speak good prose’. …

‘Christopher Knowles’ peculiar plastic management of words is the consequence of neurological damage he sustained before birth, which led to a form of autism. A self-taped recording of his speech-poems brought him, as a teenager in 1973, to the attention of the theatre and opera director Robert Wilson, and he has acted in and contributed dialogue to many performances since then. …

‘(In Knowles’ works) standard white stationery and long sheets of rice paper become settings for typed pictograms of alarm clocks, a window, a space needle and chequerboard patterns, all made up of accumulations of the letter ‘C’, Knowles’ first initial. His ‘typings’ show a preoccupation with repetition, permutation and seriality – qualities so dear to classic Minimalist art. Yet Knowles’ favoured formats in these typed works are music charts, where titles and careers are restacked and resculpted in permutations according to popular or personal whim. …

‘Knowles’ ‘typings’ build up words and phrases into intricate multi-coloured patterns using an electric typewriter. He is best known for his ‘typings’ of the 1970s and 80s, text-based pieces that were developed as a private pastime. The exceptional ability in mathematical organisation revealed in these works is a characteristic by-product of the autism which Knowles was diagnosed as a child. The works were created on an electric typewriter, using red, black and green inks.’ — Max Andrews, Frieze

 

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Visual Works

 

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Further

Christopher Knowles @ Gavin Brown’s Enterprise
Christopher Knowles works @ MoMA
Christopher Knowles @ Berlin Biennale
Audio: Robert Wilson + Christopher Knowles read from ‘A Letter to Queen Victoria: The Sundance Kid is Beautiful’
Chris Goode’s ‘YEAH BOOM!: A Christopher Knowles Reader’
The Robert Wilson Website
Jeffrey Kastner on Christopher Knowles @ Artforum
Christopher Knowles @ Joe Brainard’s Pajamas
Calvin Tompkins ‘Tempted’ @ The New Yorker
Buy Christopher Knowles’ book ‘Drawings’
Download Christopher Knowles’ ‘Typings’

 

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Motion

from Christopher Knowles/Robert Wilson ‘A Letter f0r Queen Victoria’

Robert Wilson reads 5 poems by Christopher Knowles

Christopher Knowles – The Sundance Kid Is Beautiful – Rehearsal Footage

Christopher Knowles – February 16th, 2013 – Gavin Brown’s enterprise

 

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References

‘Christopher Knowles, at the age of nineteen, without exactly meaning to, has become a major figure of the New York avant-garde. Christopher has the ability to conceive of his works in minute detail before executing them. There is nothing accidental in the typed designs and word lists; they fill their preordained places as accurately as though they had spilled out of a computer. This pure conceptualism, which others have merely approximated using mechanical aids, is one reason that so many young artists have been drawn to Christopher’s work.’ — John Ashbery

‘In early 1973 a man named George Klauber, who had been one of my professors at Pratt Institute, gave me an audio tape he thought might interest me. At the time I was beginning work on a theatre piece called The Life and Times of Joseph Stalin. . . . I was fascinated. The tape was entitled Emily Likes the TV. On it a young man’s voice spoke continuously creating repetitions and variations on phrases about Emily watching the TV. I began to realize that the words flowed to a patterned rhythm whose logic was self-supporting. It was a piece coded much like music. Like a cantata or fugue it worked with conjugations of thoughts repeated in variations; these governed by classical constructions and a pervasive sense of humor. The effect was at once inspiring and charming. I was impressed and called George to ask who had made the tape. . . . It was arranged that Chris could come and live with me. We became collaborators and friends. He co-authored a show called A Letter for Queen Victoria and performed it throughout Europe and New York. In subsequent years we continued to work together. Chris would co-author pieces and his texts would appear in works such as the opera Einstein on the Beach … I am forever fascinated by the decisions Chris is able to make while maintaining control over a continuous and elegant line. He has a unique ability to create a language that’s immediately discernable. Yet once he has invented his verbal or visual language, he destroys the code to begin anew. His art holds the excitement of molecular reaction. His product is constantly genuine and always a reflection of his own imagination, humor and good will.’ — Robert Wilson

 

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Chris Goode/Christopher Knowles

(1) Re: Chris Goode’s YEAH BOOM!: A Christopher Knowles Reader
Camden People’s Theatre, London, January 2006
by Harry Gilonis

 

“I went to the window and wanted to draw the earth” – a note on Christopher Knowles

I feel the earth move
I feel the sky tumbling down
I feel my heart start to trembling
Whenever you’re around
(Carole King)

1979: a stylus descends on a gramophone record. “I feel the earth move under my feet. Ifeel tumbling down tumbling down”. As time passes it is more and more evidently not Carole King: “I feel it Some ostriches are a like into a satchel. Some like them. I went to the window and wanted to draw the earth”. It is in fact Robert Wilson and Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach, incorporating texts such as this by Christopher Knowles, active as a poet, librettist and artist since the 1970s. Decidedly sidelined at that time, it was sometimes said that he was ‘brain-damaged’; more recently the term ‘autistic’ has been employed. In this light it is I think more productive to think of his work not as some language analogue of the (fascinating) paintings done by gorillas and chimpanzees, but as the product of a different way of being human, of making sense of the world, from that of the statistical majority of this audience – the “Neurologically Typical”. ‘Our’ way of processing data and making sense is just one of a range of options; just as autism has a ’spectrum’, is a range of conditions rather than one single state.

Knowles is, if autistic, certainly high-functioning, and his texts seem to me (I’m no expert) to work in two ways. There are attempts to make sense of a heavily impinging world – the “earth” outside the “window” – by finding in its barrage of stimuli patterns, which reassure by proposing regularity and predictability; as in the short piece that runs “WE SING A SONG // WE SANG A SONG // WE SUNG A SONG // BREAKFAST”. Hence John Ashbery could write of Knowles becoming a major avant-garde figure “without exactly meaning to”.

Contrariwise there are attempts to make satisfying patterns oneself, as in the ‘Sundance Kid’ material, which works with incrementally tiny fragments of the actual. Chris Goode’s performances of this have entirely satisfied me that these lingusistic amino acids can recombine; life made outside a language-lab. Another high-functioning autist, Temple Grandin, writes that “lots of little details, pieced together, make a concept”. Certainly there’s a poetry in Knowles’s recombining RNA from Labelle, David Cassidy, or Barry White, which it is hard to credit their lyricists with intending. “I feel the earth move.” I’m not sure there’s any point in trying to discriminate between attempts to reassure oneself or activities with a higher quotient of the evidently ‘aesthetic’. It has been argued by fundamentalist Freudian art-critics that we delude ourselves; we deal here, too, with points on a scale, not radically differing states of affairs. If this line of Knowles’s, “Voulez cuves deliu moussa cutswa cera”, looks at first sight like Schwitters or Isidore Isou, it isn’t any less fascinating viewed as an attempt by a non-Francophone to take Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir from the radio. Much of Knowles’ work is directly comparable; not English as a foreign language, but his world, despite being English-speaking, being evidently foreign. Whereas – to cite another gramophone record – Alvin Lucier’s I am Sitting in a Room is intended by its composer to “s-s-s-sssmooth out” the irregularities of his speech, Knowles, more radically, presents the enormities of ours back to us. Whether or not one finds ‘art’ therein is almost beside the point; Christopher Knowles is a visiting anthropologist, whose reports we are lucky enough to be able to see and hear.

 

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Book

Christopher Knowles Typings
Vehicle Editions

‘Brilliantly mad innovations on the type
writer. Paraphrases of pop songs with rhythmic repetitions, onomatopoeia, and shifting meanings, plus a play in 7 short acts, type-patterned pages, notes to friends and more. Language is shattered and restructured into something more direct. Exceptionally handsome book design. Knowles’ ‘typings’ build up words and phrases into intricate multi-coloured patterns using an electric typewriter. Christopher Knowles was born 1959 in New York, where he still lives.’ — Printed Matter

 

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Excerpts

I FEEL THE EARTH MOVE

I feel the earth move… I feel the tumbling down tumbling down… There was a judge who
like puts in a court. And the judge have like in what able jail what it could be a spanking. Or a
whack. Or a smack. Or a swat. Or a hit.
This could be where of judges and courts and jails. And who was it.
This will be doing the facts of David Cassidy of were in this case of feelings.
That could make you happy. That could make you sad. That could
make you mad. Or
that could make you jealous. So do you know a jail is. A court and a judge could
do this could be like in those green Christmas Trees. So Santa Claus has about
red. And now the Einstin Trail is like in Einstine on the Beach. So this will.
So if you know that fafffffffff facts. So this what happen what I saw in. Lucy or
a kite. You raced all the way up.This is a race. So this one will have eight in
types into a pink rink. So this way could be very magic. So this will be like to
Scene women comes out to grab her. So this what She grabbed her. S if you lie on
the grass. So this could be where if the earth move or not. So here we go.
I feel the earth move under my feet. I feel tumbling down tumbling down. I feel if
Some ostriches are a like into a satchel. Some like them. I went to the window
and wanted to draw the earth. So David Cassidy tells you when to go into this on
onto a meat. So where would a red dress. So this will get some gas. So this could
This would be some all of my friends. Cindy Jay Steve Julia Robyn Rick Kit and
Liz. So this would get any energy. So if you know what some like into were. So…
So about one song.
I FEEL THE EARTH MOVE
CAROLE KING
So that was one song this what it could in the Einstein On The Beach with a trial
to jail. But a court were it could happen. So when David Casidy tells you all
of you to go on get going get going. So this one in like on WABC New York…
JAY REYNOLDS from midnight to 6 00.
HARRY HARRISON
So heres what in like of WABC…….
JAY REYNOLDS from midnight to 6 AM
HARRY HARRISON from 6 AM to L
I feel the earth move from WABC…
JAY REYNOLDS from midnight to 6 AM.
HARRY HARRISON from 6 AM to 10 AM.
RON LUNDY from 10 AM to 2 PM.
DAN INGRAM from 2 PM to
So this can misteaks try it aga9…
JAY REYNOLDS from midnight to 6 AM.
HARRY HARRISON from 6 AM
This could be true on WABC.
JAY REYNOLDS froj
This can be wrong.
This would WABC.
JAY REYNOLDS from midnight to 6 AM.
HARRY HARRISON from 6 AM to 10 AM.
RON LUNDY from 10 AM to 2 PM.
DAN INGRAM from 2 PM to 6 PM.
GEORCE MICHAEL from 6 PM to 10 PM.
CHUCK LEONARD from 10 PM to midnight.
JOHNNY DONOVAN from 10 PM to 3 AM.
STEVE-O-BRION from 2 PM to 6 PM.
JOHNNY DONOVAN from 6 PM to 10 PM.
CHUCK LEONARD from 3 AM to 5 AM.
JOHNNY DONOVAN from 6 PM to 10 PM.
STEVE-O-BRION from 4 30 AM to 6 AM
STEVE-O-BRION from 4 30 AM to 6 AM
JOHNNY DONOVAN from 4 30 AM to 6 AM

 

HOW COULD I SEND YOUR MESSAGE TO YOU

If you know this thing in true. It would be very strange. If you know. If it to know.
On the suit for your kingdom for real ghost throat, if you know, if it is it.
If you say Hi.
If I know that in since we off to the heat to hot too hot to keep us warm.
How could I send my message and your message to you in this how is done for this.
How could I send my of this.
How could I send your messag.

 

THE MORNING HAS BEEN BROKEN

The morning has been broken life for on for real.
If it was deeper life for fun. It was to heavy in like that to be so good on the hills.
If it was a scale in like standing up, it was clever off to the ground in this calls for help.
If I am late for excuses to be. It could be a reason.
On to the dry skin.
The morning has been broken life for on for real.
If it was deeper life for fun. It was to heavy in like that be so good on the hills/
If it was a scale in like standing up, it was clever off to the ground in this calls for help.
If I am late for excuses to be. It could be a reason.
On to the dry skin.
The morning has been broken life for on for real.

 

RADIOS FOR FUN

In the town in which radios in this to know. Be sure to do this.
In the red van of all of those stuff,
masks of those could it self. In viting the whole friends.
On to the table.
Radios for fun to roast in those plates.
In the town in which radios in this to know. Be sure to do this.
In the red van of all of those stuff,
masks of those could it self. In viting the whole friends.
On to the table.
Radios for fun to roast in those plates.
Radios for fun to roast in those plates.
Radios for fun to roast in those plates.
Radios for fun to roast in those plates.
Radios for fun to roast in those plates.
Radios for fun to roast in those plates.
Radios for fun to roast in those plates.
Radios for fun to roast in those plates.
Radios for fun to roast in those plates.
Radios for fun to roast in those plates.
Radios for fun to roast in those plates.
Radios for fun to roast in those plates.,, radios for fun to listen with bo th radios,,…

 

MR BOJAGLES

So uh this is abut the uh things on the table
so this one will be counting up
If you see any of those baggy pants, chuck the hills
And if somehody asked him, it was trees

the uh scarf of where in black and white
that this one will be sittin’
this about the uh things on the table
this will be counting up

so uh uh this is about the uh things on the table
the uh scarf of where in black and white
that this one is sittin’
this is about the uh things that were
If you see any of those, then this could be one of them
so stop here so stop this so look here
so this is written
Hey Mr Bojangles
Hey Mr Bojangles
Hey Mr Bojangles
so this could be the one that was
so if you see this one, then…

Gun gun gun gun
Hey Mr Bojangles
Hey Mr Bojangles
Hey Mr Bojangles
Christopher Knowles bank robbery
so if you know
bank robbery bank robbery bank robbery is punishable by
20 years in federal prison so this is written
so if you know this is one so so look here
so Christopher Knowles and
the Beatles
so so

 

YOU KNOW THAT

You know that.
It was a cow who has milk to drink into the crane.
It was a frame picture, in since when you see like that.
The thing is the choice of those things happens then.
In televisions ver into that.
You know that.
It was a cow who has milk to drink into the crane.
It was a frame picture, in since when you see like that.
The thing is the choice of those things happens then.
In televisions ver into that.

 

PHILADELPHIA FREEDOM

I used to be a boat rower in times in dreams at least to be freaky. Be on your on.
So turn off your taperecorder off and go to sleep. So that why we call so.
Like bad mad sad but you shold be glad to be proud of you.
So this won’t wreck and destroy your things to be.
So if your actress no behave to be so.
To be announcing the Philadelphia Freedom. But when you’re with my Daddy never is.
I used to be a boat rower in times in dreams at least to be freaky. Be on your on.
So turn off your taperecorder off and go to sleep. So that why we call so.
Like bad mad sad but you shold be glad to be proud of you.
So this won’t wreck and destroy your things to be.
So if your actress no behave to be so.
To be announcing the Philadelphia Freedom. But when you’re with my Daddy never is.
I used to be a boat rower in times in dreams at least to be freaky. Be on your on.
So turn off your taperecorder off and go to sleep. So that why we call so.
Like bad mad sad but you shold be glad to be proud of you.
So this won’t wreck and destroy your things to be.
So if your actress no behave to be so.
To be announcing the Philadelphia Freedom. But when you’re with my Daddy never is.
I used to be a boat rower in times in dreams at least to be freaky. Be on your on.
So turn off your taperecorder off and go to sleep. So that why we call so.
Like bad mad sad but you shold be glad to be proud of you.
So this won’t wreck and destroy your things to be.
So if your actress no behave to be so.
To be announcing the Philadelphia Freedom. But when you’re with my Daddy never is.
To be announcing the Philadelphia Freedom. But when you’re with my Daddy never is.
To be announcing the Philadelphia Freedom.
—-

 

 

*

p.s. RIP to the extraordinary filmmaker Paul Clipson who died unexpectedly on Saturday. I devoted a blog post to his work just this past December. It’s here. Differently, a video interview with Zac and me about ‘PGL’ at the Rotterdam International Film Festival was just uploaded to youtube if that’s of interest. It’s here. ** Dóra Grőber, Hi, Dóra! Well, yeah, of course. I’d love to! It would be a gift and boon for the blog, so, if you’re into it, let’s do it whenever you think the time is right. Done deal. Thanks, yes, so far very, very happy about things with ‘PGL’. Now its fate is in the hands of film festivals, and you never know what they’re looking for, so fingers very crossed. Oh, shit, yeah, I had to do that my vacuum cleaner just the other day. It’s interesting to get know your floor close up and in detail at least, ha ha. You’re going to Berlin! Fantastic! Berlin isn’t so, so far away from you, is it? My geography skills aren’t so acute though. Congrats! The best thing about my day yesterday was that it snowed! A fair amount even! It didn’t stick to the ground, sadly, but they’re saying it could snow today and tomorrow too, so I’m relieved. Otherwise, I just worked on the two scripts, not enough, but a little, and did some arranging of things. Pretty lowkey. Did Tuesday give you good stuff? What, if so, or even if not? ** Tosh Berman, Hi, Tosh. Thanks, pal. Like I said, Gilles has fallen in between the cracks even here where he made his work, but it’s inspiring that his work is starting to get lifted up at least a bit. You good? ** Steve Erickson, Hi. From what I can tell, and via people I talk to, I think the response is a combo of resignation since French is French eternally, and some ideas about how to use the gender designation thing subversively, and some feeling/acknowledgement that that now outdated modus is a piece of the puzzle that gives the French language its particular character and beauty. Hm, how interesting about that Fassbinder doc. The Kipper Kids, Winston Tong, … how curious. I’ll try to figure out how to see that somehow. Oh, from watching clips of the Timberlake thing, it looked like a standard video projection more than a hologram. No, I don’t know that compilation, but of course I will investigate it pronto. Thanks. ** David Ehrenstein, Yes, there’s some kind of small groundswell of new interest in Gilles’ films, I think in no small part to his work having become a reference point for younger French filmmakers like Honore, Patric Chiha, and others. I so want that new horror movie about the Winchester Mystery House to be good, and I so bet it isn’t. ** Scunnard, Hey. Ah, crap, yeah. Too novelistic? I’ll hold my tongue, but, yeah, that does sound like something an editor would say. God, that presumed divining of what works in the market is so egregious. We got that from our film’s sales agent about our trailer, but then it went viral, and now they’re pretending not to eat crow as they eat crow. Well, if you think you know a way to make the book work as you wish perfectly enough and make the editor happy, best case scenario, I guess. Yes, I liked looking at Adam’s stuff. It’s very, very interesting. I really appreciated you turning me on to it. I’m a follower now. Great day to you, buddy. ** Jamie, Here comes the sun, Jamie. I think the red letters are a post- thing, but I’m not sure actually. His work is hard enough to see that I’ve mostly only seen clips and some low-grade on-line dubs. I did work on the script, both scripts, not nearly enough, but my theory was that breaking the ice was enough for yesterday, so today I have to buckle down. You’re back to animation scripts? So you sorted things out with … err, ‘the asshole’? Or the former ‘asshole’? I’m not sure about the fussy script thing, but you might be right. I’ll find out as I get deeper into the assigned script project. With Zac’s and my scripts where we know so pretty exactly what we want that we don’t think to write it down, we kept being told they weren’t fussy enough, but we got our funding anyway. I would guess you should go fussy and detail-y and make whoever is going to direct the things cut that stuff back themselves if need be? They might be grateful for the tips? Cool about Eileen’s birthday visit. You have to say hi and stuff to her for me and use that mutual friend thing to talk with her and hang out. I’m just going to try to work today. And, if it keeps snowing as predicted, frolic in that while I run a few errands. Sound good? May Tuesday make you as excited about language as Bob Dylan made rock critics when he released ‘Blonde on Blonde’. Pencil neck geek love, Dennis. ** Kyler, Hi, K. The French do trances pretty well. Zone-y yet ornate. Oh, well, you know, thank you, man, about the p.s. and blog. ** Sypha, Hi. Yeah, I have people freak out over practically zip in my work and then lose it over something I thought was lamb-like. Well, yes, I think of you as someone with a deep and even intricate appreciation of the pretentious. And anyway, pretentious is easily one of the most inappropriately and lazily used adjectives in the English language. ** Joshua Freeman, Hi, Joshua. Welcome back. I found that piece of writing you linked to quite fascinating and even loads of fun in a weird way. Thank you again for that. And thank you a whole lot for turning me (us) on to that DJ mix. Sounds awesome and perfect to fill my pad as I do something that I have to do today. Yeah, thanks, and have a good one. ** Right. I’ve done blog stuff about the amazing Christopher Knowles before years ago, but I haven’t highlighted his wonderful book, which I have now done. With the bonus of a related work by veteran d.l. and British theater wiz/genius Chris Goode in tow, no less. Enjoy the show. See you tomorrow.