Commentaries on Bob Cobbing - The Argotist Online

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Ladies and Gentlemen, Bob Cobbing.
Cobbing, Pike and Upton at 291 Gallery By Caroline Andrews (31st May 2001) It was primarily a music festival. The main area of the 291 Gallery was given over to derivative sound sculptures that were not without a little interest, though most of it was empty, while the performances were crushed into the narrow space of the bar. Most of the performers seemed happy in that space, but Cobbing, Pike and Upton needed the extra space. It was clear that they had expected to have more space. Upton had described to me something of his plans. He was expecting to be able to create a range of sonic environments. Instead they performed at the end of the long narrow bar, an area with poor acoustics which suited or did no harm to the less ambitious and less accomplished performances before and after Upton and Cobbing. Only the final understated performances of sound poetry classics by Hugh Davies and Bob Cobbing compared. Cobbing, Pike and Upton were head and shoulders above everything else that evening with Upton in particular, minute by minute, pushing aside the boundaries of how one thinks of “poetry”. As usual, Cobbing and Upton had made a new text. The approach seems to change each time; but in general terms it can be said that they each alter and reorder the work repeatedly until there is total agreement. This time they came up with a large pamphlet called Oi! Each had a copy of the text with them. They worked through it. I think Cobbing went through his methodically. Upton is usually methodical, but this time he jumped about and once at least repeated pages, turning them through 180 or 90 degrees between interpretations. Images from the text were projected in an order which is different to the pamphlet whichever direction one takes through it. It is a feature of the duo’s performances that these projections feature real-time changes—Jennifer Pike, who usually dances the images as well, swings the projector around and changes the focus. She did some of that this time; but it seemed to me that it was much less imaginative than sometimes in this regard. I am aware that this is subjective! The performance started with a shout of “Oi!” from a prepared tape which ran throughout the performance. It was a solo vocal performance of the text by Upton. It was difficult to be sure but it seemed to me that yet another page order was used. Sometimes it was very loud indeed, and for long stretches it was absolutely silent. As the tape shouted “Oi”, Cobbing responded in kind and began to play simple percussion. Upton advanced upon him yelling “Oi” and then went past him going almost into the audience still shouting “Oi!”, gesturing and glaring menacingly at them. It was a talkative audience all evening, but Upton kept shouting “Oi!” until almost everyone was
Page 2 and 3: Commentaries on Bo
Page 4 and 5: Contents Acknowledgements 6 Introdu
Page 6 and 7: Acknowledgements An earlier and sho
Page 8 and 9: That first essay, from over 30 year
Page 10 and 11: Review of Pattern of Performance (A
Page 12 and 13: Bob Cobbing at The Voice Box Cobbin
Page 14 and 15: Bob Cobbing at The Klinker (29th Ap
Page 16 and 17: Co-editing Word Score Utterance Cho
Page 18 and 19: It took Cobbing 10 years—or 20 ye
Page 20 and 21: • Do you use machines/technology
Page 22 and 23: I would like to see the visual inte
Page 24 and 25: Introduction of Bob Cobbing at the
Page 26 and 27: tonight at Bob’s instigation, a f
Page 28 and 29: I shall quote now from a slightly-c
Page 30 and 31: espect. The contents are linear poe
Page 32 and 33: the level of the book rather than a
Page 34 and 35: medium may leave us more flexibilit
Page 36 and 37: Introduction to Bob Cobbing at Sub
Page 40 and 41: silent. Then he turned intense atte
Page 42 and 43: Bob Cobbing: A Worker in Progress I
Page 44 and 45: It was during that time that I met
Page 46 and 47: Funeral Oration for Cobbing (11th O
Page 48 and 49: Celebrating the Memory of Bob Cobbi
Page 50 and 51: Bob Cobbing: A Talk Given at Boat T
Page 52 and 53: As well as the simplicity of approa
Page 54 and 55: The Destruction in Art volume recen
Page 56 and 57: themselves and not a completion in
Page 58 and 59: Reissue of Kroklok Kroklok was an e
Page 60 and 61: Republication of Bob Cobbing’s Li
Page 62 and 63: and the foreground of the image; an
Page 64 and 65: has been more difference in aesthet
Page 66 and 67: It might be that he changed his min
Page 68 and 69: So far, within a page, Cobbing has
Page 70 and 71: Review of With Our Tongue Our Drils
Page 72 and 73: criteria before being sure of them;
Page 74 and 75: Collaborations for Peter Finch Lawr
Page 76 and 77: The working order of pages changed
Page 78 and 79: Introduction to Bob Cobbing and Wri
Page 80 and 81: The supposed improvement in product
Page 82 and 83: inevitable. I am not sure it was so
Page 84 and 85: ut eye elements! A notional alien n
Page 86 and 87: However, there is functional writin
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There are those poets who inherit t
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I have included less on the 1980s
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word or any inflection of it; nor d
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making poetry than he had been. And
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he did formally, in a context of th
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And now as poetry more and more bec
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Another Story of Bob Cobbing Welcom
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Yet, as I have said before, Bob Cob
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Both afford ample evidence of Cobbi
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Bob Cobbing: A Talk Given at Boat T
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3. Published by Writers Forum in 20
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