poetry / video / music / science
My video-poem Hexapod was short-listed for the 2017 5th Ó Bhéal Poetry-Film Competition. There were 30 films on the short-list from 186 submissions from 29 countries. The films were shown as part of the IndieCork film festival on 15th October 2017. Click here to see the rest of the short-list.
hexapod from Ian Gibbins on Vimeo.
From 7th September until 9th October, my soundscape, “Heard on the Wind”, commissioned by Adelaide City Council, played in the breezeway at 25 Pirie Street, in central Adelaide CBD.
The breezeway at 25 Pirie Street is surrounded by texts: memorial plaques, notices regarding public safety and well-being, tightly-crafted slogans of the Smart City Studio windows and Enterprise Adelaide brochures. By definition, silent, largely ignored by passers-by, 25 Pirie Street : Heard on the Wind gives voice to these texts using digital sampling technology. 18 text-to-speech synthesisers read the texts, generating a base set of 500 voice samples, that were sped up and slowed down, reversed and delayed, repitched and translated into solos, conversations, choirs, snatches of melody, the heard out loud, and the barely heard at all.
It runs for about 45 minutes. You can hear the whole sequence on my Bandcamp page:
https://iangibbins.bandcamp.com/…/25-pirie-street-heard-on-…
Here is the original ACC link: http://www.cityofadelaide.com.au/…/publ…/soundscape-program/
Ian has contributed to several public art programs, either solo or as part of a group project.
and furthermore (indexed) (2022, dur: 04:57) Video screened at Disappear Here – Living With Buildings IV (Coventry, UK, November, 2022).
ISOLATION PROCEDURES (2020, dur: 6:22) Video screened at Muestra Videopoetando Las Calles, Proyección de Videopoemas (Iztapalapa, Mexico City, October, 2022).
Warranty & Conditions of Use (2020, dur: 5:26) Video screened at Muestra Videopoetando Las Calles, Proyección de Videopoemas (Iztapalapa, Mexico City, October, 2022).
colony collapse (dur: 3:54) Video screened in curated public video art exhibition at Urban Screening 2021-22 (Northbridge Piazza, Perth, WA, December 2021).
Archosaurs as part of Raining Poetry in Adelaide 2019 (J. M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice, University of Adelaide).
42nds (dur: 0:45) and SPSS (dur: 3:35) shown at the Adelaide Festival Centre digital screens (King William Road and Festival Theatre Main Foyer, Adelaide, April, 2019).
42nds. Water Screen LaserVision projection as part of HybridWorld Adelaide 2018. (Adelaide Riverbank, 20-22 July, 2018).
BLUE MOON (dur: 4:55) Soundtrack. As part of Cose Cosmiche: Sound creations inspired by the Universe, 24 hour broadcast, Milan, 2018.
25 Pirie Street: Heard on the Wind. (dur: approx 45 … Click here for more.
Click here to see all Ian’s videos on Vimeo. Click on titles to watch them on Vimeo.
The Life We Live Is Not Life Itself (2021, dur: 8:45) Poetry video, with Tasos Sagris (poetry / spoken word) and WhoDoes (music) …
• official selection, and Delluc Avant-Garde Winner, Fotogenia Film Festival 2021, vol. 3 (Mexico City, November, 2021);
• official selection and overall winner, Poetry In Motion 2023 (Colorado, USA, November, 2023);
• official selection and Jury Award for Harmony Between Image, Poem and Music, 7° Festival Internacional Signes da Noite – Urbino (21st International Festival Signs of the Night – Italy) (Urbino, Italy, November, 2023);
• official selection and Winner SIGNS Award, 8. Internationales Festival Zeichen der Nacht (Signes de Nuit) / Berlin (Berlin, November, 2023);
• finalist, International Video Poetry Award, screened at Bologna in Lettere 10th – BABEL: stati di alterazione, Bologna In Lettere 2022 (Italy, March / May – June 2022);
• curated selection, “Fotogenia – A Showcase” at REELPoetry 2025 (Houston, TX, April, 2025);
• curated selection, International Poetry Festival – Kardamyli – Mani (Kardamyli, Greece, September, 2024);
• official selection, MAPPING at MECA Mediterráneo Centro Artístico (Almeria, Spain, September – October, … Click here for more.
What do you do after a life on the land, the rail, the road, leaves you in despair, confused, angry? Well, you have to do something…
Here are two pieces I did for Paroxysm Press (S)Mash It Up at the Adelaide Fringe Festival 2016. Toxicology is a tribute to Britney Spears’ Toxic and Take Away is a tribute to Janis Joplin’s Take Another Piece of My Heart. The music is mine, but built from the chord patterns of the original songs.
caza won the 2015 SCALA Festival Of Original Music (FOOM) Studio Instrumental section!! Amazing…
For more audio,
In March 2014, Ian was the inaugural Poet-in-Residence at the Adelaide City Library, supported by the Library and Spoken Word SA.
During his time there, he developed a sequence of poems, images and sounds based on material in the Library, called How To Read. Much of the written work used samples of text such as library brochures, titles of books in particular sections of the library, overheard snippets of conversation, and answers to a questionnaire.
Click here for the text of “How To Read”.
New versions Ian’s poems for the project have been published: 994.231 (General History / Australia / Adelaide) in Rabbit #16: Biography Part 2 (2015), True Crime in Australian Poetry Members’ Anthology 4 (2015) and The Guide in e•ratio 25 (2018).
Here is an excerpt from 994.231 (General History / Australia / Adelaide):
(Clara)
When a friend fell off her bicycle on the foreshore at Glenelg,
everyone thought it would be the end of her. “Watch out for sharks!”
we advised, just in case she listened. “They love the smell of blood!”
Seagulls swooped for pie crusts, chip-squash, gravel-grazed gumdrops,
casual sandwich orphans, ignored furtive intercepting flight paths,
veered north or … Click here for more.