(Photo: https://www.wmarksutherland.com/)
On Jan. 1, 2024, Canada and the world lost a distinctive and original intermedia artist. W. Mark Sutherland (1955-2024) Canadian visual artist, poet, performer, musician, and performance artist, passed away eight months after being diagnosed with cancer. Mark Sutherland’s artistic creations blur the borders of poetry, visual art, music, and performance, while investigating language, images, and sounds. His texts, poetry, visual constructions, and scores were published internationally, and his creations have appeared in galleries, festivals, and solo shows across Europe—in England, France, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy—and in the USA and Canada.
Sutherland possessed a wide range of expertise, spanning videopoetry, visual poetry, lyric poetry, and sound poetry. He was a pioneer of videopoetry and made major contributions to electronic poetry and sound poetry. In my humble opinion he ranks among the world’s finest visual poets (and I include artists such as Judith Copithorne, Reed Altemus, Amanda Earl, Kate Siklosi, Fernando Aguiar, and Pete Spence, among many others). Sutherland understood his creative expressions and stated that he aimed to make poetry that is visual art, visual art that is music, and music that is poetry.
His Sonotexts, a booklet and two CDs put out by the Electronic Music Foundation, NY, in 2011, is brilliant. The booklet includes an introductory essay by Darren Wershler, titled “New Machines for the Locomotion of Time,” which offers a theoretical perspective on electronic creations with reference to Slavoj Zizek, among others. Sutherland’s scores for and notes on the individual sonotexts make up the main body of the booklet. The CDs include wonderful conceptual audio-art creations such as “Sound Poem For Emile Berliner,” which features Sutherland tracing with a lavalier microphone the letters s-o-u-n-d-p-o-e-m on a piece of sandpaper. I can’t speak of all of the wonderful pieces on Sonotexts, but I will say here that “Antiqwerty” is a sonotext composed on three electric typewriters and two manual typewriters—with a single sheet of 8½ x 11 white paper. It is a remarkable art piece that echoes Stéphane Mallarmé's “Un Coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard.”
Image: from the Sonotext book (“Antiqwerty”)
The visual poems that serve as scores for the sonotexts performed on these CDs each function within a strong conceptual frame. The following poem-score for “Poème Digitales” was generated in studio using ten metal thimbles, a drum kit, and a single track of a cymbal being played. Sutherland wore the thimbles on his fingers, each with one letter of the word percussion written on it, to perform the scored sonotext on the drum kit, and then overdubbed the track of cymbal playing.
Here is the score for “Poème Digitales” from Sonotexts, which is also a visual poetic art statement:
“Poème Digitales” from Sonotexts
Here is an audio link to the various pieces which all feature strong conceptual frames. Some listeners might notice a Zen-like quality (perhaps Shinto-like) to these remarkable
concept-based creations.
Repetitions or
sound loops inform Sutherland’s many creations. Although he did not have any trade books of
poetry published, nonetheless, he stood tall as a poet. In this regard, Paul
Dutton, close friends with Mark (who proclaimed Dutton and Nobuo Kubota to be
two of his primary mentors), reminded me that “bpNichol imagined in 1968 the poet who ‘creates a poem/object for you
to touch and is not a sculptor for he is still moved by
the language and sculpts with words . . . but he is a poet always.’ That
description,” said Dutton, “fits Mark perfectly. While he never published a
conventional book of poems (the books of poetry that he did publish are
classified as artists’ books) he was a consummate poet. His verbal works (as
opposed to the abstract, nonverbal ones) always highlight the status of words
as objects, their meaning layered, often with sly wit and wry humour.”
There’s an interview with Sutherland, conducted by Alisson Avila for Loops. Expanded, a video-art and moving-image exhibition program of The National Museum of Contemporary Art in Lisbon at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXz91POIY44>, in which Sutherland speaks about the creation of his “America a Videopoem” (2008), for which he took the final scene in Edwin S. Porter’s 1903 silent film The Great Train Robbery, generally recognized as the first Western in motion picture history). The closing scene in the film features a close-up of the actor, Justus D. Barnes, playing an outlaw gang leader, pointing his pistol at the camera and slowly firing his gun at the viewer. The scene is well over 100 years old, but still embodies the ethos of the gun, and Hollywood’s role in creating or buttressing the myth of violence as entertainment.
During the interview with Alisson Avila, Sutherland mentions that his website, where this videopoem can be viewed, includes a critique of it by videopoetry authority Tom Konyves, who comments there on the conceptual quality of Sutherland’s artistry. In other parts of the interview, Sutherland talks about his approach to creative expression, his uses of text, image, and sound, and of repetition and psychologically complex loops that challenge any fixed interpretation. He acknowledges predecessors such as Brion Gysin and Emmett Williams, who made permutational poems, as well as composer-musicians Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Brian Eno. In the interview Sutherland also talks about his videopoem “Burroughs” (1996).
Sutherland was highly adept at crossing over between media, and he ranks among the finest practitioners of that art. He was cognisant of his various heritages, including the works of Kurt Schwitters, Hugo Ball, Raoul Hausmann and more recent creators such as Henri Chopin, Bernard Hiedsieck, and Sten Hanson. Sutherland was also fully aware of contemporary expression and was remarkably in touch with current artistic endeavours on a global level.
I encourage readers to check out Sutherland’s many visual creations included in The Last Vispo Anthology: Visual Poetry 1998–2008, eds. Vassilakis & Hill (Fantagraphics Press, Seattle, USA, 2012), out of print, but viewable in its entirety online at https://archive.org/details/last-vispo-revised/mode/2up; Typewriter Art: A Modern Anthology, ed. Barrie Tullett (Laurence King Press, London, U.K., 2014); The New Concrete: Visual Poetry in the 21st Century, eds. Goldsmith, Bean, McCabe, (Hayward Publishing, London, U.K., 2015), and The Art of Typewriting, ed. Marvin Sackner, (Thames & Hudson, London, U.K., 2015). Those last three are still in print.
All of Sutherland’s splendid intermedia creations that were commercially available have long since been delisted by their issuers, but most are available online, and I encourage anyone seeking further details about his luminous career and numerous works across media to check on his website, and his YouTube channel.
A few other works, such as “Nihilism,” can be found by conducting a YouTube search with his full name. A complete list of his CDs (seven solo and one with Nobuo Kubota) can be found by going to the “Bio” page on his website and clicking on “FULL CV (pdf download)” at the conclusion of the text there. Several of them can be heard on Spotify, using that site’s search field by title. Browser searches by title will turn up some videopoems and other works not included on his website or YouTube channel.
From “Code X”
https://www.wmarksutherland.com/
Sutherland’s Youtube channel features a few versions of his Code X, an interactive creation that invites its audience to participate, and therefore constitutes what theorist Espen Aarseth calls an “ergodic” creation (which involves direct audience participation). The primary version of Code X is readily available on his website, where, says Paul Dutton, “it sits waiting to be awakened by users to realize it as the masterpiece it is, providing addictive sessions of fun and amazement.”
I remember teaching Code X—via Coach House Books 2001 CD-ROM—in some of my classes at the University of Windsor. I was careful to obtain permission first, and I found Sutherland to be most generous in regard to granting that. I am not alone in maintaining that his Sonotexts stands as one of his creative highpoints: Julian Cowley the prominent British music critic and sound poetry specialist, writing in the prestigious music magazine The Wire, declared that "This fascinating selection of ‘sonotexts’ … may well mark a critical development in the life of sound poetry.”
Here is a useful link from the Canadian Music Centre.
And here is an audio link to Youtube for “Sonotexts.”
Sutherland’s formative years were spent studying at The Royal Conservatory of Music and at York University, where he earned a BFA in Art History/Criticism, Film History and Theory. Both those pursuits very much informed his eventual artistic practice, beyond which he maintained an avid and enduring fascination with all aspects of cinema and cinematic history and theory. He also, early on, spent several years as a staff writer for The Jazz Report, a magazine published by his brother, and thereby gained knowledge that later came in handy when he served as a board member for Musicworks magazine for an outstanding and generous fifteen years, ending in 2015. Dutton tells of how highly Mark was spoken of by Musicworks editors he worked with, who valued his guidance, support, warmth, and dedication.
“Mark’s behind-the-scenes arts support went far beyond his efforts for Musicworks,” said Dutton. “I know that he was of immeasurable assistance to Tom Konyves when Tom was putting together his landmark Surrey Art Gallery exhibit Poets with a Video Camera: Videopoetry 1980–2020. In weekly video calls, Mark listened extensively to Tom’s thoughts, doubts, considerations and deliberations, and offered counsel, consolation, and encouragement, drawing on his own broad knowledge of videopoetry and of mounting exhibitions to give Tom guidance and reassurance.
“And Mark didn’t just help from the sidelines,” Dutton continued. “In the early to mid aughts he undertook—basically single-handedly—the conception, curation, organization, fund raising, tour management, crating, and shipping of the gallery show Metalogos, a major nine-artist exhibition of language-based art that toured to two cities in Italy and four in Canada. It comprised a plethora of media—page works, paintings, videos, installations and more. The show, which rightly included Sutherland among the nine, was a major success, especially in Italy. The whole venture played out over four or five years, all while Mark continued to work his day job. The guy’s skills, energy, and generosity were amazing.”
Sonotext image
https://www.wmarksutherland.com/
Twelve of Sutherland’s booksworks (his preferred terms for his artist’s books) are archived in international galleries and institutions, most significantly The Museum Of Modern Art in New York, The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, and The National Gallery Of Canada.
The breadth of Sutherland’s activities included his involvement with the Broadview Collective (BVW). Francesca Vivenza proposed the formation of this collective in 1993, when she approached Allison Bindner, J. Lynn Campbell, Roland Jean, Nobuo Kubota, David McClyment, Ian Rubenzahl, Yvonne Singer, and Mark, who were at that time all artist members of the Workscene Gallery (1974-1995). Canada was then promoting Canadian artists internationally through government funding programs which linked well with the mandate of the new collective because it intended to feature Toronto art on the international and regional stage. As part of the international program, BVW also included invitations to local Italian and German artists to participate in their projects. Sutherland took an active part in the Broadview Collective.
The following list is rather extensive, but for purposes of this article, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention at least some of the many venues that Sutherland appeared in. His sound-poetry is recorded in; Modern Sounds (The C.A.G.E. Record Project, Cincinnati, USA), Baobab - The New Worlds (Edizioni Elytra, Cento, Italy), Pate De Voix (Offerta Speciale, Torino, Italy), Carnivocal (Red Deer Press, Red Deer, Alberta), Homo Sonorus (National Center For Contemporary Art, Kaliningrad, Russia), Fumms bo wo taa zaa Uu (Weil a. Rhein, Teile, Germany) and La Voce Regina (3Vitre, Italy).
Sutherland’s solo and collaborative CD’s include Notes and Songs From The Pan American Highway (The BarKing Boys Music Co.), Oral Cavity (The BarKing Boys Music Co.), Sonotexts (Electronic Music Foundation) and Cross Rhythm and White Noise with Nobuo Kubota (The BarKing Boys Music Co.). W. Mark Sutherland performed at numerous international poetry festivals. His creative energies and output were always inspiring. A few of his live public performances include; THEWORDMUSIC Festival, (Reykjavik, Iceland); Voice ++ Festival (Victoria, BC, Canada); Yuxtaposiciones Festival, (Madrid, Spain); 3durch3, (Stuttgart, Germany); Poesia En Voz Alta, (Casa del Lago, University of Mexico, Mexico City); Symposium on Voice, (Guelph, Canada); and The Bucharest International Festival of Poetry, (Bucharest, Romania).
One of Sutherland’s ongoing professional relationships and personal friendships was with Vancouver videopoet Tom Konyves, conducted per force by correspondence and video calls. Konyves told me in an email that “Mark had a knack for discovering the beauty in yoking together texts with incongruous images. He revelled in the impurity of mixing genres but also enjoyed a conceptual gesture. In fact, while working on my 2011 Videopoetry: A Manifesto, it was his 2008 video In Memory of Jack Donovan Foley that suggested to me a supplementary category – Concept or Conceptual videopoems.” Konyves goes on to say, “I had become not just another promoter of his art, championing his videopoetry work; [but] he, too, supported and praised my critical and theoretical writing efforts.… Best of all, he would distract me to no end with stories of his adventures with [his wife] Lynn when they were young, attending amazing concerts, rare films (we both admired Quentin Dupieux), his love for Michael Snow’s art, the collaborations with sound poet Nobuo Kubota – he made sure I included Nobi in the exhibition – and hanging out with Paul Dutton in his garden. ‘On June 16th, Bloomsday,’ he wrote, ‘we drank wine and Paul read his favourite chapters of Ulysses to me… quite a delightful afternoon.’ He would often defer to Paul. So it was fitting that it would be Paul who wrote to me of Mark's passing. His last videopoem, ‘America,’ was kind of a gift. ‘Here, could you write something about this?’ [Sutherland asked]. [What I wrote] is now on his website.” https://www.wmarksutherland.com/video-poetry]
I spoke with his widow Lynn about her many years with Mark, and she mentioned he was a talented guitar player, who in later years spent hours in his basement studio composing and looping melodic music, reminiscent of Brian Eno's. As a teenager, he spent time in a band playing rock standards in venues around his home town, and in his twenties he put together a studio band, The BarKing Boys, with his brother and a high-school friend. The three of them wrote tongue-in-cheek songs they recorded on both tape and vinyl LP, with Lynn and two of her friends singing backup vocals as The Yes Girls. It was never meant to accomplish much other than to have a good time, but it was the start of his education in the recording studio.
Once he found his artistic path and was getting some recognition, he received invitations to perform and/or exhibit at venues around North America and Europe. Lynn would usually travel with him and they would make a holiday of it. Funding for the arts was more plentiful in those years and there would be dinners and receptions that gave them the opportunity to socialize and become friends with many talented artists from around the world. Mark would always say that he lived his life large, and even after his leukemia diagnosis he would admit that his life had been short but he had had a lot of fun living it.
Sutherland’s creative expressions attracted a wide range of critical responses, including a Musicworks’ review of a 2007 voice festival, a critical discussion of Code X on Dani Spinosa’s Generic Pronoun website, an article by Paul Dutton (“Sounding the Written Seen,” Musicworks 85, 2003), and full-length article by British music critic Julian Cowley, published in The Wire. They all concur concerning Sutherland’s artistry and offer comments such as, “Sutherland’s ‘Code X’ turns readers into collaborators by turning their computer keyboards into sound poetry producing machines” (Generic Pronoun). Paul Dutton discusses the media fusion at the core of Sutherland’s art, including his show Scratch at Toronto’s Koffler gallery, with reference to what Dutton calls verbovocovisual expression in the form of poetry, music, and visual art, including performance and exhibition (as well as video), with reference to artists such as John Cage. Christopher Reiche talks about the Voice++ festival at the Open Space Gallery in Victoria, BC, in 2007, with three short video works by Nobuo Kubota and Mark Sutherland, featuring percussive consonant sounds executed with rapid-fire precision, combined with visualizations including head shots and a spectrogram of the sounds being produced. Cowley comments on Sutherland’s sound poetry tour of Canada with Bob Cobbing and Paul Dutton, which featured “borderblur” influences from artists such as Nobuo Kubota and Dick Higgins.
I will say briefly that screenings of Sutherland's videopoetry appear in VideoPoesia (Museo Caixa Forum, Barcelona/Madrid Spain), Optica Festival de Videoarte (Gijon, Spain), Roma Poesia (Rome, Italy), Zebra Video Poetry Festival (Berlin, Germany), Festival Instant Video (Aix en Provence, France), aluCine Toronto Latin Media Festival (Toronto, Canada), Video Bardo Festival of International Video Poetry (Buenos Aries, Argentina), The Text Festival (Bury, England) Loop Videoart Festival (Barcelona, Spain), E-Poetry Conference (Kingston University, London, England), This is Not a Script (Ghent, Belgium), Poésie/Traduction/Film (Université de Paul Valery, Montpellier, France) and WRIT LARGE – A Festival of Text (Oakland, USA).
Nobuo Kubota (left) & W. Mark Sutherland (right)
Sutherland has departed, but his remarkable legacy lives on. I was delighted to include him as an ongoing editorial correspondent for Rampike magazine for over 25 years and to frequently publish his visual poetry in Rampike’s pages. His brilliance and friendship still resound, and I predict that his contribution to the arts will resonate for ages. His creations were unique, and he was always an inspirational artist. In this article, I include several remarkable images from his website and one image from Rampike (below).
“Sound Effects” by W.M. Sutherland
(Canada)
From: Rampike
13.2
Towards the end of his interview with Alisson Avila, Sutherland speaks of a Shinto shrine in Japan, called Ise Jingū which is knocked down and rebuilt every 20 years. He speaks about how that process has occurred over the last 1000 years, and the fact that the rebuilding ensures the intergenerational passing on of building techniques. He speaks of death, renewal, and possibility, and how impermanence can build hope in the future. I will close this homage to W. Mark Sutherland with that thought of hopefulness. W. Mark Sutherland stands tall as a Canadian and international artist. He will be greatly missed by friends, fellow artists, and members of the general public who were touched by the poetic objects he created across so many media.
[Warm thanks to Paul Dutton, William Blakeney, Tom Konyves & Lynn Lehman who shared their memories and helped greatly to make this article possible.]
Karl Jirgens, former English Dept. Head and Chair of the Creative Writing Program (U Windsor), is author of three books of fiction and two scholarly books (Coach House, Mercury, ECW and The Porcupine’s Quill Presses). Jirgens edited two books (on painter Jack Bush, and poet Christopher Dewdney), plus, an issue of Open Letter magazine with Beatriz Hausner. His scholarly and creative texts are published globally (most recently in Japan). His poetry was selected for the anthology Best Canadian Poetry in English, 2023 (Biblioasis). Jirgens founded/edited/published Rampike magazine featuring stellar international art, writing, and theory (1979-2016) now digitally archived (searchable & free) c/o U Windsor’s Leddy Library. All copyrights remain with contributors: https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/rampike/about.html He serves on the Editorial Board of ellipse magazine. Jirgens is an 8th Degree Black Belt (Grandmaster) of the Korean Martial Art of Tae Kwon Do.