Melting ears (on Cory Arcangel's two works)

The one I liked was this:


while the one that goes further is this:


Both are fragments of works by Cory Arcangel.
The difference between them is significant. The first one is a joke - it is a repetition, a trick played on the idea of reproduction or universality.
The other one too. But the other one moves towards something else. It provides us with the doubt as to what it should be like. I don't know Schoenberg's op. 11, 3. I might have heard it, but I'm not sure how it sounds. Yet it certainly doesn't sound like these cats. Or does it? What is it about Schoenberg that makes him sound like Schoenberg? And why do we need him to sound like Schoenberg? (Why do we call artists people who interpret in the most faithful way? And no, this is not a rhetorical question. What is it about repetition that still makes it move us aesthetically? And no, any form of the answer "the difference within the repetition" will not satisfy me as long as I keep putting the same piece on my mp3 player and enjoy it beause it is the same, and still appreciate its freshness, not its "difference".) The thing, here, is not just about the cats, it isn't the old elephant-making-oil-paintings trick. It is rather about other possibilities of listening, of paying attention, of defining what you hear. Can we hear the Schoenberg in the original cat videos? Can we hear Bach in the original music versions? The Bach composition, in that sense, says too much - it states a clear correspondence between the original YouTube videos and Bach's work. The second says less: it says "it is out there, but it's hard to say where exactly, and why exactly we would stop there". (And does it while being damn funny). And that's when our ears melt and reconsolidate, they become other ears, and other, and other. We are forced to listen to what might be there, and not what we think is there.
So why do I like the first video more? Maybe because I still enjoy what is there a lot.
Or because I'm not a fan of Schoeberg.

Blocked Keys

The etude by Gyorgy Ligeti I would like you to pay attention to is the second one. It starts at 2'15".
Here is what a competent source has to say about the work:

The third etude, "Touches bloquees" ("Blocked Keys"), uses the same technique that first appeared in "Selbstportrait," the second of the Three Pieces for Two Pianos. Certain keys are held down silently with one hand while the other hand plays a very fast chromatic line on and around the blocked keys, which of course do not sound. The result is a complicated rhythmic pattern that gives the music a somewhat mechanical quality. At first the silent gaps are all the duration of a single eighth, but eventually the gaps are two eighths, then three, and continue to increase in length until the texture becomes increasingly sparse. Again, this etude is about the creation of illusion; we see a continuous pattern of eighth notes on the page, but what results in performance are quirky rhythmic patterns that are not discernible to the eye and would be all but impossible to notate in a more traditional fashion to achieve the desired effect.

Actually, it wasn't so much about the listening for me. What put me in a state of awe was the seeing. It is the clear struggle between the hands, the tension between the immobile one and the one that runs crazily above it or under it. Also, the tension of the one that is supposed to stay immobile, simply blocking some keys, but cannot resist the opportunity and spurts out sounds now and again, as if to underline it has total power. And then they switch. And we hear it, we hear this body negiation, we hear it once we see it, once we understand the game, it becomes obvious.
The music becomes obvious. Because it's about music, right?
And the soldier-fingers, constantly attempting to design the space through movement. A movement whose purpose is not something else - like a sound - is a dance. If you ever needed proof, here is one.

Old-Time Avantgarde

Oh, and on a different note, here's a little bit of pre-mash-up mashing up, for your listening amusement, the one and only John Oswald:


It is a fascinating feeling, to realize that today's contemporary is tomorrow's retro, that no matter what, everything we wear, listen to, appreciate or create today will be looked at in just a few years with a paternizing, if not condescendent, smile. Timeless art? Pl-lease. The very feeling of them not being timeless, of being dated, is part of the pleasure of appreciating them. Age can work for the work, but it is still at work.

More Gentle Uncertainty

Video directed by Takafumi Tsuchiya (TAKCOM).

Another childish question inspired by a beautiful project

What is it that we like about simplicity? Is it not that it's close to us? It is attainable, like something that is nearly us. Or, to put it differently - an it that almost makes it into me. Thus, an imaginary community. Yes, if I dared, I would say simplicity gives us an imaginary community. A universe we don't need to adhere to, as it has already adhered to us.



The video, directed by Johannes Nyholm, is both a music video for Little Dragon, and a pilot of Nyholm's short film Dreams from The Woods.

Audience

Who is it for?
Oh, what a dreadful question.
How embarrassing, how belittling, how pitiful.

1: what is the music?
2: can't we think of circumstances where it doesn't matter?
3 (with some leftovers): but aren't we losing something essential here? Some mistery we break to put it all into the social gesture, as if art really could be effective, as if it ever were, but what does that mean, how do we measure it, but doesn't it become too close to being measurable?
4: can't it be enjoyable? Can't it be blatantly focused on the audience?

This, of course, does not mean it can't be personal. On the contrary, one could openly use this focus and transform it through the connection of the two sides, as in Dan Graham's Performer/Audience/Mirror. But this ever-sacriligeous focus on the audience need not be objectifying, or at least not so openly. Think of applying the concept to the personal, the intimate. What sort of audience are we then?






Part 2 etc

How close to us. Ever closer.
Until, say, we reach the peak, we go beyond the intimate, beyond the sapiens, we give the monkey a camera, dreamfuly believing this is what the monkey sees, dreamfuly hoping (with a tad of gentle self-irony) that this picture, taken by our object, of us, brings us closer, tells us something more about this subject, when in fact it once again brings us back to who we are, as an audience, an audience that acts.
(more pictures taken by Nonja can be found here)

The Splendorous Form of Noise

To see the following video you should enlarge it (double-click once playing).

The above is a compilation of works by the Swiss artist Zimoun.

1. Funny, one keeps telling oneself, enough of the minimal already, somehow feeling that less is a bore should be embraced, and the outrageously overflowing art of the recent years - appreciated and encouraged. And then, something like this appears, and it's irresistible. We've seen things from this universe before, also on this blog, and yet, the simplicity, yes, the damn purity takes over again.

2. I had a chance, recently, to visit several large factories. There were wonders there that could probably match most of the things on this video. Yet there was one thing they couldn't do: be useless. It's the sheer uselessness of it that gives it the power. We are not attached to anything but the thing. Art as the thing-that-cannot-be-used? Not necessarily, not in some purist sense. Great industrial design is to be cherished. And yet, there is a level of insanity here, of out-of-this-world-ness, that takes us to an exotic land, allowing for the silliest and most delicious connections to be made.

3. Luxury requires waste. A truly luxurious lifestyle is one where perfectly good things get wasted, as if to outplay their natural use and dying away. The true master of luxury seems to be saying her opulence is so great, the very perseverence of things is no match - they lose their original function and only exist to the extent they are participating in this out-of-this-world-ness of luxury.
You know what I'm aiming at? Here's the hypothesis:

4. This, this minimalist joyful pleasure-making, is the true luxury. Not the apparent richness of the new complexities. In the world of useless purity, everything only serves the joy of simple aesthetic pleasure. More complex works are not quite like that - they have an inner game to play. The elements enter a dialogue, start relations and societies, with their conflicts and functions and disruptions. Here, there is only the ping of a shot of pleasure. This engine moves nothing. It is here to make me smile (or bring inspiration, or scare) - and I turn it off as soon as I have. And don't be mistaken - if I had one of those and got bored with and could afford it, it would go to waste.

4a. Ah, you might say, but the truly great art is one we don't get bored with. Possibly. Yet how often do we actually go back to contemplate (not just think about or admire or analyze) a work of contemporary "minimalist" art? Does it mean it's because it's not that great? What if it's about something else? What if it is an element of luxury, a game we play with ourselves, to feel the exquisite taste of the sophisticated dish, and then to ditch it as soon as we're fed up? It wouldn't be a question of bluff, of fakeness, of shallowness. It would be a question of use. Of why we crave it, this new. Of how we make it useful after all.

David Foldvari, Wrestler

(via)

The Song Is You

It might seem innocent.

Yes, this is innocence. It is the purity of what happens when the postmodernisms and the camps and the sooavantgardes have made their statements and played their anti-tunes, and yet, we are still there, trying to listen in to that something special.

Call us romantic. Call us Those Who Couldn't Stand The Progress And Stepped Back.Retrograded, taking the easy way out, exploring the (music's, world's, history's) feedback.

Yet feedback is not the sound that comes back to its source. It is not the echo. It is the echo used as an input.
Thus, what you call feedback is the mere beginning, the source material of the process of creation. As the world comes back crumbling to the imperfection of our ever-childish senses, our feeble gestures, breaking through our inherited self-irony, make things possible. Better, they give us back the light.


Too light? Too naive?
Would you prefer this?


The Gospel was right: The meek shall inherit the Earth. Actually, they've inherited it already. Along with the self-irony, they took what was most precious, and what many deemed lost - the damn aura. Yes, the damn aura still shining and glowing through all the mechanical reproductions. We still want their bloody flesh, we still want to know this is where it's at, right here, between the stage and you, between the song and you.

x x x
All this crossed my mind when watching the brilliant The Song Is You festival at Powiększenie in Warsaw recently.
The song that stayed with me the most was simple.
Here it is:

Do you get it? Beyond the gorgeous lyrics, can you feel how it was, listening to it in the club basement, with the grand piano behind Momus, the lights, the weekend dying away? Or can you imagine it? How different is the song you hear from mine?
More on the festival here. Don't miss tonight (12.03), the last part of the festival, with Kyst and AU.

Kyst

In A Sentimental Mood

Sonnet 44
If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way;
For then despite of space I would be brought,
From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.
No matter then although my foot did stand
Upon the farthest earth removed from thee;
For nimble thought can jump both sea and land
As soon as think the place where he would be.
But, ah, thought kills me that I am not thought,
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that, so much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend time's leisure with my moan,
Receiving nought by elements so slow,
But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.

(Shakespeare)

One more thing: The bone in the film is a wishbone:

The wishbone, known in anatomy as the furcula, is a sternum bone found in birds which is shaped like the letter Y. It is used as an attachment point for the wing muscles. It is so named because of a tradition: Two people pull on each side of such a bone, and when it breaks, the one who gets the larger part is said to have a wish granted.

The mechanical sculpture in the film is by Arthur Ganson. Some of his stuff is really awe-inspiring. Check this Machine with Artichoke Petal #2



Of course, it may bring to mind other art machines (Rebecca Horn, but also manyothers), but what I really appreciate here is the simplicity. Modest art is something to be cherished. It also reminds me of some of the musical experiences by the Portuguese musician Nuno Rebelo:


Even the really simple ones are really something: Machine with Chinese Fan


Is it kitsch? I don't care.
(via)

A moment to cherish, although you're not there

(thanks Maria!)

Moebius Bach

Cheerup

Bibi Tanga.

Party

You know I don't usually do this. But this party - Like the Virgins, at Chłodna25 - was a work of art in its own right.
Imagine a Madonna-tribute event gone haywire. Gone insane. Gone absolutely wild, illogical, ending up deep into the night somewhere between Abba, death metal and improvised Polish hip-hop. With a stage that is only a stage as far as you want it to be one, with musicians changing all the time, most singers not knowing most of the lyrics, but making it somehow seem perfectly logical, and blasting our way into the night. Imagine a stage progressively invaded by members of the audience, imagine not being sure if you're still part of the audience, or the fact that you're singing your guts out with one foot on the stage and one of the several microphones extended towards you every once in a while make you part of the band already. Oh, that's right: we're all part of the band. And surprizingly enough (not so much if you realize how amazing were the musicians involved), it was the best thing that could ever have happened to the concept of tributes.
The pics were stolen from here.

Of Light Dreams and Dark

Oren Lavie - Her Morning Elegance (2007)
Upload by: IgnitionVM

Jerzy Kucia, The Ring (1978)

Twisting and turning (with a little help from electricity)

Daito Manabe is a funny guy.

But he also knows his business. This is no accidental work, as Manabe is a serious artist and very serious programmer. While looking through his work, I came across a video fragment of a stunning performance where he was in charge of programming (more specifically, of "sound/oscillation/programming"), a work called true, directed by dumb type's Takayuki Fujimoto. And, as expected from the co-creator of one of the most outstanding multimedia performance groups ever, this is... well, prepare to be amazed.




(via)

...and all this time is so far away...

Okay. This is not an easy moment. All this attention is getting me nervous, and I feel like everything I write is being observed... After all, this has all along been about a private journey into the realm of some contemporary art.
So, just to make sure it is still a blog, let me tell you a story.
Once upon a time, I was an addict of skiing. I trained and I raced (without too much of a success) and I even got to spend some time with the Polish Ski Team. My first encounter with them was in a hotel in the French village of Les Deux Alpes. I entered the hotel room, and there they were, Poland's finest skiers. Most of them were concentrated on a Playstation game of Formula 1, with its volume set to maximum level. The rest of the young sportsmen were watching TV - it was a formula 1 race, and its noise was competing with the game. Everyone was completely mesmerized by the two screens. It took me at least a minute to realize there was someone else in the room, though. It was Andrzej Bachleda, by far Poland's best skier, who has lived most of his life in France, and whom I considered a strange guy - not very talkative, some sort of an odd case... In the midst of the overwhelming noise, the man was sitting on the bed, tucked into a corner, and reading Hemingway.
Well, this man has also come a long way since that moment. He has recently put out another album. Here is one song. (Besides the charming music, do appreciate the Polish mountains in the background).

Beirut Melancholy

BEIRUT -Cliquot - From the FLYING CLUB CUP

Of course, of course, no art is ever new. Of course, of course, there is more beauty behind us than we will ever see. Of course, nothing can ever compete with harmony. Yet of course, harmony seems never enough.
Of course, there is a time for mourning, and yet of course, the harmony in the mourning chant outcries the cry.

found here

How dare we make art?

After World War 2, Karl Jaspers wrote a by now classic text about guilt, The Question of German Guilt. In his taxonomy, one of the categories of guilt is the "metaphysical guilt", which could be explained as the guilt for not sacrificing ourselves to help others. That is, living our lives and not doing everything we can to make a difference.
The question is, how far can we go? Shouldn't we abandon all forms of art (and entertainment), then, if we are to concentrate all efforts on saving the world? Is there an actual possibility that it would change something?
Of course, that sounds rather extreme. (And that's why Jaspers considers this a metaphysical guilt, shared by everyone and beyond the possibility of making it disappear in any way but through self-sacrifice). But somewhere here lie very difficult issues: why should one spend my time making quite self-centered installations when one could be working in an effective, world-changing organization? Should art be justifiable, like any other product, service, activity?
It isn't about art giving the possibility to do more. Because quite frankly the above video is an exception, and works exactly because it is one. Maybe, it is about the possibility of assuming uselessness?
Beauty is a great motivator. Indeed. (In João Fiadeiro's most recent performance (soon more about that), a sentence from Deleuze (roughly remembered by me): «I started reading Leibniz's Ethics. I am discovering that joy brings more power to act»)
But can we honestly say we make art, and see art, to motivate us? Isn't it a goal in itself? And if so, can't we spend our energy in a better way? How dare we make art?

Remixing stuffed birds

Pour les dents d'un blanc éclatant e saines (meaning: for teeth that are shining white and healthy) is an installation by Jeroen Diepenmaat. In it, stuffed birds play records by putting their bill into the groove. One of the impressive things about it is that it's not one of those suggestive works that actually only work as a symbol. It works! On his site you can listen to the sound this and other installations make, or you can choose to chill out to some collaborative re-mixing he's been making. All his works seem to be evolving around vinyl and old cars, and often include interesting ways of callaborating with others (artist, students, groups of unsuspecting passers-by...). Speaking of vinyl, it's impressive how old-style vinyl lovers keep reinventing themselves. Is there anything better for creativity than apparently disqalifying limits? Could this be a difference between the amateur and the professional? The amateur doesn't need limits to his areas of investigation...
(via)

Technorati: art installation, performance, performance art, visual art, installation, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Toy Piano - why is Margaret Leng Tan so fascinating?

The European Mezzo TV channel tells you everything about "culture" you need to know:
1. It is a ridiculously small milieu. Just look at their site. It is not much more developed than your average friendly grocer's home page.
2. It is snobbish. Ubearably snobbish. It does not intend to introduce art to new audiences, it does not intend to render the experience of art more... well, more anything than it already is. You need to get it, to get it. Just look at their site. The few introductions to future programs are ridiculously small, superficial and badly translated ("she inflames the audience"....).
3. It has no money. Just look at the site.
4. It seems not to care. It makes no effort to be user-friendly (the TV program on the site is in Excel, for the love of God!).
5. From time to time, it brings you the most delicious moments you could ever have hoped for.


Margaret Leng Tan's recital was such an enlightening moment. Leng Tan plays the piano. She comes out of the vein of John Cage. And moves forward. How can you move forward after Cage? Are we not stuck, as after any serious avant-garde artist? It might almost seem a permanent paradox: the true revolutionaries leave little space for their students. But if you look carefuly enough, there is plenty of room for others. And so, Leng Tan, after playing around with several of Cage's games (she is a Julliard graduate, so that meant mainly prepared pianos and such), tried the toy piano.
Today, she is considered the magician of the toy piano. Moving consequently into the exploration of the "toy sound", she established herself as a real master.
But Lang Tan is not my main interest here. What I found curious about what I saw was that the sound of the toy piano is so fascinating. Is it because it's a toy? Because it's so "simple", "naive"? Because it wanders around the frequencies, often destroying the "natural harmony" completely?And if so, what is it about this that attracts us? Maybe, and this is just a hypothesis, it's because this childlike simplicity is a relief. We can step down from the pedestal and actually enjoy it, without necessarily appreciating it as the scholarly art amateurs we are does. The playfulness is nearly destructive, it almost breaks the whole illusion of art, but then, not quite. It maintains the charm, the power, and yes, the beauty, while allowing us to move away. Only what sort of movement is it? Is it really the creation of distance? I would say it is rather assuming a distance, taking it as a starting point, which allows to be as close as we wish, making up our own rules, our private relation to the piece, uncontaminated by the judgement of style, technique, interpretation. That does not mean all of these elements do not play a role - they do. But we are happy to stop judging it, to put ourselves into the oblivion of spectatorship.
This became clear when Lang Tan played a very well known piece, Mozart's Turkish March, and I started listening to the interpretation, the technical aspects, the mistakes, and it wasn't as appealing. What I really needed was something simpler, easier maybe, but more immediate, more bare, less dressed up in the fancy clothes of "culture".
This brings me to another point, which could be developed: aren't the minimalist works - that have been appearing in the last couple of decades in various art fields - this type of search for a bare art? An art that, beyond the discussion of "hi" and "low", starts with an "a-b" that allows us to enter easier, to travel further, and to feel more at ease, just as if this were a simple toy, that by some chance (which, as Cage knew well, has little to do with chance, although it can spur from coincidence), by some chance becomes this: good.

Listen to Margaret Leng Tan here and here. I must admit, though, that these aren't the works that impressed me most.