On Collaboration
by Rob Fitterman & Dirk Rowntree
Dirk & I have a very active, over-the-shoulder style of collaboration. As with our earlier project, cedars estate (www.ubu.com), Dirk & I tend to sit in front of the computer together and look at images and text and have conversations about the implications of each choice. In War, the musical I produced a text, first, comprised solely of web language, and Dirk also chose to compose with mostly downloadable, digitized images. The intersections became complex when we discussed the larger frame of our thinking processes. For instance, Dirk became engaged with ideas about commodification and institutional critique that echo my own ideas about how we, as Americans, process war through media. Dirk saw, in the text, an engagement with the media that he, in turn, wanted to maximize in the design of the book. The blank pages, black pages, odd ball fonts, etc., all contribute to his interest in presenting a "product" that draws our attention to its production. In a sense, this is Dirk's interpretat ion of my own ideas, and it makes for a great way to allow for freedom within the collaboration.
In War, the musical, there is a third collaborator in artist Klaus Killisch, who produced several short videos of the middle section of the book (www.magnetberg.de/war). In fact, the genesis for the book itself came from a collaboration with Killisch started in 2000, titled The Boy From Mix Run, a text-visual art collaboration where we alter early Hollywood film stills and text.
As a teaching tool and exercise, collaboration is a great way to decenter the singular authority of the author, but it is also a great way to encourage a dialogue about ideas. In this manner, the collaborators need not interpret each other (a potential pitfall with artist-poet collaborations) but, instead, to interpret the larger ideas being expressed. And for this reason, as a teacher, I would encourage this more physical activity of collaborating in the same room, at the same time.
Robert Fitterman, born in St. Louis, 1959, is the author of 9 books of poetry, including 3 installments of his ongoing poem Metropolis: Metropolis 1-15 (Sun & Moon Press, 2000), Metropolis 16-29 (Coach House Books, 2002), and Metropolis XXX: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Edge Books, 2004). Earlier titles include Leases (Periphery Press), among the cynics (Singing Horse Press) and Ameresque (Buck Downs Books). His most recent title, War, the musical, is a collaboration with artist Dirk Rowntree. He teaches at New York University.
Dirk Rowntree is a visual artist who works in design, photography and sound. His earlier collaboartion with Fitterman, cedars estate, can be viewed at www.ubu.com. He has designed several contemporary poetry books, including titles by Rodrigo Toscano, Kim Rosenfield, Brian Kim Stefans and others. He lives in NYC.
