Slamalama Double Dips: 2 Electric Hearts Alive with Kylie Supski and Reverse Butcher

What was the first piece of spoken word, poetry or rap

you heard? How did it affect you?

rVb: If you want me to name early influences I would have to say

Nicole Blackman (with bands like the Golden Palominos &

KMFDM), Patti Smith (the musician and poet), Patricia Smith

(the American performance poet), Michael Gira (The Swans),

Hakim Bey, and Genesis P-Orridge.

I have been performing and publishing since I was 17, and so

truly a lot of my early influences were people that I knew.

I was one of the original Speedpoets—which was a performance

group/regular event in QLD that is still going. So my early

performance experiences influenced me greatly. People like

Fakie Wilde, Brentley Frazer, Bob Mudd. There were two other

significant poets who really took mentored me as a young(er)

writer, particularly Sara Moss, and Christine Strelan.

I also collaborated with musicians throughout my early career

and initially was most interested in poetry-music-film hybrids.

My early poetry-music-film experiments lead me to a long

collaborative affair with Daevid Allen. We transgressed many

things together, including (but not limited to) mediums, genres,

art-forms, projects, and countries.

Poetry has always moved me. I now focus on trying to

understand the places it is moving me into. And I spend a lot

of time using it to move others… out of the building so I can

be left alone to think.

Kylie: Here is what Sylvia Plath said about spoken word:

"Well, I do feel that now and I feel that this development of

recording poems, of speaking poems at readings, of having

records of poets, I think this is a wonderful thing. I'm very

excited by it. In a sense, there's a return, isn't there, to the

old role of the poet, which was to speak to a group of people,

to come across."

Who is your favorite Artist of all time?

rVb: Which medium? Time does play tricks, too. Perhaps

my favourite artist does not yet exist?

Kylie: Although Kylie have many favorites artists, she

draws more inspiration from people who she meet every day.

What is your method for writing lately? (or What does

your process look like?)

rVb: I have three modes of production, for three different

kinds of writing, and the processes are entirely different to

each other.

Kylie: Kylie writes, writes, writes everyday. Not all the words

that she writes end up in her poems. But ones that do, are

carefully select and manipulated so each has its own place

and does apply. Like Sylvia Plath once said "My poems

immediately come out of the sensuous and emotional

experiences I have. But one should be able to manipulate

these experiences with an informed and an intelligent mind.

I believe it should be relevant, and relevant to the larger

things, the bigger things such as Hiroshima and Dachau."

Where is the most fascinating place you’ve travelled

to with your art?

rVb: Today? That is top secret.

Kylie: Always my audience.

What inspires you to keep working?

rVb: In equal parts: boredom with the status quo; frustration

with the low standard of what is expected of us in society as

critical thinkers; a desire to see vast and unimaginable change

in my lifetime.

Kylie: Being terrified that if I pause I will not write another

word again.

What does a typical “being an artist” day look like for you?

rVb: Forget typical. Typical is boring. Discipline(d) is better.

A ‘discipline(d)’ day of being an artist sees me in my studio

writing, producing and editing my own work and sharing

skills with my collaborators. Plotting how and why to disrupt

the signals, calmly setting about the plan, and then executing

it without interruption.

Kylie: Taking care of my family which requires a day job,

and in every moment of each day being aware of what is

happening around me. These daily activities and moments

is where my inspiration comes from.

What’s the hardest lesson you’ve learned as an Artist?

rVb: That it doesn’t matter how ‘good’ you are at what you

do, if you are not good at promoting yourself, it will not

matter in respects to the success of your ‘career’, not really.

That your society and culture will mark you, and use those

marks to place you somewhere in a hierarchy against your

will if you do not disrupt it. That the best way to disrupt

power is through absurdity, rather than direct force. That

power, no matter how much you oppose it, will always

oppress you if you oppose it—as opposition is a vital part

of establishing and perpetuating the binary. That you may

have moments of breakthrough, but that nobody can be

outside culture for more than a moment of transgression.

That sometimes getting an audience to successfully question

the dominant paradigm means that it will look like they are

hostile towards you. It is still worth it.

Kylie: To have ability to communicate with my audience.

Without the audience art does not exist.

Fill in the blanks... Poetry can...

rVb: not save the world. But it has the capacity make us

think about what might.

Kylie: Poetry helps us to survive life.

Soren Kierkegaard once said: “If you name me, you

negate me. By giving me a name, a label, you negate all

of the other things I could possibly be.” What are the

“other things” you could possibly be?

rVb: I could be a tin of tomato soup. The lost earring of

a holographic mermaid. A shoelace. A wrong turn. A dead

language. I am more interested in experiments in deconstructing

the entire framework of language that the individual person

‘being labelled or named’ swims in. this is bigger than any

one person. Language constructs reality, it is that powerful.

I don’t much enjoy many of the oppressive traits of the reality

we’re reflecting right now. So how can we deconstruct language,

or use the dominant system in a way it’s not designed to empower

ourselves? I have used many names and will likely use many more. I have

been, and constantly am, many things and will likely be many

more. ReVerse Butcher is a reference to another experimental

author and novelist, Jeff Noon—who invented a literary technique

called the Cobralingus that continually enthrals me. Also it plays

on several levels. What does a butcher do? Cuts things up. What

does a ReVerse Butcher do? Puts things back together. New

orders out of existing (dis)orders. Butch/Femme dynamics etc.

If language is the framework for how we understand reality, how

can we turn a sentence into a spaceship? Or better yet, a vortex?

The un-utterable?

Kylie: Kylie believes that no one can change or influence us

without our permission.

How did you begin collaborating with each other and what has the experience been for you ?

rVb: I first met Kylie Supski at my favourite place in all of Melbourne

(and also where I work), Hares & Hyenas. She performs there regularly and her dynamic style and incredible content had my interest piqued straight away. She has been professional, kind, experimental, and bold as a creative collaborator—and thoroughly beautiful as someone who has become my friend. Kylie is full of energy, ideas and the discipline to not only see those ideas through, but to exceed every expectation. I have not met another writer quite like Kylie Supski in all my travelling years of poeting. It’s been both a pleasure and an honour to have recently worked on a longer performance work with her this year. I look forward to our many future collaborations, and what I will learn from her, and share with her.

Kylie: Kylie met ReVerse Butcher some time ago, and from a very beginning she was fascinated by her unusual performance style, her strong and distinct words, and most importantly by the way how she "reverses" words to uncover the realities that we so often miss. But it was not until the beginning of this year (during production of the Metanoia's 10CS) when Kylie and ReVerse Butcher started their very close artistic connection. And although our artistic styles are very different we quickly realised that we shared the same believe, believe as artists we should never compromise our ideas just to please the audience. I think ReVerse Butcher will fully agree with Kylie that artists have an obligation to question generally accepted truths and present the audience with alternatives of these truths, even if they make the audience very uncomfortable. Kylie hopes that her friendship and artistic collaboration with ReVerse Butcher will continue for a very, very long time or even forever if forever exists.