Invited, without criteria, to read / perform for one full hour during the Paviljonas Book Festival in Vilnius, Lithuania, on November 30th 2019, English poet...

Performance Literature

Playing with the potential of a live literature - with space, voice, interaction, physicality - being in the room, with an audience. Often improvised, but resolutely poetic, first into performance through the literary reading, then playing with the various traditions of live art, theatre, music. Part of a 21st European scene of live literature, performance, being made actively across the continent.

On separate pages are my

An article on my way into Live Literature commissioned by the International Literature Showcase, National Centre for Writing and a video archive of my performances is available at the National Poetry Library, London.

Shot and cut by Ugis Goba in Riga June 6th 2014. Supported by the British Council, SJ Fowler performed at the Press House, Riga, a formerly abandoned tower block, as part of Totaldobze's freeriga festival. Freeriga brings attention to the empty buildings in Latvia's capital, while artist's are priced out of renting through new artworks, commissions, talks and tours.

Material Destruction

From a series of works exploring the perceived preciousness of the book and the giving of gifts to an audience, via multiple book destructions, to a commission for the Free Riga festival about abandoned spaces. An attempt to deconstruct objects around the literary reading or performance space, to suggest to the audience an attentiveness to proximity, to my presence and its potential threat, and to shine a light on that which appears solid and constant but is not. Commissions from London Book Fair, Cafe Oto, Stanza Festival, Berlin Poetry Festival and others.

Poem Brut III at Rich Mix : January 13th 2018 A literary event celebrating of the visual, visceral, messy, handwritten and colourful in poetry with new unique commissions from writers exploring alternate ways of making literature. An extraordinary evening of innovative performance literature. https://www.poembrut.com/gallery
A book launch event for 'F.M.R.L. Footnotes, Mirages, Refrains and Leftovers of Writing Sound' by Daniela Cascella (Zer0 Books) held on July 20th 2015 at Cafe Oto. For her book launch Daniela Cascella asked artists, writers, performers, musicians to remix, rewrite, re-read the book: to use the book as raw material and to present a series of short responses in any form or medium.

a performance by Steven Fowler and Ben Morris 31st May 2012 @ Cafe Oto commissioned by Mercy as part of our Electronic Voice Phenomena strand

Pugilistica

A concern about appearing foolish led me to seek what felt like an authentic way into performance, without the tether of reading / literature, for the first time. Having practised martial arts from childhood and it having been my profession at one point, these performances are a reflective of this comfort, recontextualised to the gallery or exhibited space. By and large they are about physical limitation, about how rapidly aggression display ebbs away in the face of exhaustion. www.stevenjfowler.com/fights/

Held on the opening night of the first Open Work exhibition held at 1 Albert Road, Kilburn, London, on June 25th, this performance by SJ Fowler was a collaborative piece with Chris Page and David Kelly. Open Work is curated by Mohammad Namazi, Emily Purser and Robert Hitzeman. http://www.openworkproject.com/
Held on Saturday November 9th 2013 at the Hardy tree gallery in Kings Cross London, for the Erkembode exhibition www.erkembode.com This is the 4th of the Pugilistica performances.

Water performances

Responding to a commission at Somerset House about the purchase of water cannon's by the London mayor's office and a performance at the Library of Water in Iceland two years later, these works are about the fragility of body, its voice under respiratory distress and the potential menace of an element that is often considered benign in its ubiquity. You can drown in a inch of water.

Held at Vatnasafn / The Library of Water, a long-term project conceived by Roni Horn for a former library in the coastal town of Stykkishólmur in Iceland (http://www.libraryofwater.is/), the second event of Ovinir, the Enemies Project in Iceland, saw readings, recitals and performances from six artists on January 23rd 2016.
Held in Somerset House to celebrate the Museum of Water exhibition, Penned in the Margins curated a day of poetry and performance on June 21st 2014 in London. SJ Fowler's performance The Coming of the Water Cannon.

Dancing Performances

Cautiously exploring the possibilities of dance, while hooded and holding a blackbox music player, alongside poetry.

Held at Westminster Reference Library in Leicester Sq, this event celebrated Sidekick Books anthology Battalion, your interactive guidebook to these enigmati...
Illuminations VI: Celebrating seven Anglo Austrian writers of the 20th century - May Thursday 2nd www.theenemiesproject.com/illuminations The bonds between t...
electronicvoicephenomena.net was a partnership project between Mercy and Penned in the Margins featuring new work from Steven J Fowler, Outfit, Hannah Silva and Ross Sutherland. the story is told here with live clips, and interviews with participating artists and co-producer Nathan Jones. the documentary was shot and produced by Untold Media.

Electronic Voice Phenomena

EVP was a commission from Mercy and Penned in the Margins for a unique touring show of avant garde performance, music and poetry that was followed up with individual performance commissions, spanning May 2013 to November 2015. A formative experience for my more theatrical performance work, the tour visited The Sage in Gateshead, St Georges Hall in Liverpool amongst other amazing venues. For the show I performed a near hour long descend into auditory madness, beginning as a compare of sorts, ending up a furious mess. Much much more here www.stevenjfowler.com/evp

Electronic Voice Phenomena is an experimental literature and new media project, exploring contemporary approaches to sound, voice, technology and writing, brought to you by Mercy and Penned in the Margins. The EVP programme takes its inspiration from Konstantin Raudive's notorious 'Breakthrough' experiments of the 1970s, where he divined voices-from-beyond in electronic noise.

read more about Fowler's commission: electronicvoicephenomena.net/index.php/electric-dada/ ON TOUR Electronic Voice Phenomena is a new experimental literature, performance and music show that feeds on the corpse of paranormal pseudo-science. The EVP programme takes its inspiration from Konstantin Raudive's notorious 'Breakthrough' experiments of the 1970s, where he captured voices-from-beyond in electronic noise.

ReIllumination performances

A series of performances responding to, or utilising, or celebrating other authors and their life / work. From a theatrical rewriting of Cesar Vallejo commissioned for Hay Festival in Arequipa, Peru (his home nation), to a rendition of Aleksandr Wat's My Century for the Milosz Festival in Krakow, Poland. These are the live versions of the rewriting, reinterpreting, stealing and homaging which so litter my written poetry.

The second English PEN Modern Literature Festival saw 30 contemporary UK-based writers present new works in tribute to writers at risk around the world at Rich Mix, London, on April 1st 2017. #penfestuk Visit www.englishpen.org and for more information www.theenemiesproject.com/englishpen
December 9th 2016 at Teatro Arequipay for the Hay Arequipa Festival : a new performance by British poet and artist SJ Fowler celebrating the life and work of Cesar Vallejo, blending new poetry with literary performance. www.stevenjfowler.com/peru https://www.hayfestival.com/arequipa
Beyond Words: South Korean & British poets in collaboration Rich Mix : June Saturday 3rd 2017 : London www.theenemiesproject.com/southkorea A dynamic new collaborative project that featured new works of collaboration from some of the UK and South Korea's most exciting poets and literature performers.

Fourth Wall performances

Documentation of my live work is a key facet of my practise. While I understand those who stake their performances on ephemerality, I do not. It was inevitable that when worrying about context, really being active in context over content, or alongside, that the camera's eye itself would become part of my performance. Not only does it create a unique communication to the viewer on youtube, addressing them in a way they rarely are in the performance context, but it releases the audience through relegation. They are props to be moved for the film.

Mechanical Hamster performances

A means by which to speak to myself, the mechanical hamster is a friend indeed when I am bored of my own voice.

Illuminations : celebrating modern Austrian writers A series of innovative events bringing to light, in London, the work of writers fundamental to the unique Austrian contribution to world literature in the post-war era.
BABELSPRECH EUROVISION POETRY at Torriano Meeting House NOVEMBER FRIDAY 23RD 2018 https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/babelsprech BABELSPRECH is a cross Europe literary platform for live events. This was the London leg of a project which will saw events happen at the same time in multiple cities across the continent.

Poem Brut performances

Close to my talking performances but exploring the principles of the www.poembrut.com project, live - that is the hand-made, inarticulate, neurologically engaged, material based and aberrant.

Poem Brut at National Poetry Library - June Wednesday 6th / Southbank Centre https://www.poembrut.com/poetry-library A literary event celebrating of the visual, visceral, messy, handwritten and colourful in poetry with new unique commissions from writers exploring alternate ways of making literature.
Poem Brut / Rich Mix : November 10th 2018 Poet-artists from across the UK, Europe and the Americas descended on East London for a unique literary event celebrating the visual, visceral, messy, handwritten and colourful in poetic performance - a dozen new live poetry pieces made for the night from those exploring alternate ways of making literature.
November 11th 2011 in the Cinema Room at the Contemporary Urban Centre as part of Liverpool Music Week Closing Party. From the Mercy website ' Steven Fowler is working with jazz-avant musician Ben Morris of Chora on a new piece which takes the concept of mantra and trance as its starting point and expands it out into a sound-language performance which explores the notion of language as a the hypnotic medium where thought takes place.'

Liverpool Biennial performances

Thanks to curator Nathan Jones and via his Mercy organisation and the Syndrome series, I've presented three newly commissioned performances pieces at Liverpool Biennial 2012 and 2014, with the third in the series at Liverpool Music Week 2011.

All three explored anger and amplification, though ranging from piece to piece, technology and physicality were constituent elements of all three.

SJ Fowler puts the CHOROS interface through it's paces at the opening night of the installation. This performance was part of a residency at syn-dro.me, which Fowler documents in part here: blutkitt.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/performing-for-syndrome-staying-in.html?m=1 **Film by Sam Meech** CHOROS was a room-as-instrument devised by artist Jamie Gledhill with sound artist Stefan Kazassoglou, using an array of computers attached to X-box Kinect devices.
Held at the Hi-Fi in Liverpool on October Saturday 6th 2012, Ben Morris & SJ Fowler, Iris Garrelfs and Scanner performed original works commissioned, as part of the Liverpool Biennial celebrations, for Mercy's Electronic Voice Phenomena project.

Held at the unique Candid Arts in Islington, London on February 26th 2014, the first Annexe magazine book launch of the year saw readings from Tom Chivers & SJ Fowler, releasing their work respective works Flood Drain and the Whale Hunt.

Action Painting

The visual mark has always been secondary to the auditory mark in my instinctual creative gestures, so while the notion of a live painting or action painting is undoubtedly well trodden ground, its use in the literary context remains an interesting gesture. Do we attend writing? Have we ever paid to see a writer write? And even the painter at work is still cloaked in myth and fear.