In this historic poetry film (“docupoetry”) the Norwegian visual poet and artist Ottar Ormstad documents parts of the life of the Italian philosopher and poet Giordano Bruno, born in 1548. after 1870 there was a long struggle for a monument on Campo Dei Fiori in Rome, where he was burned alive for heresy the 17th of February 1600 by the Roman inquisition.
don’t worry if you don’t understand Norwegian: only a few percentages of the one minute poem give a meaning to Norwegians, just enjoy the sounds and maybe the letters!
peaceful dream is a Chinese version of Ormstad’s first book, where in each corner on every second page there is one Norwegian word. The four words does not constitute a sentence. The way the words are placed on the page, forces the reader to move the eyes, and thereby hopefully create a poetic experience.
bråten (2018)
bråten is the third video based on Ottar Ormstad’s “telefonkatalogdiktet” (‘the phonebook poem’). The video is based on one page in the book only, where all names ends with ‘bråten’, the Norwegian word for a farmland where the original forest was cultivated by burning.
sol (2017)
Sol is the second video based on Ottar Ormstad’s “telefonkatalogdiktet” (‘the phonebook poem’), a book of concrete poetry published in Norway by Samlaget (2006). in the book names are presented visually as concrete poetry. many of the names are describing phenomena in the nature. the video is based on one page in the book only, where all names starts with ‘sol’, the Norwegian word for sun.
kakaoase (2016)
This is unusual sound poetry. even people who speak norwegian will not find much meaning. the video is made by the russian video-artist alexander vojjov, and is based on a poem by ormstad presented as a digital print in a solo-exhibition in oslo (2006). a very different version is presented as theoneminutepoem (2025).
LONG RONG SONG (2015)
projected on a grid of particles that at times seem ordered, while sometimes chaotic and always in flux, Ormstad’s constructed language poetry is exposed and read by the author while performing to Mashtalirs pulsating music.
This work is based on slogans and song-titles from different countries known from the end of the Sixties, presented in their original language, intentionally without translation. In the video, texts are combined with photographs of sculptures from the Vigeland Park in Oslo/Norway.
This video may be seen as a research for documenting water on the mooon(!).
LYMS is my first video-work and includes lettercarpets, sound, and b/w photographies.
b/w photography meets yellow text. for this video, letter-carpets are made from well known songs or films that are layered on photographs showing rotten cars that tell a story about life and death.
The work ‘natyr’ (may not exist in any language) is based on a painting by Knut Rumohr inspired by the nature on the west coast of Norway. Parts of the painting are exposed in combination with yellow letters and a piano improvisation by Ormstad.
This is an animation of my first book het still. The animation was created and published by artist Marko Niemi in the Finnish web-magazine Nokturno. Understood as a basic study of visuality in poetry, het still allows readers to combine words by choosing ones own direction of reading.
still from NAVN NOME NAME (2016)
This animation is inspired by how i made concrete poetry in Norwegian in the sixties. Forming words through time, single letters are animated and exposed visually on the screen.
Animation of the book y (gul poesi), a chapbook of concrete poetry in digital format.
