Factitiousness- Art is not the world of the suspended will (Schopenhauer), or of the disappearance of contingency (Sartre), but a space emptied of the factitious. It in no way clashes with authenticity (an absurd value where art is concerned) but replaces coherences, even phoney ones, with the illusory world of "truth". It is the bad lie that betrays the hack, whose at best touching sincerity inevitably ends up as a forked tongue.
-the sci-fi artist Nicolas Bourriaud, on art "lies" and "truth"

sound art podcast

some great sound recordings ...plate techtonics, cell division, electronic signals, dreams, cookies, chincillas ...

Reich, Trecartin

Reich-
I'd figure most others don't have this issue as bad as I do but most of the readings this year have been diffucult to get through (because of a combination of my low attention span, the conceptual and theoretical topics, and the tone the articles are written). However this was easy to fallow and engaging. Though I have never really been interested in music, writing music or the processes, I found this guy interesting. I could understand what sounds and feelings he was describing when talking about the loops and music running down the sides of his body through the headphones. I liked how he kept switching back and forth from absolutely no tech to a tech based song the next year. I understand after using a computer for too long you want a break, I have done the same thing several times.

Trecartin-
Wow, after reading what the article has to say about Trecartin I can see him now more than ever as an artist, as well as even more crazy. It seems to me that the art really is the creation of the videos, before they are filmed and are still on paper. Trecartin uses language as if it was the art material, splattering it in to stratigized shapes in what looks like to every one else as chaotic accidents. To me it seems like "its not he destination, but the journey" for Trecartin. But now that I think back to the first video we watched the Koreas did all speak in a way that if written out would look like “Yaw,,,,,,”, or “IT is not |You|,,, IT IS WE!” Trecartin is a artist/poet of modern times using what new media he has to work with. Though I'm not crazy about the videos I have seen, with explanation I appreciate them differently.

Response to Riech, DJ Spooky, and Trecarten

I like how both Riech and DJ Spooky's articles were suggesting and acknowledging the importance of everyday sounds, to the point that it is, in itself, music. You can talk to a person and have a certain phrase or word stick out to you, and it plays over and over in your head, which is where Riech comes in. I notice my surroundings and little sounds, but I don't think I ever thought of them as music. But to take these remembered words and loop them creates a flow, a rhythm, and therefore...music. DJ Spooky takes this concept further by using more than just words, but every single sound you hear. I thought it was interesting when he was talking about finding a "Blankness in flow," and how we will naturally put that blankness into context, despite its emptiness. I think its like the audible version of drawing a circle, but not all the way; your mind will connect the rest.

As for Ryan Trecarten...I just saw the picture when I opened it was instantly turned off. I cannot begin to explain how uncomfortable that video made me. However I see how this is still relevant to the other articles, in the sense that Trecarten has taken certain phrases and sounds, and then emphasized them. Also, this whole topic of audio/sound/music reminds me of the beginning of the song "counting bodies like sheep" by A Perfect Circle.

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Some other sound pieces to consider

Inigo Manglano-Ovalle - Sonambulo Blue





The Murder of Crows by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller



"This large installation, ‘The Murder of Crows’, continues Cardiff Miller’s explorations in creating sculptural and physical sound. Ninety-eight audio speakers are mounted around the space on stands, chairs and the wall creating a minimalist flocking of speakers. The structure of the piece tries to mirror that of the illogical but connected juxtapositions that we experience in the dream world. One soundscape moves into another with an electronic dreamscape composition shifting into sound effects such as factory noises, crashing waves or birds wings and then into a guitar and strings composition then into a choir sequence and marching band.

The title for the installation is ‘The Murder of Crows’, which means a grouping of crows. Sometimes when a crow dies, many other crows flock to the area around the dead bird and caw for over 24 hours, creating a ‘crow funeral’. The title also provides a thematic entry into the installation; a basis to create a work that becomes a metaphor for our political situation today.

Another central theme for the piece is Goya’s “Sleep of Reason Brings False Monsters” from the etching series "Los Caprichos.” In this particular one Goya shows a man asleep, his head resting on his folded arms. Owls and bats fly menacingly around his head; at his feet, a lynx sits motionless, alert and staring.

At the centre of our installation there is one physical element that echoes Goya’s etching, a small desk with a megaphone speaker lying on its side. Janet’s voice comes out of the speaker occasionally, telling a sequence of dreams. The sounds and music in Cardiff Miller’s work act like the owls and bats that envelope the sleeping man in Goya’s etching. Janet’s voice, like Goya’s dreamer is helpless to escape from her apocalyptic dreams."

Bill Viola - Room for St. John of the Cross



"In Room for St. John of the Cross, the rear wall of a dark gallery features jittery black-and-white video footage of snow-capped mountains accompanied by the cacophonous sound of wind. In the center of the gallery sits a small earth-covered structure containing a water-filled pitcher and a four-inch monitor displaying color video of a mountain. Peering inside the single window-like opening, one can hear a soft voice reciting the poetry of 16th-century Spanish mystic Juan de Yepes, who was imprisoned for nine months in a cell the size of the structure. Though he endured great suffering, St. John (as he was later canonized) wrote of the spiritual freedom he achieved through his love for God. Visitors to the work may experience it spatially, physically, emotionally, psychologically, or intellectually as part of a transformative process. "

Reponse to Steve Reich and In Through The Out Door

This is like the only thing that really got my attention and I was interested in reading. It was interested to read about his life with the technology especially music and the instruments he used to do for his tape loops. When I was reading this, I thought it seems like he was talking about you could make music with anything if you know how to do it well like the tape loops of the people voices.

I don't agree with DJ Spooky and i don't how civilization isolates all of us if it keeps us in A civilization and there is nature all around us. He may believe what he thinks but when he say We, don't think he has my opinion of what nature talk to us.

Death of the Author

What I took from this article is that the author is dead because after he is done writing it no longer matters what he believes about the he has written. To me, it’s like artist and there artwork. Once a piece is done, it’s no longer theirs. It’s now public domain for an audience to critique, explore or take what they want from it and analyze it in there own way. He writes, “Author is supposed to feed the book — that is, he pre-exists it, thinks, suffers, lives for it; he maintains with his work the same relation of antecedence a father maintains with his child.” Like a child that grows up and becomes his own person, art and books have the ability to grow and become something bigger than what they once were through captivation of and audience and how they receive the work. The question is do you as the artist/author care what the audience thinks and if so why?

Walter Benjamin –Work of art

The one thing that stood out the most in this article was when Walter Benjamin writes,  “Artistic production begins with figures in the service of magic. What is important for these figures is that they are present, not seen.” I agree with this statement in that, I personally don’t create my art to be judged by the masses but create it because it needs to be and because I can. It doesn’t need to be seen but only to exist because it’s something that has been done. Also a point to be made is that most people have not seen the actual Mona Lisa or the Sistine Chapel but can still appreciate the art through today’s technology. 

Sound Pieces

John Cage's Sonata No. 5 for Prepared Piano


John Cage's Indeterminacy (part 1 of 3)



Alvin Lucier's I am Sitting in a Room

A little mini doc on the art of Christian Marclay

Robert Hughes "The Shock of the New"

I thought this might be a relevant video: it's from Robert Hughes' "The Shock of The New" way back in the day, and he's criticizing modernism as a philosophy. Keep in mind when I embed this I'm playing in part devil's advocate because I think in a lot of ways Hughes is a miserable blubbering grouch, and his views on timelessness are (in my express opinion) stupid. Proof positive he's stuck in the mud is his more recent production for BBC4 "The New Shock of The New" whose title I think says everything about his thought process or rather, his thought sedentary stillness (after YEARS!). Still, he has a point here.

Roland Barthes and John Cage

With Death of the Author, Roland Barthes suggests that literature/writings contain a multidimensional space and that a limit is superimposed on that space when authorship is present. I agree with this statement and really enjoy the idea of divorcing the text from the author because the reader is no longer given a boundary, but instead is free to interpret and explore the multiple layers of a sentence or passage and it's illimitable multiple meanings. If we were to take a writing for it's author's definitive interpretation then we become forced to adhere to a singular viewpoint with no room for creative extension. We are bound to whatever the author wishes; "Author-God" is what Barthes refers to it as or rather a "tyranny": "... literature to be found in contemporary culture is tyrannically centered on the author, his person, his history, his tastes, his passions." Creativity is then stifled.

I think that John Cage understands this as well, although he refers to it as "Zen". One of the examples he gives of this phenomena is called Lecture on Nothing ( which consisted of him repeating the sentence: "If anyone is sleepy let him go to sleep.") It was literally a lecture of nothing. Even the Q&A section of it was constructed of previously prepared answers regardless of what was asked of him. But because it was the same rhythmic structure he had employed at the time in his musical compositions, he was able to create something of poetic substance. He himself said, "It is not poetry by reason of its content or ambiguity but by reason of its allowing musical elements (time, sound) to be introduced into the world of words. Thus, traditionally, information no matter how stuffy (e. g., the sutras and shastras of India) was transmitted in poetry." The audience is then free to interpret as they wish.

But how are these two readings relevant to our Media class? I mean, this isn't an English class after all. Well, I think both of these can be perfectly carried over when looking at a piece of art. Should we limit ourselves to the "Author-God"s interpretation of a piece? No! That is not to say that the author's meaning is invalid but rather allowing ourselves to create a broader view upon a subject. We should take the piece in it's entirety and examine every plane that it has to offer, whatever meaning it may hold to us. This sets us free from constraints and artistic restraints.

Or maybe it's just the postmodernist in me......

Paul thinks that Barthes is an idiot

Is it too childish to say "I don't get it"?

I know that might sound cliche, or trite, but the fact is I don't see how it is possible for the author to be extinct simply because his text exists to the reader. This seems like total pontification without reason. How can a text be without a source? Did the writing write itself from the vast sources of wisdom that solidified itself into a written work to be enjoyed by any random reader? No. The author is the voice, the text is the vehicle and the reader is the destination of the authors voice. If the author decides to remove his or her name from their written piece, they are still the source of the thoughts and intents that are put into print, even though they may wish otherwise. If the author is dead at the time of the reading, then the author is not extinct, but comes back alive to deliver the message that was once written. The text does not in anyway forgo the author, but in fact reincarnates the authors mind when the reader decides to become an audience for the words of the author.

I am not convinced that a writing comes from so many sources that identification of a single source is impossible. Even in a group writing, there are several unique voices that join to make the groups joined perspective understandable.

All these ideas and events that penetrate this world are impossible to be perceived by a single entity, and those who have the fortune of witnessing the same spectacle each have their own lens of understanding based on their unique history. This frames the individual as a vessel who holds a very unique perspective from every other person before or after them in the world. When this individual decides to share their views in writing, the writing itself may transcend the persons life, but it will never obliviate the author such as Barthes suggested.

Pipilotti Rist - Mutaflor

Because everyone needs more Pipilotti Rist in their lives....... enjoy.

Adoringly,

Monica

Leigh Bowery

I dont know if I am cluttering things up on the blog with all these videos, but I am just so thankful that my friend showed me this, it is just gold. I hope you like it my animal friends. Things are going great over here. I had a good day. I am probably going to go to bed early, love you guys

Clapping music - Steve Reich

I found this cool remix blog... http://kottke.org/tag/remix. This video was on it, I have been watching for a while, thought it may be useful. Love Alex, your class mate and friend.

Death of the Author

I find it a matter of pragmatism that authorship and a cult of the author, with its satellite critics, still exist today. Humans are living creatures and while the disembodied voice Roland Barthes describes is a dead thing, an artifact of communication that has come and gone and sacrificed its context and speaker in order to be read, exactly what selflessness are the "collective" entitled to, to waste a single second of this author's penning or breath by not furnishing him bread and water?

It seems to me that the quandry of the commune has never been more apparent than in Barthes' writing, in that other than artificial value that we ourselves determine, what is an individual worth but nothing who writes without limiting their text? The loss of context may be an important, enabling, and empowering phenomenon, but as anyone who has spent a moment on the internet knows that anonymity is not the gateway to a utopian discourse. Rather, it encourages stupidity, violence, and the suspension of reason, more often than not. When are those who work allowed to claim ownership and their right to benefit from their toils if we remove ownership through authorship?

That said, I don't want to advocate for either. I can see the full value of both sides of the argument and haven't squarely landed in either camp. I do know that it is worth considering, discussing and critiquing. I wrote this without knowing anything about Barthes' the man, and I didn't research him either. I felt that was the best credit that I could give to him to avoid that and write this.