A MITH Digital Dialogue
Tuesday, March 25, 12:30-1:45
MITH Conference Room, McKeldin Library B0135
“The Mandrake Vehicles: Kinetic Poetry in Physical and Digital Forms” by ONI BUCHANAN
Oni Buchanan will discuss her kinetic poem “The Mandrake Vehicles” (see an early version of the animation at: http://www. conduit.org/online/buchanan/buchanan.html). She will demonstrate how the elaborate Mandrake form operates, reveal her inspirations for the form, and discuss how the form evolved as it came into being. In addition, she will discuss how this originally paper-based kinetic poem came to be transformed into its current Flash-animated state, and enumerate the strengths and weaknesses of its two existent forms (its physical form on the printed page, and its digital Flash-animated form), especially as compared to its ideal form which currently exists only in concept.
ONI BUCHANAN is a young American pianist who focuses her virtuosity and inventiveness on creating and bringing to life themed concerts full of originality, curiosity, vitality, and a wide range of amazing piano works. Ms. Buchanan’s concerts have been described as “mesmerizing,” “insightful,” “exciting,” “inspiring,” and full of “flair, abandon, and color,” and her audiences have felt “transported,” “connected,” and “awed.” She has performed solo recitals throughout the U.S. and abroad, at such venues as the Instituto Brasileiro de Administração Municipal (IBAM) in Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL, the University of Guelph as well as Conrad Grebel University College in Ontario, CANADA, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts in Chicago, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Harvard University Hall Concert Series, among many others. Ms. Buchanan has been a guest soloist on many occasions, including performances for the Harvard Arts First festivals, the Harvard Music Department’s Composer Colloquium series, the Cicada Festival Emerging Artists Recital (Mount Gretna, PA), and as the guest concerto soloist with the Waynesboro Orchestra (Waynesboro, VA), conducted by Eric Stassen. In addition, Ms. Buchanan has given ensemble performances in New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, Harvard University, and at the New School of Music in Cambridge, MA.
Ms. Buchanan received her Master’s degree in piano performance from the New England Conservatory of Music, her Bachelor’s degree in music from the University of Virginia, and conducted three years of her music studies at the University of Iowa School of Music while pursuing an M.F.A. in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. In addition to her music degrees, Oni Buchanan holds a B.A. in English from the University of Virginia and an M.F.A. in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Oni’s second poetry manuscript, Spring, has just been selected by Mark Doty as a winner of the 2007 National Poetry Series Open Competition, and will be published by the University of Illinois Press in August 2008. Her first book of poems, What Animal, won the University of Georgia Press Contemporary Poetry Series competition (chosen by Fanny Howe), and was published in October 2003. Oni’s poems are featured in several anthologies including The Best American Poetry 2004 and Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century, and have been published in numerous journals across the country, including Conduit, Seneca Review, and Gulf Coast. A Flash version of Oni Buchanan’s kinetic poem “The Mandrake Vehicles” is on permanent display at the Conduit website, and she is currently at work on two other motion- and technology-driven poem projects.
Coming up @MITH 4/1: Sunil Iyengar (National Endowment for the Arts), “To Read or Not to Read: A Discussion of the NEA’s Latest Report about Reading.”
View MITH’s complete Digital Dialogues schedule here:
http://www.mith2.umd.edu/programs/mith_speakers_spring_2008.pdf
All talks free and open to the public!
Contact: Neil Fraistat, Director, MITH (www.mith.umd.edu, mith@umd.edu, 5-8927).