Various Artists - Audiografika -1989- (Cassette, Po. So. 02), Spain

This contribution stems back from one of the activities carried out by Javier Cinca, who was involved in various home taping, mail art, sound poetry and experimental video projects along the 1980’s and responsible for the cassette label from Zaragoza Sindicato de Trabajos Imaginarios (S.T.I.).

Audiografika belongs to the PO.SO. sub-label, a project which unfortunately could no longer be continued after 1989. PO.SO. stands for Poesía Sónica, Spanish for Sonic Poetry and considered to encompass a wider spectrum than sound poetry, which could go from phonetic poetry all the way to electronic poetry. Such project represents Cinca’s aim to turn towards the elaboration of multimedia editions at a time when such concept became highly popularized. Its first edition, Antología Polipoética – a boxset containing a sound poetry cassette along with a bilingual Italian-English book with a chapter dedicated to each of the twelve artists that participated – featured some of the most prolific Italian sonic poets, with the likes of Enzo Minarelli, Arrigo Lora-Totino, Maurizio Nannucci, Vittore Baroni and Giovanni Fontana among others. 

The second edition Audiografika included the participation of highly acclaimed artists whose practice leaned towards the more vocal side of sound poetry such as Heidsieck and Scherstjanoi, the concrete tape manipulations of Henri Chopin and the electroacoustic works of Riedl. This time, Audiografika was intended to pursue the multimedia path through an exploration of the synesthetic character of the work of its participants, from the Riedl’s ‘Optische Lautgedichte's' or optical sound poems to the visual poems of Scherstjanoi or Chopin. Sadly, Audiografika was never published, and as Cinca recalls, even if around 200 tapes were produced for this edition, only half a dozen from them survived, making them today very hard to source and thus, highly coveted collectable sonic objects.

As a part of a debt contracted through numerous postal exchanges along the 1980’s with many of the artists with which S.T.I. sought to embark itself in different projects, Javier Cinca has now published a book containing most of the letters, collages, various types of poetry and other forms of mail art ephemera he received over the years, together with a digitized version of the Audiografika tape now available through Archaic Inventions.

- Text by Juan Vacas

 

For those interested in acquiring a copy of the book (100 copies only), please contact: stiediciones@gmail.com

Or buy the book through this link at Todocoleccion.

Download the Audiografika Cassette HERE or HERE

Archaic Inventions likes to specially thank Javier Cinca and Juan Vacas for the collaboration.