10 years vienna poetry school

10 years of vienna poetry academy (vpa) means: 10 years of examination and debate over the most momentous changes in the art of language since sappho/since plato. the laws of artistic language, relating to written and spoken, that are discussed by plato in the phaidros-dialog are no longer valid and must be re-defined - at the very latest with the appearance of the internet - or at least extended with reference to multimedial codes.

the vps has led, most of all, experimental discussions and in this was accompanied by essential representatives of the 3 postwar avant-gardist groups: beat generation (allen ginsberg, ed sanders, anne waldman, ruth weiss), poètes sonores (henri chopin), wiener gruppe (h.c. artmann, gerhard rühm). artists such as blixa bargeld, nick cave and falco undertook the expansion into performance, song and pop, curd duca and orphan kipcak into digital media. the classes that took place at the academy of applied arts, in the sound studios of the orf and at the academy of fine arts have been held exclusively via the internet since 1999, as will the 8 classes that we are offering this year.

should we succeed in enlarging our financial basis accordingly, it is our most ardent wish to one day combine both aspects - the digital and the analog - and offer classes in both worlds, perhaps even in our own building.

to celebrate our anniversary we have put together:

- a special publication: viva la poesia: nick cave, falco & allen ginsberg: songs, pictures, anecdotes. cd+book. residenz verlag, salzburg 2002.

- a series of special events: works of our teachers, works of our students, "the other falco", "nick cave in concert", "sexual masochism in literature", "in memoriam christian loidl" and dedicate it to the foundation "desert dawn" set up by the somali author waris dirie who has devoted herself to the fight against female genital mutilation. waris dirie will make herself personally available to her audience at radiokulturhaus and through our virtual academy 2002 by teaching an internet class.

i would like to thank all our teachers, students, friends, sponsors and colleagues as well as our partner schools in boulder (usa), medellin (columbia) and hanoi (vietnam) for their friendly cooperation.

viva la poesia!

christian ide hintze, august 2002

translation: julia warner

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