Musical words and music like words by experimental act
More acknowledged for her work in Europe than in her home city of Los Angeles, experimental intermedia artist Anna Homler, who has devoted an entire career to less orthodox musical ways, will be in Athens for one performance this Thursday at the Small Music Theater. Homler’s performances encompass music, the spoken word and installations as part of her examination of the possibilities of meaning and communication. Making words sound musical and music like words, Homler has performed throughout Europe and the US since emerging in the early ’80s with her «Breadwoman» cassette, a collaboration with Steve Moshier. Her debut CD, «Do Ya Sa’di Do,» was released on an German independent label in 1992. A series of other releases followed, while her music was also included in «Iris,» a compilation of women’s vocal music on a French label. In 1997, a recording of a live performance by Homler with similar-minded artists Geert Waegerman and Pavel Fajt was released as «Corne de Vache» on a Canadian label, Victo. Visual art plays a central role in Homler’s work. She expresses a persona that expresses itself in a newly invented language, which, nevertheless, appears to be rife with tradition, ritual, ceremony, and a culture of its own. A performance installation, «Pharmacia Poetica,» which examines the symbolic and tonal qualities of words and objects, highlights Homler’s more recent work. The project, which has traveled extensively as part of the exhibition «40 Years of California Assemblage,» has been shown at galleries in the Netherlands, Switzerland and various parts of the US.
