Porta-Babel, 2018, 12’ x 4” x 4"‘
Structure and video by Ed Andrews
with Anne Elliott, poet/voice and Jim Barr, sounds
Breath and Matter, Boston Sculptors Gallery
Wood, video/audio, mirror, mixed materials

“Shoot one hundred arrows into heaven.
If they return dulled and bloodied,
your war against God has a chance.”

This text is a collage composed of imagery from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim texts and fragments of contemporary news and popular media.

Its companion piece is a twelve foot tower and the poem cycle is divided into twelve sections, one for each foot of the tower.

Each section consists of one short poem presenting an image from the religious/scholarly text, followed by four responses from modern sources.

Recordings of the poems are voiced simultaneously by mechanisms in the tower.