Day (2) consists of mini-presentations of the lab participants and their work.
Shawn Greenlee came first, unfortunately I missed the first half of his complex presentation on converting image to sound. My own very limited understanding of the physics of sound and waves came in the way, and I had to ask poor Shawn to sit and explain to me in simple terminology what exactly happens.
Shawn describes his interest in acoustic, psycho-acoustic phenomenon where there the space contributes to how sound is shaped. At the same time he points out to how our perception influences what we hear. In an example I still fail to understand, and in which I think Shawn will have to explain himself, when two tones are played together within the same frequency, people will start to hear a "third tone", a differential tone, that does not real exists but is entirely perceptual.
Thinking in terms of process as Erin was talking the other day, it was hard to think of what Shawn does as a process resulting in a particular product. The two seem to be completely isolated. At one level there is the process, presented in the live performance, at another there seems to be the product, which can be a CD with edited material from the live performance.
How the process comes to being is through Shawn's life-drawing and where this transformed into a signal, distorted, then presented in the basic material of electronic music. Shawn gives an interesting summary of the history of converting image to sound. He outlines it in three stages:
- Transduction:
- Translation:
- Interpretation:
Tania posed an interesting question on the visualization of the technological process. A lot of musing on the gestures that Shawn does and that ultimately define the kind of sound that is coming out. Shawn was also trained in visual arts, so he relates the gesture to the image, and his body language is shaped/influenced by years of playing in Rock bands. The tracing of the movements seem to include many layers of history and practice.
Shawn explains "the system" as his instrument. And the visualization, is the visualization of his instrument, which is situational. Sometimes in contexts where the performance is small scale there is no need to project the visualization, other times in bigger scale performances, the setting does not allow everyone to follow through and projecting the visualization becomes an interesting option.
Shawn goes on to say that there is a hypnotic quality about the visualization that somehow guides the audiences' attention back to the performer in a way.
This might sound like a commercial but more information on Shawn and his work can be found on his website:
http://www.02909.com/greenlee/
And there is another link that I will post later where some of Shawn's work can be downloaded.
The next presentation was by Hooman Sharifi, from Impure Company. And the statement that stuck to my mind the most was "I like to look for the "Nos" before I get to the "Yes's".
Hooman works a lot with Persian motifs and music. And he presented several miniatures from what looked like Medieval Persian manuscripts of folktales and stories.
What interested Hooman was the flatness of the pictures, and the text that is prettily inscribed along the frame of the picture.
While the stories carried a dramatic and tragic content, the pictures were somehow controlled and refined to such an extent.
Hooman's next performance will be about these miniatures.
He also presented samples from Persian music he has been working with. And despite the fact that this is not the first time I listen to Persian music, I still have the same reaction. There is something immediate and crude about the music that suggests for me an unmodulated intensity.
Hooman than explained the compositional elements of the music, he can do this further, again my background in music does not qualify me to recap. I might not do it justice.
(so here is blank space for Hooman to elaborate!)
What Hooman was saying was, that the music is somehow compact and intense, and it has layers to it. Which one can dissect in a way. He describes his choreography as moving to the music not interpreting it. This might be the reason he works with non-Persians because the body-memory and emotionality might not be there versus the fact if he employs professional Persian dancers that would move with this history or responding to this emotionality.
The choreographic concept behind Hooman's work is quite interesting. He prefers using the term "flesh" rather than "body". He perceives the body as a sum of parts/organs that are not necessarily in harmony, rather in dialogue with each other. This state of disharmony or disconnected parts, trying to coexist seems to be the pivotal point for the kind of movement Hooman creates.
He does not believe that dancers should enjoy themselves. He believe that this "attitude" is what destroyed dance and created a state of self-indulgence.
In Hooman's process of artistic creation he prefers basic elements, no costumes, basic lighting, and nothing to indicate anything.
In his next piece Hooman will be working with animals. Again to highlight the structural elements of behavior and very solid dynamics that control and govern groups of animals. He is also interested in the different names assigned to different groups of animals (litter, school, pack, shoal, host,...etc) and how we can decipher meaning from them.
Hooman unfortunately did not have a documentation for his work, but I found this little clip on Myspace, I hope he is not offended by me posting it here!
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=32985594
The next presentation was by Tania Bruguera. In discussing her work Tania explained that to her the process of artistic creation is guided by two main time frames:
Short term project
Long term projects
While listening to her I felt that her work is very time sensitive, she describes it as conscious of the audience and the amount of attention they are willing to give, and that she anticipates. The conceptual work done is therefore linked to this temporality and capacity for engagement.
She uses a term I like very much, "social time". It opens possibilities in our own understanding of time and it what signifies for us and how we perceive it.
What I understood was that this temporality creates a dynamics of in/visibility. Where the work is visible within a particular time frame, after which it renders itself invisible in a way.
For long term projects Tania mentioned that the process becomes part of the concept for the piece she is doing. Long term pieces are problematic, because people re/act for what is already a preexisting notions.
In a very clear example of her work strategy Tania discussed a project for a Cuban artist (which she has to write the name herself, as I couldn't catch it), where she reproduced her work for almost ten years. Such long term project is aimed at changing something socially. And the end result was to let the work of this artist be acknowledged, and once it was, Tania stopped. She sums it up in a poignant sentence saying, "once the goal is achieved the piece dies".
Part of this is the position of the author. Or rather the dissolution of the author, as Tania calls it.
She thinks the work in terms of a narrative, a text-based paradigm in a way.
Tania gave other examples of her work. But what resonated the most for me, was she was saying about politicizing a moment, where people's behavior is brought into the spotlight and questioned. This destabilizing strategy tampers with notions of what is legitmate as an art practice, something Tania herself identifies with, through working in grey areas, of permissibility, illegality...etc.
The following presentation was of Eleonora, a project she was just fresh out of doing and was still "raw" as she describes it.
Eleonra lives in Rio di Janeiro, a very violent space she says. In a personal initiative to make peace with that space, Eleonora devised a series of actions to engage with this space and try to maybe understand, reconcilie, come to terms with the space..
The series consisted of seven actions, eight if it would have rained. The seven actions are:
1st
Eleonora brought two chairs from her kitchen and placed them in a public square in Rio, where she sat there holding a sign saying "we can talk about any subject".
2nd
Eleonora sat on a chair, with a table in front of her, in the same square and starts cutting the words in the Brazilian flag (order and progress) and to rearrange the letter to see what was hidden
3rd
Go with a brush and soap and clean a line in the same space. Using the brush and the substance to cross the square.
4th
To invite different artists for a massage in the public square.
5th
Read aloud. A classic Brazilian literature. A 19th Century author, whom again Eleonora has to write his name down as I find hard to follow up with all these names!
6th
Energize the place historically, by passing out pictures from different historical eras (16th-20th) and give it to the people.
7th
Stand in the square with two jars, one sliver the other clay and start pouring the water from one jar to the other till the water completely evaporates.
The actions were aimed at changing the regimes of presences, relations and an attempt to try to connect in more vibrant ways. Eleonora works with collapsing spheres and the tension between liminalities. She was trying to find different modes of communication, open a more receptive disposition and a less creative manipulation. She uses the word "permissive", trying to create a permissive environment where the ordinariness of everyday life is somehow juxtaposed with the extraordinary condition of the city.
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