POETRY CORNER with special guest _ _ _ _ __ _ ___(_) __| (_) ___ _ __ ___ __ _| | ___ / _` |/ __| |/ _` | |/ __| | '_ ` _ \ / _` | |/ _ \ | (_| | (__| | (_| | | (__ | | | | | | (_| | | __/ \__,_|\___|_|\__,_|_|\___| |_| |_| |_|\__,_|_|\___| _________________________________ | \ \ | | \ \_ | | \ \________ | | \ \ | | | ____ \ | | | \ \__\ | | | \ | | | | | | / |\ | | | | | | || | | | | | | | | || | | | | | | | | || | | | \_| | | | || | | | \ | | || | | | | | | || / | | \ | | ||_/ | | \_| | | | | \__/ | |_________________________________| I lived here just now, quietly Have sand surround this scorpio As I drive Into the depths of this gutter, willingly I’m liking you deeper, darker The darker the deeper, my betrayal God bless you now Jesus use it Use everything against me in this darkest evening I Out my allergy for silent places Joyous drying, falling pieces of skin All hair cells and vein vessels Flex my muscles frustratingly Inside the nether of the empty desert here Where once a native bled under oppression Pull strings out of me, one by one Turn me into a souvenir As a wind swept me further down Here, A raccoon’s tail, I quench a smirk Can’t see the light in my eyes Corners filled with dust and water Can’t see a single fucking thing In all awe and obey to what matters What really matters? Pin me down on flowering cacti Under starry bloom of a new moon and Dedicate something darker, deeper Into this lively confession of nothing Maybe I hate every single thing about you Your instincts, I don’t even want to know them Look around here I can teach you something Some real shit something A thing or two Yeah you gotta Lay low, boy, lay low Lower, girl, lower Lower, yeah that’s something I gotta teach you In this phase - this memory Something new Something everybody wants you to use 'untitled' by Puck Schot _---_ Puck Schot, aka Acidic Male, is a captivating all-around multimedia artist who writes gripping poetry. Through impulsively writing thoughts fragmentarily and by visually reflecting on that, narratives of fictive character and alter egos start existing. Her work results in confessional texts, essays, audio and video(-installations). Often she also runs self-written and found texts through an algorithm that mixes the text into a new one. in video work, she often pays actors from online gig websites for a few dollars. Thus, a stranger performs a quite violent, confessional and fragmented script (sometimes run through an algorithm) on their webcams for her. Schot produces and live-performs music under the name Acidic Male and is part of the all-female group called “North Sea Wolf Pack”. Together with RJM Vanderheyden she performs under “Vot’ress”. They experiment with synthesis and modulation, creating ambient soundscapes and distortion, layered with spoken word and found-footage. Their performance loosely embraces Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and the role of Robin “Puck” Goodfellow, a demonic mischievous sprite. Themes involve loss of identity, fecundity and elvish tricks as they explore elements of literary sadism. 1. Could you tell us a few words about this poem "Untitled" and about either the context in which you wrote it/processes used/inspirations for it? I wrote part of it when I was traveling through the U.S.: in this part of my travel I was staying in the middle of nowhere in the desert on historic route 66. There's only a gas station every 80-100 kilometers or so and you can basically drive as fast as you like, there is no one to check it or even care about it. In night time, there are no lights. On these ghost-like roads I had to deal with a sort of solitude, even though all the people I had encountered were very friendly, but there were not many of them. 90 percent of the time was spent alone, in my motel, in nature or in my car. I felt that, in such a gigantic empty surrounding, there is something "haunting" about it: kind of a reversed claustrophobia, an "allergy for silent places". It made me involuntarily reflect on some things I felt were "buried" and linked it to the direct surroundings. I edited the notes I took when I came back home again, in my safe surroundings and performed them with some music. It all felt like a good reflection of thoughts and notes I took, sometimes in the adrenaline of driving 200 km per hour, sometimes walking alone through prickly bushes in nighttime, sometimes being in my cheesy-looking motel which had Dinosaur statues outside and advertised on having "paranormal activities". 2. In addition to your audio-visual, conceptual and literary works, you produce and perform under the artist names "Acidic Male" and as part of the duo "Vot'ress" along with RJM Vanderheyden. Could you tell us a bit about these new projects? I have graduated from art school in 2016, mainly making video work within installations of objects and drawings. At a certain point during art school, I wanted to include loosely written notes and poems from my chaotic sketch book in these videos and in some experimental spoken word performances. I did voice-overs over some footage I had shot in the woods for example or performed texts, trapping myself physically in a space. I was, for some reason, always afraid to have others perform my texts: would they lose the intimacy I intended to bring across? My friend pointed out this website to me, wherein people advertised to do voice-overs for just a few dollars. I decided I wanted a male voice for a video including a poem. The seller then asked me if I wanted audio or video: "let's try the video", I thought. I liked the result so much, because these sellers are usually focused on making static, commercial advertisements, as they are now perform a bedroom text of mine. I kept doing this and enjoying this, this poetry exchange including a monetary factor. Yet, I wanted to re-find my balance of distancing myself from poetry and "Othering", script-writing using mostly using male actors, and of directly expressing something confessional, my personal hauntologies. I found that this could best be expressed directly in text and by saying the text or singing it. With that, I started making music, which somehow felt less staged than a finalized video work for example. Sound seemed closer to a sensory feeling for me and already had a big admiration for a few experimental female music artists like Puce Mary, Swan Meat and COUCOU CHLOE. Some of my friends told me I have an interesting voice and should do more with it, I tried to overcome my shyness in using it and... Acidic Male started to develop in the beginning of 2019, she is still in the middle of that actually. :-) I bought a Korg MS-20 and a mic, recorded some stuff and added drum patterns and other samples in Fruity Loops. This is mainly still how I work, although I have some other fun stuff like 2 Volca's and a TR-8 and like to use samples of nature sounds, which I also want to start recording more myself. Vot'ress came very naturally: RJM Vanderheyden and me wanted to collaborate on something for a long time, seen our mutual interests. She introduced me to a lot of interesting music by going to live performances together, which also later became a motivation for me to try to make music myself. We always wanted to make something reflecting on "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by Shakespeare. We started analyzing the text and found macabre details, mostly from character Robin "Puck" Goodfellow: a demonic, mischievous sprite. We mixed some of the texts together with our own poetry and with Bataille's "The Language of Flowers" and made a performance consisting of ASMR sounds, nature sounds, synthesis and vocals. I'd say even though some projects are more "finished", some more conceptual and some more free, some using "Othering", some being a direct expression, all these projects are interwoven in some way, all link to the core of searching for a spatial poetic creation. 3. Could you tell us what is in store for you for early 2020 and where Shadow Wolf Cyberzine readers can get a glimpse of your artwork, whether in The Netherlands or internationally? My newest experimental film, in which I paid a porn production company to perform my sexless script, will be shown again during Art Rotterdam in February 2020, accompanied by an installation of printed flags. I hope to make more music (live and on record) and really make it evolve, ambient/noise style but also more rhythmical, like a good techno track. :-) Also Venderstrooik remixed a track of mine, to be released on a mixtape on cassette soon. Recently, I started DJ-ing as well, my next gig will be on NYE in The Grey Space in Den Haag, The Netherlands. There's also some writing projects coming up, but they are still under the radar. Check out Acidic Male here. https://soundcloud.com/acidicmale