Kenneth Goldsmith trained as a sculptor, but is known for his ventures into challenging the notions of text. You could best describe Goldsmith’s work as poetry, but his work doesn't meet our expectations or the traditions of poetry at all. Goldsmith has become a master of appropriation, relying on huge range of sources, that include radio reports, newspaper articles, over heard conversations all used to construct his poetry. Goldsmith does not merely relying on this work for inspiration but he lifts the text in its entirety and creates poetry that touches on the avant-garde. He describes this as reframing, in its original context this text means nothing poetically, but by taking it into a formal poetic setting either through performance or by placing into a book then it completely obscures the meaning. This manifests into projects such as Day which is a retyping of the whole copy of a New York Times from cover to cover on particular day, or Seven American Deaths and Disasters, which is the transcripts of flummoxed news reporters responding to the live news of the deaths of iconic americans.
Goldsmiths investigation into repurposing text opens up a whole world of possibilities, potential poems become everywhere, they must simply be reframed and they can come alive. Goldsmith is responding to the digital age, a lot of this work is made possible through the application of technology. Despite these poems being formatted into books he is working with language that has been informed by technology. Goldsmith’s unconventional work has lead him to notoriety and has even been invited to the Whitehouse to read his poetry. In a performance in front of Obama, he sets the Brooklyn bridge as a precursor and reads three poems that take their inspiration from a crossing of New Yorks Hudson river. The first by Walt Whitman written in 1856, 30 years before the construction on the bridge, the next by Hart Crane written in 1930, and lastly a poem conceived by Goldsmith himself that takes a two transcripts of a radio traffic reports of the bridge crossing separated by 10 minutes in 2011. The evolution of this poetry depicts a changing landscape and at the end we are confronted with a poem that should feel so obscure but fits perfectly.
The thing with Goldsmith’s work is that it is incredibly accessible. We do not need to understand prose or the semantics of language or have to be aware of factors of phenomenology to engage with the work. This is conceptual work that creates a platform for anyone to understand by withdrawing unbeknownst elements of popular culture realised through text and cementing them into an environment that would normally have a level of elitism to it. With out really understanding the depths of what other work was out there and discovering the likes of goldsmith has really opened up my thinking towards this kind of work. My two pieces iPhone poetry and An arrival of a train at La Ciotiat perfectly adhere to the president that Goldsmith sets. This is work that has been purely lifted from a previous location. It is work that has is application and reverence in technology and has been reframed into traditional formats that allow the work to flourish.