Brian Ang presented an integrated presentation and reading on the music of Anthony Braxton and its relation to his poetry as part of the Re@ds series, curated and hosted by David Brazil and Suzanne Stein, at the Berkeley Art Museum.

Above is the entire presentation, followed by a Q&A, and below is a basic index of each video. Click “Play” to watch all, “Next” to skip forward, or the small “Insert” screen (to the right of the video time) to see thumbnails and watch them directly.

1. Brazil introduces Ang
2. The first 7 minutes of Anthony Braxton‘s Composition #356
3. Background on Braxton and his work
4. On Ang’s poetics + the first 100 sentences of Presymbolic
5. Trance Sequence: “From Pre-Symbolic to Totality: On Method” + Totality Canto 1
6. On The Totality Cantos, rigorous thought, Armed Cell, and Ang’s forthcoming work
7. Composition 376D by Anthony Braxton from Quartet Manheim (2010) [no video]
8. Q&A:
   1. “You have to have a context to be free from”
   2. Complexity vs. Difficulty in art
   3. “When I do the writing I have to do it all in one burst. It’s like getting into a very intense groove, and then just making my strike”
   4. Totality and anti-community: to withdraw so that thought can begin
9. Q&A:
   1. Different implications of “totality” and the necessity of structure to transcend subjectivity
   2. The “ontologies of words”, inventing new syntaxes, and capturing the moment
   3. The potential for loops and noise poetry
   4. The scramble for signification

[Resources]

• Watch Ang read part of ‘Lectric Collective
• Watch footage from another Re@ds event: Tom Comitta
• Attend: the next reading in this series features Ted Rees on Friday, April 13th