room (2022, Edition of 1)
“room” is a spoken-word video poem written by Ana Maria Caballero with original visuals by Joëlle. The piece was created using a waveform of Ana’s voice reciting the poem, then processing it and adding fx that hint at floor plans and room-shaped forms. Interconnected boxes appear and disappear, coming and going like memories, leaving traces of an almost pre-verbal language in their wake.
This poem was originally published by the Portland Review and is from Caballero’s manuscript MAMMAL, designated as a Manuscript of Exceptional Merit by Tupelo Press. Like much of Caballero’s work, this piece gives voice to what is left unsaid in the home.
Debuted at the Digital Francisco Carolinum Museum in CryptoVoxels on April 1, 2022.
–
Joëlle is an audiovisual artist and designer working in the realm of live visuals and performance where she explores the relationship between sound and form. Using frequencies and minimal structures, she creates compositions that are largely sculpted by sound. https://linktr.ee/joelle_
–
room
i’m a different woman in every room / in the kitchen efficient / operative as fork / quiet in the bedroom / tiptoe to avoid discourse / the weight of telling you everything is fine / nothing happened / in the bathroom confessional / thoughts bend into curve hungry as the dip that concludes my spine / the volume of forward of woman who stays / in the nursery nostalgic / i summon the past / a love of distant animals / whales / i recall a birth in the city / but corridors and orbits circle me further / back to a village fit for a child / to music recitals where grandmothers pace with wet hair / and always a radiola wails argentine protest songs / in the living room watchful / caution girdles my methods / i observe the strawberry i drop on the floor upon which another might slip / everything is hardwood / formica shelves new but coated in dust / parked in the driveway generous / i prepare the wits and gifts to present / believe i will sleep unaided / formless and flexible / like the babe in my belly / like the shape of my tongue about to commit / no one is lonelier than the woman who is loved