BIL BROWN profile picture

BIL BROWN

Time is the evil. Evil. - Canto XXX, Ezra Pound

About Me


STATE/MENT


+ Social Place/ Displacement/ Ethnicity .. Writing is implicated as pride in the Aboriginal or pre-destiny of that which has been obscured, the hermetic intuition or prophetic is closed into pedagogic circles around the art object. The prophecy becomes the tyranny of a ruling class (the Bramanic example) and intuition becomes More difficult than ever to procure any sort of aesthetic justification. But, it is the insistence on the Aesthetic that continues to pull it apart. A reconcilliation of the social contridiction that doesn’t get reconciled otherwise. It is the intimacy of the poem that is important. Where there is no social form except intimidation.
Pressure to locate Freedom to locate Conflict with that which is located Assumptions? Ah, contradiction. • Recognizing it is impossible to postulate/ situate yourself within a system of punctuation and syntactical illusion for the placement of Icons of Meaning/ semantics and invariably National Pride in the source fiend as education & returning to the score or the hieroglyph as source object & form outside of formality (i.e. cascading down to dirt & up from the ground of emotion & soul; that is to say, the mount of the beast & your-self mounted by Le..ba -- god/ communicator -- of the Crossroads… & later, building stone walls to cut at the stone.). And then, wake to hear someone different, something entirely different. The dream/mare is over, morning of a new day.
+ Resolution

WHO IS BIL BROWN?


"It is not without cause that parents shudder when a child of theirs expresses the wish to become an Artist: they will, of course, do everything in their power to protect the child fromsuch a fate!: —to undermine any real adventuring... distort the whole meaning of the word “appreciation” . . . . confusing it with “voyeurism” . . . . to tame the energies of any active involvement: for real aesthetic appreciation runs exactly the same hazards as art-creation—leads as surely to what society calls “madness” – Stan Brakhage
Trained as a poet at Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, a musician at the infamous Berklee school in Boston, and self-taught in visual communication, photography , art, and design - Bil Brown’s creative life now spans two decades.
As a poet, Bil has performed extensively. Making his live performance a must see. Mixing spoken-word, Beat bravado, and experimental word-play with a voice that uses speaking-in-tounges (glossalalia), southern-church speak, techno-babble, and a Pound-like use of literary and pop-cultural references to synthesize into a transcendent performance for both the performer and audience.
Notable readings include NYU Beat Conference, Vox Festival, Lollapalooza, Nuyorican Cafe, St. Mark’s Church, Roxy/Gallerie NOD (Prague, CZ), and extensively toured venues in the US and Europe since 1993. Bil has opened for Atari Teenage Riot, Thrust (NYC), Bikini Kill, Nautical Almanac, Kark and AYIN (KY). Bil is featured in the Beat documentary The Source, and on BBC Prime.
Film credits include a Fremen for the Sci-Fi Channel’s mini-series DUNE, stand-in for "Jean de Metz", Joan of Arc for CBS/CBC, and a strange commercial with "Mini-Me" himself, Verne Troyer - directed by Tim Burton! Other credits include a Gertrude Stein play, directed by Meredith Monk and a few other experimental excursions.
Bil’s music is an extention of his live performances. Using chance operation, collage, and a poet’s ear for nuance the music uses digital means and everyday use applications like a web browser to compose pieces in a hi-tech, low-fi composition. Sometimes adding his own spoken commentary or using his voice as another instrument, but often times just letting the sounds envelope the work with little shaping. Bil’s current project is delving into themes and text from Krafft-Ebing’s (the Austro-German psychiatrist who coined the term "masochism") 1886 controversial book Psychopathia Sexualis, along with influence and homage to the late visonary comedian Bill Hicks.
Bil Brown is co-founder of Prazska Skola Poetiky (Prague School of Poetics) and creative influence for projects, festivals, readings, performances and events from Chicago to Bratislava. A representative of TACHELES Artist Congress (Berlin, GER) and longstanding member of the online community YAYHOORAY, and previous to that DREAMLESS.ORG, as well as close ties with artists, designers, comedians, poets and filmmakers across the globe. visit bilbrowndotcom for more.
from BIL BROWN’s TAROT PROJECT
Illustrated by bilbrowndotcom

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 1/14/2006
Band Website: bilbrown.com
Band Members: Bil Brown - vox, Powerbook
Influences: This list about covers it

Other than that: George Bataille, Meredith Monk, PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, Einsterzende Neubaten, Blixa Bargeld, "Requiem for a Dream", "Psychopathia Sexualis", Velvet Underground, Warhol's Factory, Burrough's Bunker, Edie Sedwick, Jeff Buckley, This Mortal Coil, Jean Cocteau's "Blood of a Poet and "Orpheus", "Sybil", Anton LaVey, Jim Morrison, "Barbarella", Diamanda Galas' "Vena Cava" and "Screi X", Dada, Futurism, Letterism, Surrealism, Andre Breton, Colette LAURE Peignot, Michel Foucalt, diabolism, Shiva, Kali, Maria Sabina, Cesar Vallejo, Ami Cesare, Lydia Lunch, Bill Hicks, Doug Stanhope, The Swans, Iggy Pop 1968, Patti Smith Group "Ethiopia", Kathy Acker's "Empire of the Senseless", The Bill of Rights, The Book of Lies, Kenneth Anger, Baader-Meinhoff Gang, Rasa, Stephen Jonas, Kenneth Irby, Alice Notley, Anne Waldman, Ed Sanders, Pier Paolo Pasolini, the Argento family, "Suspiria", Maya Deren, Atari Teenage Riot, Digital Hardcore, Gilles Deleuze, Harry Smith, Stan Brakhage, Hollis Frampton, Hitchcock, Jan Svankmajer, John Waters, Tod Browning's "Freaks", Naomi Klein, Stephan Mallarme, Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, Vitezslav Nezval, Franz Kafka, Rilke, Charles Burns, Dvorak, Dimitri Shostakovich, Toshio Matsumoto, The Int0rw3bâ„¢...
Sounds Like: Atonal Music*, Antonin Artaud, Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, Anne Waldman, Meredith Monk, Lydia Lunch, Blixa Bargeld, Nick Cave, Diamanda Galas, Marianne Faithful, Jim Morrison, Dead Kennedys, Patti Smith Group, Nicole Blackman, Recoil, Golden Palaminos.
Type of Label: None

My Blog

Generative Art as Figure Photography: Bil Brown’s Underground Aesthetic - by Jamie McDermond

..This critical paper was written by one of my favorite models and is being reworked for further publication. I found it charming, and also, she got a lot of the things that I could not put into words...
Posted by BIL BROWN on Tue, 18 Mar 2008 09:20:00 PST

Personal Documentary/Diary film of Allen Ginsberg's death

This film/diary shows the day and aftermath of Allen Ginsberg's life in documentary-personal style. Little commentary. Filmed by the iconic Jonas Mekas, "the godfather of American avant-garde cinema."...
Posted by BIL BROWN on Tue, 29 May 2007 02:54:00 PST

Bil Brown in The Source - a Beat Documentary [excerpt] (1999)

Here I am (a bit younger) in the PBS rotated documentary on The Beat Generation. I was living in Prague when this came out and just so happened on the DVD when I moved to Chicago in...
Posted by BIL BROWN on Mon, 19 Mar 2007 08:11:00 PST

Welcome, and a little bit about the current playlist

Greetings. If you are finding me from the voxpoet profile, welcome back. This profile is active for the spoken word and music aspects of my MPD old' self. excuse the mess. Things will be rapidly chang...
Posted by BIL BROWN on Sun, 18 Mar 2007 03:56:00 PST