Dialogue pt 1
After all nothing exists in a vacuum and in any existential quest we would be fools to focus solely on ourself alone. We are always in relationship with.
Journal reflection - cape tin - chair tape - ink jam video step
I’ve been spending time in my studio again, experimenting with sound samples, tape machines and loopers. It’s been a long journey in my sound practice towards abstraction (despite my visual work being almost always so) but there is a liberation in letting learnt expectations of form and aesthetics go. From the structures of making ‘music’ towards an art of using sound as material. For me this has been about relinquishing the bonds to convention and resisting global capitalism by engaging in art to question my reality and existence and invite into my creative experience some sense of grounding and momentary connection. Of course there is a new aesthetics in its place, a different set of rules, but one that, for me, allows for more experimentation, improvisation and flow and this feels right to me in a world dominated by products and outcomes - human as product, human as consumer, planet as resource to fuel the consumer product codependency. Art, should bring us closer to the human condition, not fan the flames of greed and consumerism.
Prior to this particular session I watched a short video interview with artist John Baldessari, where he talked about his interest in playing with the relationship between two words or objects, how he never thinks about one thing on it’s own, instead he invites the association and plays, subverts and manipulates it to make new meaning.
'I have a hard time of looking at single things'
He highlights how meaning becomes so subjective in the realm of juxtaposition. A world of possibilities explodes (beyond any notion of a totality) when we think about how they/it relates to something else. After all nothing exists in a vacuum and in any existential quest we would be fools to focus solely on ourself alone. We are always in relationship with.
John Baldessari
In this experiment (in real time as I write) i am conceiving the meaning of this reference to Baldessari. How does sound draw from the visual to take its form? how does the visual infuse the sound? how does sound influence the visual? In other words, what is the relationship between these two materials? How can I juxtapose sound as Baldessari plays with image? How can I subtract from sound to articulate something more? (I’m sure John Cage would be helpful in thinking about this) Ultimately, for me this is about the sensory relationship between two distinct but interconnected practices, that of sound and image. How can I enhance this relationship?
If we take these ideas to be a form of dialogue, in that meaning is created by the interaction of two elements, beyond the sum of its separate parts, then it’s easy to jump from a material concept i.e. the juxtaposition between two images or two sounds, to the social or natural sphere and this is where I am motivated and find meaning. What can we learn about our shared existence from interacting with these materials artistically?
During a break, having posted a short version of this blog on Instagram) my algorithm presented me with this…
'We are internally related to everything not externally related. Consciousness is an internal relationship to the whole... we take in the whole and we act...whatever we have taken in determines basically what we are.... I don't think [consciousness] originates in time. I think it's a potential of the whole universe, that consciousness will arise between us all in participation rather than separately' David Bohm
A post shared by @neorebel7
In participation, not separately. As a collective, not an individual. So how can art help us to resist the effects of neoliberalism and the systematised indoctrination into individualisation that modern society paths for us? As Lola Olufemi says, neoliberal ideology has ‘individualised the ways we relate to one another.' (Feminism Interupted)
A skip jump now. Systems thinking is a method of understanding the relationship between parts in a system. It is a visual tool to make visible to interactions and relational dynamics between entities that rely on other parts to make its ‘whole’. I wonder how the capitalist and neoliberal roots infiltrate our sense of collectivism with dogmatic thought about a self-centric human existence, an intoxicating spell that never actually serves the self.
Gert Biesta's definition of art is as an ‘ongoing and never-ending exploration of the question what it means to exist as a human being, in the world and with the world, natural, material, and social' (Biesta, 2018). The idea that there is no 'answer' or destination, just stories and concepts morphing in our minds as we play with materials. This feels like a tonic in the traffic of external expectations. It emphasises the doing of art rather than the product of art.
Stay alert. Question everything.
Archive video from https://archive.org/ with my sound.