POETRY first - The Heart of Baudelaire
This happens to me. Again and again...
My deepest apologies,
I was not that much present on my personal blog lately. Things became quite hectic but in a very stimulating way - meaning lots of things just happened without me intentionally planning and structuring my time. We call this - organic pace, where you just slide, or slip into a conversation with someone, that ends up wit a beer or a coffee, and which ends up with a project or some future plans. I think this is the way I prefer it. I just happened to contribute to few collaborative artistic works in Poland, Switzerland and online. I've been invited as a guest curator in one gallery in Barcelona! Was a great experience. And I got a pretty nice reward for myself in a poetry contest! I'm sharing a poem here with you. So Quebec is sending us a nice little track (with that female voice!): At the moment I'm working on my Master Thesis research, which means to me, quite different lifestyle: I do spend a lot of time in front of a screen, in silence and in doing what every payed researchers is suppose to do: dig and be productive about it. This time alone, actually works out fine for me. Some days I feel like a day is not enough, as the time passes too rapidly, and it seems like nothing substantial was done. Many things on my mind. I'm good at this - multi-thinking and multitasking. In company of some people I feel that this trait of mine gets even a sharper and more dominant. So days that I spend alone... I have time to rethink old ideas, digest new stuff. Re-listen to some music that was just sitting there and waiting for me to finish the crazy traveling thing. This Alva Noto, maybe not quote in sych with "Men I Trust", but I had to share it here! I love it! And I want to use it in one of my electronic/voice poetry pieces. Lend your ear to this, and take it as a peaceful time travel through unknown space.
Taking poetry. I'm sharing this very special work with you. To give some context for the “Playgrounds” poem, it is drawn on my impressions on the picture I’ve taken back in 2005. The scene depicts a frozen carousel. In Lithuania, where I’m originally from, the winter season might get very rough and cold. This was the case for the year 2005. That winter we have experienced massive amounts of snow, which later melted down, then froze, forming big chunks of ice on the terrain. The picture was taken, when the ice was melting down after some weeks after freezing. This landscape is something hardly imaginable for someone living in a big city, I suppose. For few months that year, the playground was made completely inaccessible.
I have found this picture on my hard drive only very recently, while going to visit my family back in Šilutė, Lithuania. This image brought back many childhood impressions and memories to me. It is rather unfortunate that the resolution of the image is so poor, but I am extremely happy to have kept it. This image acted as a trigger for reconstructions of my memories about my town and surroundings, that used to be familiar, but also the memories of sounds that surrounded me back then. I deeply believe, that silence, is very often a perfect condition, for new soundscapes be articulated and transformed into something new.
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always elsewhere, never hereModern men and women, do we still think of the future? Such untangible thing it seems to be - Fu-tu-re. Half of our memories are digitised and stored on the smart devices, clouds, and hard drives. As least half of our communication is virtual, mediated, remote. We can travel more, faster, quicker, cheaper and have fellows and followers from any corner of the planet. It's hard to imagine even the near future (lets say - 20 years from now), as there's no real pattern or thread to follow. Society, which runs for fast progress, fast fashion, fast food, and fast appreciation tends to leave it's traces all over the world. But who's gonna be here to collect our digital dusts and make sense of it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1976 Manfredo Tafuri "Cesi n'est pas une ville" Lotus International 13 Analysing Rene Magritte's series of drawings, Ceci n'est pas une pipe, Michel Foucault recognizes in them a sort of "calligramme" reversed on to itself to the point of self-destruction. The "calligramme" is apparently intended to delete the oppositions of our alphabetical tradition. It shows and it names, depicts and says, imitates and signifies, entices one's eyes and invites them to read. But in Magritte's drawing the writing in the calligramme rejects this game and reassumes its natural place. It is in fact set at the base of the composition: "là où il sert de support à l'image, où il la nomme, l'explique, la d'compose, l'insère dans la suite des textes et dans les pages du livre. Il redevient 'légende'. Le forme, elle, remonte à son ciel don’t la complicité des lettres avec l'espace l'avait fait un unstant descendre: libre de toute attache discursive, elle va flotter à nouveau dans son silence natif." The calligramme would appear to be intended to abolish the distance between languages and, with seemingly lucid intent, to recompose the differences between the different "ordres des discours", Magritie's drawing reveals the inherent utopia of this operation. ... (source: http://www.quondam.com) |
: Textualization as a source of New Aesthetics Is there a way of enlarging the spectrum of our feelings, of senses, of perceptions? Can we transcend our aesthetic standards? Can we see more beauty in the same museums, looking at the same old images? Environmental artist Nicole Dextras took a picture of the dress installation that she has created. The image shows a female garment, which was hanged outside completely frozen. By pouring water on the dress, Dextras has transformed it into ice sculpture (image 1). She took a piece of clothing into environment where is doesn’t belong, and made an extremely beautiful image. I was asked to write a poem, as a reflection or as a feedback for one site-specific installation/performance, created by a young artist. The experiences I’ve had after visiting the installation where hardly just words. I needed some visual data, but no photos were taken there. So finally I’ve chose Dextras photograph and manipulated it according to the experiences that I had. My approach to her photograph was as follow: by using simple software I choose a particular pixel in the given photo, I identify its colour, and make it the colour of the text I’m going to write on the image. Each time I write a poem line on the photograph in the colour of previously chosen pixel. The idea is to completely transform the image, i.e. textualize its visual information into visual poem (which was not done with Image 1). The technique could be compared to avant-gardist text games. The image and its visual information is the source for the iconoclastic transformation of the image and of the initial artist’s intention. I finally realized that this method could be used either to create a literary poem, or a visual one. The literary poem should satisfy reader’s need for opening up new ontological meanings (space, time for example), while the visual poem is all about introducing new aesthetic moments in our everyday perceptions. The more I related the text to the image and used it as source for the text, the more image and text became inseparable, related, developed inner correlation. The same technique was adapted to an abstract photograph of Vilde Rolfsen (see image 2). She studied the landscapes of a Plastic bag. While working on Rolfsen’s photograph, I created a poem, which is placed in the centre of the image. The poem is surrounded by its landscape: of concrete, colourful but meaningless letter combinations and signs. The idea was again, to use software, helping to identify a colour of one particular pixel in the photo, and textualize it, “translate” the colour into language. But this time my experience of the image was different. It felt more similar to impressionist way of structuring the painting on the canvas: de-constructing the original picture into smaller, recognizable pieces, in order, to introduce a new aesthetic nuance to the viewer’s perception. While using more similar colours, but meaningless or repetitive signs, I haven’t created any new ontological or conceptual meaning, no space or time dimension was added or modified. But aesthetically the picture was not distorted, since the extra layer was originated from the image itself. to be continued in the next post... |
: EarRoom in the perspectives of the visual
Just recently I found out about the existence of The Ear Room blog, which doesn't seem to be very active any more, but I like the concise content of feeds.
It's visually pleasant and inviting to benefit from generously shared inputs about the artist practices in the fields of experimental music, performing, sonic or somatic arts.
Most of the works EarRoom shares, do not have one particular label, constant. These phenomena/creations/objects are the outcome of many curious minds, discussing and sharing things together, and then trying to get things to practice, just to see what extra reality level artwork could open up. This is a very generic insight, of course. As the author of the blog suggests, for more comprehensive information you should check the artist's website right away.
What we would enjoy to share, is the pictures of Craig Colorusso sound box installation, which is at work once the Sun is out, providing the energy for the operations of PC boards with pre-recorded guitar note samples. The boxes form something similar to choral, artificial one, then compared to the natural landscape. Should be a nice feeling getting in front of the "robotic" orchestra conducted by sun.
:SoundsLikeNoise and it's effects
There are blogs, giving complete contrary effect of just a page, stalking interesting personal liking or preferences. There are blogs which became some kind of databases, or archives, enabling you finding the most amazing information next to each other, with good arguments or insights just in between.
Well structured and informative blogs are great to have at hand because you basically learn a lot. Let's take for instance SoundsLikeNoise blog.
The description of Artist residency in Moks, in Estonia, is just amazing. And I bet, even better information that one could find on the Moks website itself. I know that, since I've hear about Moks artist residency a lot of positive appreciations, and you know much more about places about the blogs who are "about", when from the direct sources. Well, at least it's the case for some.
I let the honour of discovering all to yourself.
Robotic Sunflower field, made for Burning Man by Stefano Corazza.
: Creating the Music for Museums
It's is pretty fascinating how museums take over the place of the concert hall, where you would normally go, sit back and listen to your favourite band or orchestra. What is great about Minimalist, Avant-garde, Fluxus and Contemporary Music retrospectives, presented in museum, is that this institution is the place, where the artworks are not supposed to be sold. Just preserved, presented, be available to public. Well, and or course, a little bit modified to be really accessible.
The Art of Listening
You have huge team or curators, their assistants and museum guides, who's job is to introduce you to the artworks, create a bridge between you and the piece that you're hearing or seeing, help you to perceive better/deeper/with more insights - be it a painting, be it an installation or performance. Very often, contemplative experience of the public is followed by discussion with the artists or curator. And on rare occasions, one really gets to discuss with one or another.
You might be lucky to catch a your favourite vocalist after the concert as well, but that's not where I'm heading. It's stimulating to hear what personal approaches and insights artists had after the same events : Artist Talks Online
: Reshaping the experience and getting more digital
Most of the time, events will be documented, and pod-casts, teasers, short video documentaries or artist talks can be found on-line afterwards. The experience of the artwork gains a way bigger picture than decade or few ago, when internet was still a science fiction. The events become more personal experiences of artist or curator, gives you the idea, that most of the artworks have their continuity, spacial and temporal.
One can get the idea about artist's personality, and to find out, that the works of someone that you really apprieciate, had different creative intentions from what you might have imagined (for ex. I had to experience this recently, then I went to an artist talk, and found out, that a certain F.H. actually likes selling his artworks and likes money a lot, AND that he shares this openly). One can as well break the image of an artist as someone very mystical, of someone who has a peculiar way of thinking, and lives in it's own reality.
I actually still believe that many people have this image of "artist".
: Approach it as you like
It's of course a pity, you can not resurrect such pioneers as Nam Jun Paik, John Cage, but you have the impression as if they are present in the room, since every possible media is at work and gives you audible, visual and gustatory pleasures. For instance, John Cages was well known for this fascination with mushroom. Maybe one on the curators made a step further and going to give it's visitors a little surprise treat?
You still can go and check the event of Music for Museums in London, White Chapel Gallery. As I said, you might go for Audio Interventions, Films or similar events.
But is there any differences between music created for institutions and between music only played at one?
: What if Arts and Science get blended?
Should we mingle disciplines? Combine methodologies? Treat scientific facts and theories with artistic desire and curiosity? Most of us would respond – yes, indeed – to the first two questions, and – probably- to the last one. The intention of combining Arts and Technologies might sound adventurous, ambitious and ambiguous, mainly of few following reasons. And we clearly see it happening on the everyday basis, we see technology, sciences and media as being creatively used.
The first serious issue arises when we try to predict the outcomes of this emerging practice and think how and why to contribute to its evolution. Are there any interesting outcomes that we could expect?
Ontologically, Arts and Sciences are operating in and speculating on different reality levels, but have a lot of points of interference. Combining them, their methodologies, would mean trying to satisfy the goals of each discipline and find a consensus, a right balance between both. This merging act traditionally marks the moment of birth of new discipline. And this is what we would Media Arts.
The dilemma rises once we try to analyse the different natures of these two approaches toward the construction of reality and culture. Technological mindset, computational machinery and similar apparatus are purely and all about productive performance, accomplishment, problem solving, efficiency etc… It’s based on the acquainted knowledge, facts, and precise logics. Ideally, there’s no space for error, otherwise, if it does not perform it’s task correctly, as Jon McKenzie (book “Perform of Else”) suggests, theory becomes outdated and rejected, an object, machine becomes obsolete, program unusable and useless.
Then machine or its process becomes an art object, different logic and canons apply to it. It’s a hard task to try to generalize all contemporary art practices in one sentence and chose one prevailing. But technology entering the dimension of arts constitutes the appearance of new art categories. Apparatus can only obey, calculate and blindly multiply, represent, transmit, generate or receive information. It’s strictly functional and instrumental and in this perspective, no human being could compete with a performativity of machine. Unless the creator is involved, who would transcend the mere action of mindless obedience.
: Do we need Media Artworks?
But let’s analyse the appearance of the autonomous para-poetic devise. Media artist Adam Parrish recently created a device automatically generating poetry. The old media artists, or simply traditional poets or writers probably wouldn’t even call the automatically generated and randomly rendered text to be uplifted to the status of “poetry”, simply, because the nature of “real” literature is not something that can be instrumentalized, functionalized, become more efficient, or even eternal (try how it works). But what could probably be important in this case is that similar artistic experiments allow us to explore and grasp the whole surrounding culture of the artwork in which is appears. I might make us think of possible configurations engaging old and new media and concepts related to them. It might reshape our understanding of the value of literature in media art context, or where raise a question of how and when it should be read. It might encourage the sense of loss for some, since a particular poem only appears once, and there’s no way to preserve it if it’s gone from the screen. All of these questions are raised while facing this tiny romantic device. All but one – is there a need for these artworks? Since the artwork is already there, the question could only serve as a provocation in discussion.
Most of the artistic innovations began from experiments with what artists had at hand at that moment (Jonas Mekas – video camera or notebook, Nam June Paik – video or TV, John Cage – music or silence). That’s where Umberto Eco’s idea, that works of art reflect the intellectual worldviews of their time, makes sense to us. The result of merging artistic and scientific disciplines might imply profound effects on the experience of nowadays culture and be a step-stone for its further transformation. It’s the reality we live in. We have all this scientific knowledge, technological innovations within our hands reach, why not push it further?
Helmut Draxler, who’s discussing the differences between media and artistic production, thinks that for art’s working methods, new technologies and media formats are important new realities. He separates though, the direct participation in technological and media routine (consumption) and successful creative use. According to him, artists role is to challenge technological conditions and seek for interaction. This approach is actually allowing the creation of synthesized narratives between Arts and Science, a constant dialogue, combination of knowledge, methodological and technological awareness and innovative human mind. We could call this narrative Media Arts Culture. And the development of this depends on the intellectual and creative energy focused on it. Since any culture has to be actuality and must be used by its user.
But will we read that poetry? How will we read it? And where lies the beauty of it?
“Our body
is not in space like things; it inhabits or haunts space. It applies itself to space like a hand to an instrument, and when we wish to move about we do not move the body as we move an object. We transport it without instruments as if by magic since it is ours and because through it we have direct access to space. For us the body is much more than an instrument or a means; it is our expression in the world, the visible form of our intentions.”
Maurice Merleau-Ponty
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