Turbulence Spotlight: Tulsita by the Wa-KOW! Collective [Needs Flash plugin] - The Wa-KOW! Collective was founded on the idea that the distinctions between artistic media are problematic and productive rather than essential. Our primary goal has been to find ways to blur those boundaries. The group–made up of poets, musicians, and photographers–works in and around the borders between text, sound, and image, exploring the relations between the three media and the nature of each type of media. Our artistic process evolved through organic collaboration. We visited specific sites in Tulsa and collected raw materials through writing, audio recording, and photography. The group then altered, edited, and arranged these materials, meanwhile incorporating samples from songs, films, texts and images related to Tulsa. The result of this collaboration is Tulsita, an online flash-based environment that explores the cultural, ethical, and aesthetic experiences we have had living in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

BIOGRAPHIES

Nathan Halverson works with found, sampled and original audio using various methods and processes to produce new sounds. His work combines elements of film, literature and popular culture which he uses to investigate the boundaries that divide and connect various media, their reception and our perception of them. A CD of his work, Nurse Shark, was released in September 2007 on the Peapod label.

G. Matthew Jenkins teaches poetry and writing at The University of Tulsa. His writing explores the visual form of language and the page as a unit of measure. He has worked with several visual artists, including painter Sheila Giolitti. Their collaborations appeared at the Old Dominion University Literary Festival and at the Hampton University Museum. Flash has become his latest poetic medium.

David Goldstein teaches creative writing and Renaissance literature at York University. He is the author of the poetry chapbook Been Raw Diction (Dusie), and his poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous journals, including The Paris Review, Jubilat, Typo, Pinstripe Fedora, Alice Blue Review, and Epoch.

Mindy Stricke is a photographer, artist and entrepreneur whose photographs have been exhibited throughout the US and Canada, most recently at the Safe-T Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Her portraits and other work have been featured in national and international publications including the New York Times, Time, Time Out New York, Newsweek, PDNedu and Voce. In 2008 her work will be seen in Click! Photography Changes Everything, an exhibit curated by the Smithsonian Photography Initiative.

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