Work samples

  • Day One at the Airport Motel

    "Day One at the Airport Motel" is a narrative performance. Words and found-footage video by Dylan Kinnett and music by Ryan Snyder. With themes of Labor, Lapse, and Error, the story unfolds in the transient space near an airport, capturing the varied perspectives and fleeting realities of those passing through. It was performed live at Current Space's event Crosscurrence: Labor, Lapse and Error, Saturday, September 09 2022.

  • Weather Report from Jupiter

    abstract video poem by Dylan Kinnett

About Dylan

Dylan Kinnett is a writer and web developer who makes spoken word recordings and performances, a literary journal, electronic music, books, code projects, and photos. He has recently published short plays in "American Theatre in the Twenty-First Century." His recent performative works have appeared in Baltimore at Current Space, Cardinal, The Red Room, and Artscape.Dylan Kinnett holds a BA in Writing from Maryville College in Tennessee. 

Short Plays

What if playwriting took a cue from new media like tweets, memes, and shortform videos? I've been experimenting with that idea by writing what I call "short plays." These are similar to microfiction. They're concentrated, direct narratives. These short plays are shorter than a one-act play, often 10 or even 5 minutes long.

  • Party Planet (Video of Performance)

    My 10-minute play entitled “Party Planet” was performed by the Annex Theater as part of Artscape, on July 19-21, 2013. The play is a dark, farcical story about astronauts.

    This iteration of the Annex Theater’s 10-minute plays celebrated the short attention span with short plays presented by international and local writers and a host of local talent activating the street space all weekend. The Annex Theater constructed a three-tiered stage on the concourse outside of Baltimore's Penn Station, at the feet of the giant man/woman sculpture there. It was a great place to watch plays: on a stage and on the street at the same time.

  • Short Plays Staged Reading
    Short Plays Staged Reading

    The Cardinal space in Baltimore hosted an evening of one-act, five-minute, and even shorter plays, written by Dylan Kinnett. These were presented as a staged reading with actors Stephanie Barber, Peter M. Cardamone, Justin Sanders, Mike Shattuck, and David Young. The evening’s themes included morbid farce, executive intrigue, and other oddities.

  • American Theatre in the Twenty-First Century: Absurd, Symbolic & Poetic Short Plays (Future Publishing House Anthology)
    American Theatre in the Twenty-First Century: Absurd, Symbolic & Poetic Short Plays (Future Publishing House Anthology)

    Two short plays by Dylan Kinnett are published in American Theatre in the Twenty-First Century : “Party Planet”, a farcical, dark comedy about astronauts , and “The Piece of Real Estate at the Top of the Tallest Building on Earth”, a mouthful of a title set in a too-fast near-future.

    Available for Purchase

Lit Show

I host and director of Lit Show, a performance series combining late-night talk shows, music video television, and literary readings. The goal is to go beyond the traditional literary reading experience. There's nothing inherently wrong with that experience. However, in the 21st Century, there's more we can do: we discuss the work, combine it with media and performance, and, behind the scenes, we rehearse. (Rehearsal makes a colossal difference.) The variety show features language artists worldwide, with live and video performances, multimedia, and musical performances from a "house band." Lit Show began in 2017 as "Late Show," a live performance series in Baltimore. It was held variously at Sidebar, Jordan Faye Contemporary Gallery, and 14 Karat Cabaret. During the pandemic, it moved to YouTube.

  • Lit Show (Online Edition)

    What do you get when you cross a late night music video show with a literary reading? Lit Show! The variety show features language artists worldwide, with video performances, multimedia, and music.

  • Flyer
    Flyer

    Flyer for the November 18 2017 Late Show / Lit Show performance at 14 Karat Cabaret in Baltimore

  • Flyer for Lit Show performance at 14 Karat Cabaret
    Flyer for Lit Show performance at 14 Karat Cabaret

    Flyer for November 18 2017 performance event at 14 Karat Cabaret, Baltimore

Infinity's Kitchen

I am the founding editor of Infinity's Kitchen, a graphic literary journal of experimental and conceptual writing. Infinity's Kitchen is a print publication, web site, and performance series devoted to innovative forms of literature, made from new recipes, with compelling ingredients.

  • Infinity's Kitchen № 11

    An exploration of very short performances. For fiction writers, very short forms are called “microfiction”, or “nano-fiction.” For many of the works collected here, online, and in our Late Show reading series, the performance is also microscopic. The possibilities seem endless, but brief.

    Online Features:

    Available for Purchase
  • Infinity's Kitchen № 10

    Infinity’s Kitchen is an experimental literary journal. It explores a place for literature in a post-digital setting, publishing creative work resulting from new recipes or existing recipes compellingly redefined. We seek to experiment with the ways to make literature. Contributors in this issue: Jack Williams, Federico Federici, Marton Koppany, Anna Ciummo, Laura Ortiz, Daniel King, Bruno Neiva, Glen Armstrong, Sacha Archer, Zorica Petkoska Kalajdjieva, Ryan Snyder, Simon Wake, Joseph Young.
     

    Online Features

    Available for Purchase
  • Infinity's Kitchen № 6

    The sixth issue of Infinity's Kitchen contains poetry, short fiction, constrained writing, antonymic poetry, visual poetry, an essay about word squares, and a poem composed of redacted hip-hop lyrics, all from 13 international contributors in print and 26 international contributors online.

     

    Online Features

    Infectious 2009Henry Gwiazda

    Sonnet LVEmilio Bassail

    Skin-deep ScreensMaja Delak (movement, texts, laptop), Matija Ferlin (movement, texts), Luka Princic (laptop, video, programing), Maja Smrekar (video, lights)

    MemoryTore Terrasi

Second Land

As a member of the Second Land collective, my role could be best described as "lyricist," although I mix my words with sounds and recordings during our live, improvised performances. Second Land is an audio/visual collective. We are Luke H., Curt S., Dani S. , Dylan K. and Aaron L. Our latest recording is called Copycat Sessions.We use various acoustic and electronic devices to create improvisational performances.

  • Copycat Sessions
    Copycat Sessions

    Second Land performed improvisational and experimental live shows across the U.S.'s east coast which exhibited a perpetually changing mix of instrumentation and technique. Copycat Sessions is a collection of those shows, rehearsals and audio collages that come together as an unique & enjoyable lo-fi ambient jam experience. these tracks of theremin, flute, spoken words and guitars are riddled together in a sea of filters & slow delay, served on a creamy, warm cassette.

    Available for Purchase
  • Copycat Sessions

    in 2008/2009, Second Land performed improvisational and experimental live shows across the U.S.'s east coast which exhibited a perpetually changing mix of instrumentation and technique. Copycat Sessions is a collection of those shows, rehearsals and audio collages that come together as an unique & enjoyable lo-fi ambient jam experience. these tracks of theremin, flute, spoken words and guitars are riddled together in a sea of filters & slow delay, served on a creamy, warm cassette.

  • The Daily News
    "Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense." — Gertrude Stein This video was created using CrazyTalk Animator, one of its stock animation characters, and a still image from the Larry King Live television program. The audio was created with a text-to-speech reader and a handheld audio recorder. The text is excerpted from Gertrude Stein's 1933 self-published work entitled "A Long Gay Book."
  • Second Land album
    Second Land album

    We use a vast array of vintage tape machines, acoustic instruments and electronic devices to perform an improvisational live set. For example, my favorite instruments include a short wave radio and a slinky. I also add spoken word to the mix. Second Land’s first, eponymous album was released in 2009.

    Available for Purchase
  • District of Noise Volume 2
    District of Noise Volume 2

    My work with Second Land is featured in the compilation album, "District of Noice: Volume 2"

    Available for Purchase
  • Second Land at Artomatic
    Second Land at Artomatic

    I performed with Second Land at Artomatic in Washington DC

  • Second Land at Pyramid Atlantic
    Second Land at Pyramid Atlantic

    Performing with Second Land at Pyramid Atlantic in Washington DC, I combined spoken word routines with the sound of a short wave radio and a slinky connected to a contact microphone. It was a lot of fun!

  • 541482_593837827741_1210812817_n.jpg
    541482_593837827741_1210812817_n.jpg

    I performed with Second Land at the Sonic Circuits Festival of Experimental Music, Washington DC, 2009

  • Performing with Second Land at Artomatic
    Performing with Second Land at Artomatic
    This is a photo of me and other members of Second Land, during a performance at the Artomatic multimedia arts event held in Washington, D.C.

Portraits and Landscapes

Portraits and Landscapes is a chapbook of poems that consider people and places. The works about people are written with shorter lines, stacked together. The works about places have very long lines. The book is illustrated by Volodymyr Bilyk.

  • Portraits and Landscapes
    Available for Purchase
  • Interior Pages of Portraits and Landscapes
    Interior Pages of "Portraits and Landscapes"
    Available for Purchase

The Doppler Effect

“The Doppler Effect” is a short story that began as an experimental attempt to write prose without adjectives, an attempt which was only mostly successful. It’s a story about an urban fire. It’s a story about trust and the absence of trust. 

  • The Doppler Effect (Short Story)
    This short story began as an experimental attempt to avoid the use of all adjectives but one. The attempt was only mostly successful, but the resulting work of fiction takes its tone from that attempt. See if you can spot the critical adjective here.

Augury

voice recording with found sounds.
Published online at The Art of Everyone, with an editor's note:

In a brief introduction to his video published in Everyone Quarterly, Dylan Kinnett offered, “Augury began as a short story, written during stolen moments while waiting for the commuter light rail underneath Penn Station, Baltimore. I would like to thank Curt Seiss for the sound design.” It’s such an evocative video that we thought it would be interesting to hear a bit more about it, so Dylan provided this glimpse into his artistic process

  • Augury

    Augury began as a short story, written during stolen moments while waiting for the commuter light rail underneath Penn Station, Baltimore. I would like to thank Curt Seiss for the sound design.

Strange Punctuation

Editing recorded words is very much like editing written words. You can add, subtract, rearrange the sounds in very much the same way that you can on the page. With sound there are additional ways to edit. You can revise the speed, pitch, volume, echo and decay. This prompted me to title the album "Strange Punctuation."

  • Strange Punctuation (Cover)
    Strange Punctuation (Cover)

    This is the cover of the Strange Punctuation spoken word album.

    Available for Purchase
  • Cloud Check
    This recording was made in a studio, not in a bar. The poem was then "destroyed" by adding ambient noises and crowd heckling to make it sound as though it came from an open mic night. Such an environment has been the untimely death of many poets' poems, and this piece is poking fun at that.
  • Morning Exploded
    This is a mashup of a song about peace and a song about war, our national anthem, which was also written in Baltimore and is also a mashup of songs.
  • Thoughts on a Suitcase
    This poem contrasts the idea that "you can't take it with you when you go" with our tendency to take so many things with us when we travel.
  • You Can't Prop the Sun
    This poem was originally recorded as several poems and a few bits of random conversation. They were edited together, and sounds were added, to form what you hear.
  • At the Nuyorican Poets Cafe
    At the Nuyorican Poets Cafe
    I traveled to the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in NYC to test out some of these poems on an audience.

What's the Catch?

This is a work of spoken word performance art. I think of its script as a Fluxus score and of its performance as a “routine” in the manner of William S. Burroughs. A Fluxus score, like a musical score, is a sort of recipe for a performance, but is not a set of strict instructions. A Burroughs routine, like a vaudeville routine, is a spoken word piece that is theatrical and improvisational, changing with each performance.

I've performed this routine a few times before: first on the Ed Schrader Show, then as a featured performer at “Speak Your Piece” with the use of actual telephones, then in Knoxville, Tennessee, with a larger variety of telephones. With the August 2013 performance, I was able to actually ring the old phones and use an overhead projector for added imagery and atmosphere. The most recent performance of this piece was several times daily during Artscape, 2018.

My script calls for a single voice although it depicts multiple conversations. A slash mark “/“ indicates a shift from one telephone conversation to the next. These are snippets of a conversation that happen over and over again forever, each time with only slight variation.

There are two sides to the conversations here. The first: things that a telemarketer would say on the telephone, such as “you’re eligible to be entered into our fifty thousand dollar sweepstakes” and/or “how would you like to buy a subscription to TV Guide?”. The second: a series of responses, like “what’s the catch?” or “I can’t talk now, I’m busy” or “he isn’t here right now. Can I take a message?”

Instructions for the actor are simple:

Pick up a ringing telephone. Say part of the script.
Hang up the telephone.
Answer another ringing telephone. Say more.
Hang up, repeat as desired. Use varying speed and tone.

  • What's the Catch? (Video of Performance)
    This is a video of a performance of "What's the Catch?" at the Charm City Art Space, during the first Projection Speaker Series event on August 17, 2013. Performances in this series all make use of an overhead projector, as seen here. For this performance, the telephone ringing device was operated by Paul Mericle and the overhead projector by Francisco Esteban.
  • Detail Image of Telephones
    Detail Image of Telephones
    These are the telephones used in the performance. Many of them malfunction in various ways, but most of them will ring when they receive the correct electrical current. For the purposes of this piece, ringing is the only function the phones need to retain, which makes them easy to collect.
  • What's the Catch? (Photo of Performance)
    What's the Catch? (Photo of Performance)
    This is a photo from an earlier, featured performance of "What's the Catch" at Singer's Speak Your Piece night in Baltimore. This performance was much more fast-paced than the one depicted in the video.
  • What's the Catch? (Photo of Performance)
    What's the Catch? (Photo of Performance)
    This is a clearer image of the performance at Singer's.
  • Tele-Q Telephone Ring Voltage Generator
    Tele-Q Telephone Ring Voltage Generator
    This device (pictured from the back) is a Tele-Q Telephone Ring Voltage Generator that has been modified to ring up to 10 analogue telephones simultaneously, as opposed to the default 1. It runs on a standard 9-volt battery.
  • Tele-Q, modified
    Tele-Q, modified
    This is the inside of the modified device, showing the original device inside.

Litanies and Reiterations

A chapbook of short, formally experimental writings about repetition, ritual, frustration, and futility. These works are well-suited to reading aloud, for the way they sound.

  • Litanies and Reiterations

    Litanies and Reiterations is a chapbook of short, formally experimental works that address themes of iteration, reiteration, futility, and frustration.

    Available for Purchase
  • Cover of Litanies and Reiterations book
    Cover of Litanies and Reiterations book