Christopher Knowles
Typings (1974 - 1977)
New York City, USA : Vehicle Editions, 1979
[110 pp.], 28.6 x 25.8 cm., cloth
Edition of 500, unsigned and unnumbered copies
Typewriter poems, texts and drawings made when the poet/painter was between the ages of 14 and 18.
Diagnosed with possible brain damage (and often referred to as autistic), Knowles was discovered by Robert Wilson at the age of 13.
"In early 1973 a man ... gave me an audio tape ... I was fascinated. The tape was entitled "Emily Likes the TV". On it a young man's voice spoke continuously creating repetitions and variations on phrases about Emily watching the TV. I began to realize that the words flowed to a patterned rhythm whose logic was self-supporting. It was a piece coded much like music. Like a cantata or fugue it worked with conjugations of thoughts repeated in variations."
- Robert Wilson
Wilson cast the teenager Knowles in a number of his productions, including his best known collaboration with Philip Glass,
Einstein on the Beach, which contains some texts from this book.
