Amanda Stewart

Artistic Statement/Policy

My work as a poet, author and vocalist spans many forms and themes. Some texts utilise more traditional literary devices while others aim to make an intervention at the level of the materiality of language, itself: to crack open oral and textual signs and strike at the basis of our listening and reading processes, challenging how we see and hear language structures and the cultural assumptions that they embody. The act of langge engages a multi-paridigmatic, mnemonic structure. Different vocal and linguistic structures affect our brains, our bodily functionImage s, our memory systems, our possible subjectivities and our ability for grammatical recombinations. The ability to speak involves a level of virtuosity which we may never fully understand.  The voice is that unique instrument with the ability to synthesise semantic, musical, analytical and emotional structures. It is the link between use and being. If we look below the surface of language we find beginnings, residues, disjunctions- the flux of complex propositional codes that recombine at the edge of distinction (culture).

Much of my work is informed by ideas from linguistics, philosophy, science and psychoanalysis. Part of my concern is to explore the linked but distinct properties of different written, oral and electronic forms of language and the ‘forms of inscription’ or ‘modes of memory’ that they engender. As well as producing literary publications I enjoy working in radio, film, theatre, intermedia and new music environments. I have collaborated with a diversity of artists and musicians including Chris Abrahams, Natasha Anderson, Warren Burt, Colin Bright, Jim Denley, Rosie Dennis, Tess De Quincey, Peter Farrar, Cor Fuhler, Stephan Froleyks, Dale Gorfinkel, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Nigel Kellaway, Rainer Linz, Chris Mann, Norie Neumark, Rik Rue, Jon Rose  and the Song Company and am a cofounder of the Australian ensemble Machine For Making Sense (1989) and the Netherlands trio, Allos (cofounded 1995). 

Imag by Heidrun Lohr

       .
 IT .   .  I   is the most recent in a series of multi-track vocal works by Stewart for live, solo performance. These pieces are either presented as a series in longer solo shows or as individual pieces in shorter performances.

A performer, working with stereo microphones, is caught between multiple layers of sound. Different dimensions of the voice are ignited and overlaid in mercurial tirades, fractured English, phonemes, calls, outbursts, stutters,  mouth sounds,’concrete nouns’,  creating a strange form of linguistic music. The performer’s body bends under the weight of its discourse with this fragile, transitory world of broken utterances, historical residues, decayed myth and sonic debris.

This series of pieces composes with relationships and distinctions between language, music, logic and speech, incorporating ideas from linguistics, psychoanalysis, science and philosophy. These modes are juxtaposed with specific compositional and extended vocal techniques. The vocalist must generate her/his performance from a multi-paradigmatic reference field of notations and implied utterances.

I/T: Selected Poems

I/T: Selected Poems is a CD/Book set of Amanda Stewart’s selected poetry and vocal works from 1980 - 1996. The collection was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, the National Digital Media Awards and won the Anne Elder Poetry Prize at the National Literary Awards in 1999. It’s distributed by SPLIT Records.

Review Extracts

       .
 IT .   .  I    Premier performances on 19.10.02    Donaueschingen Musiktage.             

Extravagant, haarstraubend und am Ende fantastisch - Extravagant, Hair-raising and in the End Fantastic

"...During her performance in the Christuskirche Amanda Stewart adds words and word fragments to each other in such a virtuoso manner for sixteen straight minutes that the captivated listener nearly forgets to breathe..."
                                                               Eberhard Stiefel
                                                               Reutlinger Generalenzeiger
                                                               23.10.02

Mit der Stimme an die Grenzen - Reaching Vocal Limits

"...Apart from the excellent artists of the ‘Neuen Vocalsolisten Stuttgart’ as well as the ‘SWR Vokalensemble’ the presentations of Jaap Blonk and Amanda Stewart were outstanding. New worlds of sound and noise were created: with a tape and three microphones Stewart creates multi-layered structures..."

                                                               Reiner Kobe
                                                               Neue Osnabruker Zeitung
                                                               22.10.02

Achzen, stohnen, schrelen, singen - Groaning, Moaning, Screaming and Singing

"...In this case Jaap Blonk’s and Amanda Stewart’s vocal art managed to captivate the listener - whilst one could have done without Philippe Broutin’s ‘ 10 Pieces Supplementaires’... Blonk as well as Stewart come from the field of Sound Poetry, which however was not of primary  importance in this presentation. The main focal point was the world of sounds and noises that can be produced using one’s mouth. In order to achieve this, Stewart used a tape and three microphones, thus creating a multilayered structure..."
                                                               Elisabeth Schwind
                                                               Badische Zeitung Freiberg
                                                               21.10.02
I/T: Selected Poems

‘Stewart is a powerful performer. mercurial, abrasive and energetic...’
                                                                                       Avant, UK
                                                                      
‘one of the most stunning, delicate and refined musical  recitations we have heard...’
                                                  CDeMusic, Electronic Music Foundation, USA

 ‘virtuosic work...a major voice in Australian composition’
                                                           Australasian Computer Music Journal      

          
‘I/T is a combination book and CD, holstered in a stylish black slip. If John Ashbery’s seductive, dreamy inanities are not for you, and the textually timid post-Larkinites can do little more than make you stifle a yawn as you stir sweeteners into your tea, perhaps you should give Amanda Stewart’s semantically charged pile-driver poetry a whirl.’
                                                                        Brian Marley,Avant, UK

Gedichte im Raum

"Those who recite written texts usually reduce the complexity of the equivocal by giving it a clear meaning. The landscape of the inner ‘voice of imagination’ is regulated and linear. That may generally be the case, but not for Amanda Stewart. The Australian demonstrates the extreme registers to which she can drive her voice. At first everything takes place in a comprehensible semantic way.

However, despite the enjoyment of playing, the reading never slides into the unconnected, the noncommittal... Unfortunately, not much is quotable, given the graphic presentation of Stewart’s texts, which reveal the extraordinary degree to which she understands language as material."

                                                               Steffen Richter,
                                                               Tagesspiegel, Berlin
                                                               8.7.02
 
Mentoring history

I have been involved in one-on one mentorship programmes with Ashley Dyer and Rosie Dennis. I have run writing, vocal and performance workshops for Pact, Sidetrack Theatre, the Performance Space and various universities.