The Audiatur Festival was held in Bergen in October 2005, a festival of contemporary poetry arranged by a group of very knowledgeable and talented people, some of whom also work in publishing (H Press and Gasspedal). I was asked to collaborate with a poet, Lars Engebretsen, and chose to write the texts directly on the wall. We spent one day planning which texts to use. One day was used to write out the calligraphy, with a minimum amount of planning, and with very primitive materials: Wooden chunks covered in cloth, dipped in paint and ink. The walls were very slippery to write on, a lot of the paint and ink started running and dripping immediately, so Lars had to run after me while I wrote to stop the whole thing from looking like horror-movie lettering (or the Cramps logo, if you are into psychobilly music). And in between writing sessions the poeet was lying on the floor, having cut up his own book into small pieces, rearranging them on the floor as we went along. True cut-up, Burroughs would have approved. Lars showed great flexibility. The problem with this kind of thing is of course that the visual aspect may come to overshadow the actual poetry, so a balance has to be kept, in which the text is respected. The exhibition was to be removed after a week, so I lowered some of my ambitions about both letterform (particularly sharpness) and placement (it is mostly improvised). On top of everything there was another lettering project next to us, in the adjoining room: Four people were banging nails into the walls to create lettering with a real drop shadow effect. Thousands of nails. Hour after hour. It was a very nice experience, though. We calligraphers need to challenge ourselves, improvise. Sometimes perfection gets the better of us.