Katalin Ladik

When asked to situate her artistic practice, Katalin Ladik’s answer is clear: “First, and above all, I am a poet. I constantly try to expand the boundaries of poetry.” In so doing, the pioneer sound and performance artist has frequently found herself equally pushing against other boundaries, whether of music, language, corporeality or perception. Phonopoetica is one of her best-known journeys to another realm of sound and signification. Released in 1976, the record contains phonetic interpretations of experimental visual poetry. Ladik combined ritual vocal and linguistic elements with groans, sighs, screams and other bodily forms of expression, adding in fragments of discarded jazz recordings on tape she had found in the bin at the sound studio. Taking communication to the edge – as Ladik’s record makes plain – engenders new speculative forms of vocal expression and countless imaginative possibilities.