Eight Acts of Love
by Carron Little

Live Stream Performance on November 22, 2020
With Field Chicago and Experimental Sound Studio

I started writing this poem the day before the U.S. 2020 election and I continued to work on it through the week of the election period. It usually takes me a week to compose a poem and then through a performance process it gets re-worked. The poem is written in a lyrical form and was created with artwork and animations from the Painting Backward Series. The poem engages the audience in questions of how we can live in love with each other? In the tradition of ‘Makar poets’ and it responds to the specific moment of living in the U.S. at that time.

The performance went live on November 22, 2020 on Experimental Sound Studios quarantine concert series and was workshoped in Field Chicago co-facilitated by Jane Jeradi, Carole McCurdy and Harlan Rosen. Rosen commented that I was a: “webpunk woodland digital ghost sprite and all of that.” in the chat.

I also have to give a big shout out to Burren College of Art College, Ireland where I was artist in resident in 2018 and coincidentally had a studio next to one of the few copies of the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells was written by monks on the Isle of Iona in the 8th Century AD and I grew up in Iona Community in my early childhood attending feasts and ceremonies at the Abbey. The visual research I did at this residency informed the digital aesthetic of the performance.

Below are video stills from various sections of the performance as each stanza has its own aesthetic.