sethisrael

[sethisrael]

right/wrong/neither

I recommend listening to this song while reading; it helps me focus and it might help you too. :)

When I began our class in public art in sound and listening, my way of thinking was very much rooted in discernible outcomes and notions of success. This was largely a product of the environments I had existed in growing up: intense, competitive academic spaces, playing sports, going to a well-regarded college. Even in my first year at Brown, the notion of comparative success was pushed forth; I was denied entry to classes due to a comparatively worse portfolio, writing sample, or application. Not only were opportunities to learn limited, once in class, creative assignments I submitted were deemed poor in quality because they were not up to par with the level of the rest of the class or did not meet expectations of a rigid rubric imposed by the professor. I questioned why the system existed in the way that promoted uniformity and rewarded following rigid instructions over organic growth and learning.

Even at a place like Brown University where a liberal education is championed, I felt limited in my ability to make choices for myself, questioning my every decision and my place on campus. Why did every decision I made feel “wrong”? Why did I constantly feel like I was in the “wrong” place, doing the “wrong” things? It was around this time of self-doubt that we read Miwon Kwon’s “The Wrong Place” and Judith Halberstam’s The Queer Art of Failure. For a long time, it had been explained to me that the greatest growth and discovery was made when I failed, when things didn’t work out, but I was still resistant. Halberstam’s writing expressed a similar sentiment in a way that spoke to me greatly. As Halberstam explains in the introduction, “Failure preserves some of the wondrous anarchy of childhood and disturbs the supposedly clean boundaries between adults and children, winners and losers,” and later points out that “[failure] provides the opportunity to use these negative affects to poke holes in the toxic positivity of contemporary life” (Halberstam 3). Halberstam’s argument recognizes the importance of positivity but also the ability for negativity to shift our perspective and view things through a different or critical scope.

In a similar vane, Kwon’s writing recognizes that objective rights/wrongs are nonexistent, but our relationship to objects, beings, and places is what defines our sense of right and wrong: “The determination of right and wrong is never derived from an innate quality of the object in question, even if some moral absolutes might seem to preside over the object. Rather, right and wrong are qualities that an object has in relation to something outside itself… The more important point here is that it is we who are wrong for this kind of ‘new’ space” (Kwon 38-39). Kwon explains that ending up in the “wrong” place can often lead us to new discoveries about ourselves that we would miss if we follow rigid, “correct” paths. I really love one of her closing statements in the piece:

“Often we are comforted by the thought that a place is ours, that we belong to it, perhaps even come from it, and therefore are tied to it in some fundamental way. Such places (‘right’ places) are thought to reaffirms our sense of self, reflecting back to us an unthreatening picture of a grounded identity. This kind of continuous relationship between a place and a person is what is deemed lost, and needed in contemporary society. In contrast, the wrong place is generally thought of as a place where one fells one does not belong—unfamiliar, disorienting, destabilizing, even threatening. This kind of stressful relationship to a place is, in turn, though to be detrimental to a subject’s capacity to constitute a coherent sense of self and the world” (Kwon 42).

Kwon and Halberstam’s discussion of failure and place bring me to one of the first posts I made on our class soundblog, a podcast profiling the artist Emily A. Sprague, a founding member of the band Florist and an independent artists as well, working primarily in ambient music and creating with Eurorack modular synthesizers. Hailing from a rural community in the Catskill Mountains, Sprague explains how space has shaped her processes of creation: “Every studio I’ve ever had has been in the place that I’ve been living in… You learn from that, being in spaces that aren’t ‘Studio Bs’… You just learn to work with what you have” (Sound + Process). On her origins, Sprague later explains, “Community has always been something that I’ve known to be incredibly hard to find and also the best and most rewarding and inspiring thing that you can experience. I’m from a small town in a pretty rural area; I didn’t really find people until I was older than I really felt a part of a community with, with making music” (Sound + Process). Like Halberstam’s argument, Sprague has repeatedly tried and experimented with space and technique, creating new ways to approach modular synth and pushing the boundaries of genre. Like Kwon explains, Sprague has made new discoveries in her process of making through the space she’s in—not that place is right or wrong, but just that they are different, and produce a different result.

With her process of making rooted in modular synthesis, it is hard to deny Sprague’s precedents. On June 7th, 2017, Sprague made an Instagram post of a single book on a hardwood table: Daphne Oram’s An Individual Note of Music Sound, and Electronics. Daphne Oram, born in 1925 and passed away in 2003, was one of the central figures in the development of British experimental electronic music (Anomie Publishing). Oram declined a place at the Royal College of Music to become a music balancer at the BBC, and she went on to become the co-founder and first director of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (Anomie). Leaving the BBC in 1959 to pursue commercial work in television, advertising, film and theater, Oram also made her own music for recording and performance, continuing her personal research into sound technology. Sound technology was a passion Oram cultivated since her childhood in rural Wiltshire (Anomie). Eventually her home in Kent became an unorthodox studio and workshop, which she crafted on a minimal budget (Anomie). Additionally, Oram developed her pioneering equipment, sounds, and ideas at her home studio. A significant part of her personal research was the invention of a machine that offered a new form of sound synthesis – the Oramics machine (Anomie). Her biography further cements her as influential to contemporary electronic artists, with Oram’s contribution to electronic music receiving considerable attention from new generations of composers, sound engineers, musicians, musicologists and music lovers around the world (Anomie).

Like Wendy Carlos, Oram was a pioneer of synthesizer music and technology, definitively changing the ways her contemporaries approached synthesis, as well as generations for years to come. It seems as though Carlos, Oram, and Sprague are inextricably linked. As Carlos focuses intently on her studio in her website/primary form of external communication, it is evident that the artist considers her studio as a point of pride and importance (Wendy Carlos website). If Wendy Carlos’s studio is Persian rugs, felines, and the crackle of a fireplace on a frigid winter day and Oram’s is a quiet converted oasthouse, then Sprague’s studio is a surfboard leaned against a corner next to a human-sized floor plant as sun pours in through a skylight on a warm California morning (Kheshti). Like Kheshti’s relationship with Carlos, I feel connected to Sprague in a similar way. I do not mean to equate our relationships or interpolate myself in the discussion of electronic musicians, but I do find great joy in listening to electronic music and feel that it is an important part of my life, similar to the way Kheshti describes.

There is something extremely childlike, imaginative, and fantastical about home studios. They are places for experimentation and imagination, mostly unbounded by judgement or criticism, creating a place to take risks and make new discoveries. In many ways a home studio allows for a democratic education of sorts, a place where a creator can speak their own language and have internal dialogue, unrestricted by rigid constraints that may be imposed externally otherwise, and even explore the inherent fun in learning (hooks 43-44).

The ability for these artists to create in unexpected places and to push the boundaries of their genre and craft remind me of Fluxus artists like Yoko Ono or Alison Knowles. There is an ambiguity in place and correctness of a Fluxus score. They are not defined by doing things in a certain way or a certain place or for a certain outcome, but doing for the sake of doing, trying, experimenting, learning, and moving forward. I recently watched a film that referenced Yoko Ono’s “Ceiling Painting, Yes Painting” (1966), where the person interacting climbs a ladder to a magnifying glass in order to discern a tiny speck on the ceiling that reads “YES” (Guggenheim Bilbao). I think this piece is beautifully poetic in a number of ways, but specifically for its affirmation in discovery, and doing so in a playful, almost childlike and imaginative manner. On this note, I want to include some scores I wrote throughout the course of the semester for consideration, reflection, and response (dots indicate separate scores):

sit on a bench and be the last to break eye contact with a stranger • collect fallen leaves from the ground into a paper bag and deliver to someone • learn the language of a Tree and have a conversation • ask a loved one (or a complete stranger) to name a favorite song and listen to it in full • listen to your breath as you run up a steep hill and walk down slowly; listen to your breath as you walk up a steep hill and run down slowly • cut holes in an umbrella during a rainstorm and listen to the irony pour through • get a bicycle and ride across America • hold your palms and fingers gently over the tips of grass at dawn and wipe the dew across your cheeks • do nothing • sitting cross-legged on the floor, recount in detail to an audience (of any or no size) the most recent dream that you can remember • make a friend • look at the Atlantic Ocean; turn 180 degrees; walk; look at the Pacific Ocean • grab a cactus / smash a guitar • move fast so that wind becomes music

Through all these artists, authors, activists, and beyond, like Ono, Knowles, Carlos, Oram, Halberstam, Kwon, hooks, Kheshti, it is clear that approaching things not with notions of right or wrong, but with the intention of discovery, experimentation, and playful imagination is a valuable way of living. In the inscription to hook’s Teaching Community, the author quotes Paulo Freire: “It is imperative that we maintain hope even when the harshness of reality may suggest the opposite.” In many ways, these figures stand for just that: a rejection of the harshness of reality through creativity, experimentation, discovery, and a love for learning.

Bibliography

“Ceiling Painting, Yes Painting (1966).” Guggenheim Bilbao, http://yokoono.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/artworks/ceiling-painting-yes-painting.html.

“Daphne Oram – An Individual Note of Music, Sound and Electronics.” Anomie Publishing, Anomie Publishing and The Daphne Oram Trust.

“Emily Sprague: SOUND PROCESS #8.” SoundCloud, 2017, https://soundcloud.com/sound-and-process/es_ep8.

Halberstam, Judith. The Queer Art of Failure. Duke University Press, 2011.

Hooks, Bell. Teaching Community. Routledge, 2003.

Kheshti, Roshanak. Swithced-on Bach. Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.

Kwon, Miwon. “The Wrong Place.” Art Journal, vol. 59, no. 1, 2000, pp. 33–43. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/778080.

“Wendy Carlos.” Wendy Carlos, http://www.wendycarlos.com/.

[sethisrael]

Through writing this piece, I wanted to express my process of engaging with Wendy Carlos. The piece itself unfolded almost in real time as I research and parsed through Carlos’s website. I hope my thought process and perspective is expressed through the writing. I don’t know if it really makes a lot of sense; in many ways it is convoluted, as processing thoughts can often be. Hopefully the writing can negotiate the oscillation (to borrow from Babette) and synthesis (to borrow from Carlos and Kheshti) that occurred internally for me, through reading Kheshti’s work, looking through Carlos’s website, and our trips to the Dirt Palace and the Wedding Cake House. Thinking about how Wendy Carlos is impacting our class community and the Dirt Palace/Wedding Cake House communities is amazing. I was really excited to see Erik’s emailing describing how coming together at the Wedding Cake House on Tuesday was really invigorating for Xander and Pippi, and I think the same could be said of our class. That’s all the product of coming together over Wendy Carlos and appreciating her legacy and work. Regardless of how major media outlets who are capitalizing on sensationalism choose to tell Wendy Carlos’s story, I think it’s beautiful how communities can come together and intersect in a mutual appreciation of Carlos’s work. Echoing a sentiment expressed by Andrew on Wednesday night, the experience on Tuesday made me realize how grateful I am to be exposed to so many amazing communities and the opportunities we have to uplift each other.

[sethisrael]

forms of synthesis

I like to listen to music when I read, so I turned on the Wendy Carlos mixes while navigating the 33 ⅓  book, Timestamps documentation, and magazine article. I think there was a fitting synthesis that occurred while simultaneously reading the materials and listening to some of Carlos’s discography. Synthesis and simultaneity feel relevant when discussing the music of Wendy Carlos: the simultaneity (or lack thereof) of notes played on a synthesizer to form chords; the characteristic of her music to be both incredibly progressive but also wildly popular and commercially successful; her involvement in some of the biggest creative projects in the history of film and her total reclusively. It’s no wonder how influential her music was when it was released; it possesses qualities that still feel progressive in today’s musical environment. I’ve only recently become fascinated with electronic music, but getting to listen to just a small part of Carlos’s discography is such a beautiful experience. There’s so much diversity in the music, from the arrangements, to the uses of voice, to the layering. Carlos’s connection to the synthesizer and embodiment of the instrument is extremely powerful. While reading and listening, I thought about our discussion of canonization that arose during our visits to CMW. At one point, the notion of ownership over canonized music in a contemporary context was offered. With Carlos adapting classical Bach to her musical style and technique, I wonder how we would consider her decision to engage with canonized music.

How does one claim ownership over their achievements when their identity is subverted? How do we historicize sound? In what ways can we recognize the importance of artists whose identities are otherwise cast aside or marginalized? What expectation is there for artists to exist in the public domain?

[sethisrael]

For my project, I hoped to create an installation that was generative, but neither invasive nor abrasive. I hoped to create something that recognized the past and present, anticipating the future of one facet of the community (CMW) and the precedents that were set in the past without silencing experiences (sharing stories of community members). I thought of listening as an agent for dialogue, and the opportunity for diverse expression of voice—voices heard as they are, not necessarily remediated through text. Thinking about the idea of traces, pathways and networks, I hoped the proposal for the installation would reflect the new CMW space not as a new center that other people and communities would revolve around, but rather one node in a series of decentralized and distributed networks. I thought about CMW as a place for learning and growth that has the opportunity to inspire the same in other locations. Sebastian’s comment about “the heart” made me reflect on circulation and interconnectedness, and I hoped the installation proposal reflected CMW as an agent of circulation rather than a static central point. I thought installing a number of parabolic speakers in a room at CMW that played stories/experiences from CMW students and their families, as well as playing shared stories from community members would create an opportunity for generative dialogues. I hoped to include the shared stories as a way of resisting the idea of a static archive, and presenting the stories in an accessible format. I included speakers located outside the door as well as situated in an indoor room in an attempt to create a relationship between the indoor and outdoor space and to allow for the opportunity for CMW community members or local community members the option to engage with the installation from outside, inside, or both. I envisioned the parabolic speakers as nodes of circulation, anticipating listeners to congregate around speakers. Moreover, I hoped that movement from speaker to speaker would be non-linear and open; the free flow from speaker to speaker would be reflective of connections that CMW makes with and throughout the community and city.

[sethisrael]

structure of voice, structure of power

(11/10)

Two passages that stuck out to me in Weidman’s piece dealt with how voice is interpreted in larger socio-political and economic contexts. The first deals with how voice has been used historically as a means of separation: “One of the ways the subject of the European Enlightenment identified himself was by differentiating his language—rational language, purified of unnecessary associations and suited to expressing “universal” concepts—from the language of lower-class folk, which was mired in custom and superstition. Purifying language meant privileging referentiality over other functions of language, creating an opposition between content and form and privileging the former” (Weidman 234). The second one situates voice in a contemporary context: “Related to this is a sense of vocal practice as “speaking” to larger structures of power: hegemonic societal norms, oppressive political and economic situations, or comidified mass culture” (Weidman 237). Reading this, I couldn’t help but think about how voice functions in one of these structures of power (and probably the one I feel closest too, given that I participate in it), the system of higher education, which made me think back to the hooks’s piece on democratic education: “Whereas vernacular speech may seldom be used in the classroom by teachers it may be the preferred way to share knowledge in other settings. When educational settings become places that have as their central goal the teaching of bourgeois manners, vernacular speech and languages other than standard English are not valued. Indeed, they are blatantly devalued. While acknowledging the value of standard English the democratic educator also values diversity in language” (hooks 44-45). I think considering the ways in which we teach “voice,” both as a way to express our individual feelings and respond to what’s happening around us, is critical in preparing for blueprinting a plan for Community Music Works, which from my understanding, exists as a place of learning and development. hooks recognizes the value of expressing thoughts clearly, but both texts recognize the silencing that occurs when certain practices of voicing are valued over others.

How do we make space for voices to be expressed in untraditional ways/ways not accepted by the norm? What does it mean to have a “voice” as a member of the general public? How does that perception change with privilege? How does it change across context, between various political/social/economic circumstances?

[sethisrael]

learning is

(11/3)

As a college student, the divide between organic learning and systems of education that exist simultaneously but also in opposition with one another is something I’m constantly thinking about, so bell hooks’s chapter “Democratic Education” genuinely resonated with me. Defining a learning environment and the dynamic between educators and students are two parts of being enrolled in higher education that I think have gone off course in many cases, and I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that way. So many times at college it feels like systems are created that are centered around repetition, uniformity, “correctness,” and “success” that have nothing to do with personal and communal growth or learning in any way. The system of higher education that is currently in place is rooted in capitalistic values and power dynamics that oppress marginalized people and their access to learning opportunities. I don’t know if I could propose a solution to this problem, but I think the best way to start is to actively pursue and participate in learning opportunities that don’t operate under the controls of systems and instead focus on growth and learning. (Those opportunities absolutely exist, but I think they exist as a minority in the proportion of all learning opportunities.) I think both Rebecca Belmore’s Speaking to Their Mother and Francis Alÿs When Faith Moves Mountains are examples of experiences/opportunities like that. Belmore’s piece is rooted in practicing a respect for the natural world that allows each and every person life and a recognition of the destruction that has taken place by many who are not willing to take responsibility for it. At one point, Belmore explains the necessity “to calm down to sit on the ground to play in the dirt. As human beings, we have to slow down and think more clearly and take time. We’re running too fast and we don’t know how to walk through this mess. We want to run through this and we have to walk through, carefully.” To me, this is directly relevant to hooks’s writing, in that the systems of education we have are rooted in speed, efficiency, and consumption, while learning and growth happens on a slower timeline and can only occur through daily consistency. On that point, the idea of “maximum effort, minimal result,” one principle of When Faith Moves Mountains, is antithetical to the values that are upheld by the current education system. One of the men involved in the performance said in an interview “For me, art is any form of expression. That involves a social feeling.” I don’t think many people would recognize the location where they moved the dune as a learning environment or the people involved as students, but it seemed like the experience of the performance was truly valuable and important to those involved based on the interviews. The performance was an opportunity for expression, growth, and learning, all of which are vital, and was completed in a way that is totally opposite to how higher education understands learning.

How do we create opportunities for learning rather than participate in systems of education? How do we create space / time to “slow down,” to engage in experiences of “maximum effort, minimal result”?

[sethisrael]

When one enters the arena, sound becomes deafening. Popular music is blasted on monitors throughout the building, chopping pop music with rock and metal; the airhorn sound effect is occasionally interspersed. The crowd of nearly 5,000 swells in response to action on the floor. With boosted mics, the commentators preside, initiating crowd response and offering their own thoughts. The crowd falls to silence at the beginning of the opening ceremonies of the finals event. A woman is called forth for the Canadian anthem; next, a group of three women sing an indigenous anthem; finally, a different woman comes into the spotlight to perform the US national anthem. The first and third are met with meager applause. The middle performance of the native anthem is met with an uproarious response: fans come to their feet, expressing appreciation through ululation rather than the clapping of hands. When the competition begins, it’s easy to determine how a competitor is performing without even watching. When a young man holds onto the back of a bull for more than eight seconds, the volume of the crowd ascends; what seemed like the maximum volume is exceeded. When a cowgirl takes a dangerous spill off her horse, a collective gasp engenders anxiety for her safety; her exit from the arena floor is met with a trite remark from a commentator over the speaker system. The intense anger of an animal, typically a horse or bull, is denoted by the sharp slam of horns or a multi-ton body on metal gates, producing a nauseating crack. Individual conversations are lost. A father shouts to his two children a few seats away, but his voice can’t carry. People speak loudly into each other’s ears to transmit information. The champion of each event gives an interview immediately after their victory; faulty mic placement renders their responses inaudible. The noise feels like chaos; song and dance allow a moment of clarity. Individuals are silenced, lost in the arena overflowing with sound. Overwhelming noise can cause silence; quiet can open a space for voices.

This is a sound piece composed of recordings from the 2019 Indian National Finals Rodeo held at the South Point Equestrian Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. The soundscape was almost always overwhelmingly loud, but the moments of relative quiet allowed for introspection, clarity, and the presence of voices that cannot be heard below the noise. Rather than focus on the cacophony that prevented communication—thought it’s worth recognizing—the piece attempts to highlight moments of sound where voices—that may not be recognized otherwise—can express and be heard.

[sethisrael]

disrupting canonical narrative

(10/20)

On Sunday, two other students and I will be traveling to Las Vegas, NV for the first week of production of a documentary we are working on. The documentary follows the life of Sammy Jo Bird, a 27 year-old woman who lives on the Blackfeet reservation in Montana. Sammy makes a living as a cowgirl, riding and training horses, as well as selling her art, and she’s competing in the Indian National Finals Rodeo, the culminating event of her season, throughout the next week. We first got the idea to make the documentary when the film’s director, Matt, saw a wall at a motel in Billing, MT that was covered in images of Native horse and bull riders wearing traditional dress. Neither Matt nor I had heard of a story like Sammy’s when he first saw that wall, which is why we thought it was an important one to share. As a millennial, Native person, and artist, Sammy is a unique individual and faces unique challenges; moreover, she defies the traditional stereotypical characteristics of a “cowboy” as understood by popular culture for the past century and beyond. The stereotypical “John Wayne,” white, male cowboy is far from who Sammy is: she is a woman; she is a person of color; she is marginalized in many ways, but none of these things detract from the legitimacy of her experience. This is the reason we wanted to work with Sammy and tell her story: to share a narrative that would otherwise be silenced under the dominating, seemingly-monolithic culture surrounding horse riding. For the duration of the film’s production, I will be working as the sound recordist and assistant camera operator on the film. For my blueprint project, I hope to create a short audio-story that includes environmental sounds and Sammy’s voice. I plan on compositing audio stems that begin to tell the story of the week and also begin to share Sammy’s perspective. I hope that the story can reflect on the week’s experience and begin to spread recognition for Sammy’s story and the underrepresented perspectives that exist in the horse and bull riding communities, specifically of Native people.

[sethisrael]

empathy through storytelling and sound

(10/14)

At one point in Sending Out a Signal, Kara Walker said “When you have things that just exist, they sit there and disappear” (art21). I immediately felt a connection to this, as I was part of a research team that investigated the history and origins of a bell that existed on my high school campus. Ultimately we traced the bell back to Cuba and a plantation owner who was implicated in the founding of the school; the bell was used in relation to the lives of enslaved people. The bell is something thousands of people have walked by on campus, and whether strangers or enrolled students, few know the history of the bell. My personal experience and Walker’s sentiment makes me think of an idea of physical silence—although a physical structure can exist, if it is not recognized, it loses the ability to impact those around it. Moreover, Walker alluded to the viscerality that sound can have physically and spiritually. Referencing the sound of the calliope, Walker said “You feel it go right across you,” and she also explained that the calliope song makes her think of the idea of slave owners wistfulness about a time when they had intimacy with slaves and their bodies, which is deeply unsettling and disgusting to express in words. This notion leads into Hartman’s mitigation of exposing narratives that have the potential to recall extreme grief and pain. Like Hartman says, “And how does one tell impossible stories?” (Hartman 10). One thing I thought about in response to this question would be the process of telling a story, recognizing its gaps or places where the story is too painful to tell, and understanding why those gaps/places exist. One of the points that Gautier makes is relevant to the notion of exposing painful history, understanding the learning and exposition of history as a continual process rather than a singular instance: “Assisting a community through occasional interventions, such as an artistic workshop for example, is not the same as seeking a deeper transformation by changing the structures of discrimination as an everyday practice (Araujo and Grupo Musicultura 2010)” (Gautier 188). 

This raises the question of exposing atrocities of history—to what end do we do this? And for what purpose? How do we process the pain/grief of understanding stories in a way that recognizes historical events and moves us towards greater understanding/empathy? How do we tell stories like the ones Hartman tells in a way that contributes to growth/learning/understanding/empathy? How/where/when/why do we enable silence as a constructive tool? Where do we draw the line between silence and silencing? To the Alter Banhoff Video Walk: Why not just watch the video? Why be there?

[sethisrael]

Through my score, I hoped to make a respectful attempt at engaging with Cathedral Square through skateboarding. As I understand it, skateboarding is a practice often done in public, urban spaces and frequently involves a reimagining of the use of space that does not align with its intended use. Skateboarding is something I saw done in the square when we first visited—it felt like an activity that would not impose a sense of invasion on members of the adjacent community in an elitist or disrespectful regard. Additionally, skateboarding inherently involves a relationship with sound and tactility—I felt the rough, uneven surfaces of Cathedral Square, which contrast starkly with the square’s redevelopment planning, would allow for a varied, rich auditory documentation. Just because Cathedral Square is seen as an architectural “failure” doesn’t mean myself and others couldn’t engage with the space and make use of it for personal and communal growth, learning, and community engagement. During the performances, I noticed one person watching from their window and another passerby stopping to watch on their way through the square. I felt an acute presence, clarity, and groundedness in the space while performing, as well as a connection with the other performers, the participation of whom was made possible with a slight modification of the score. I can’t say how the performance itself was received from a third-party viewer, but although a little nervous myself, I ultimately felt comfortable performing in and engaging with the space. Despite Babette’s prediction (“I’m definitely going to fall”), Frances’s apprehension (“I’m scared”), and my personal and our collective doubt about performing in Cathedral Square, the experience felt like a positive engagement with the space that did not seem to disrespect the people or the space itself and hopefully will allow for future dialogue about ownership, respect, and use of public space.

[sethisrael]

two minutes — seth israel — september 27, 2019

[sethisrael]

place, objectivity, and capitalism

(9/22)

After reading Miwon Kwon’s piece on place this weekend, I thought back to our trip to the state house on Tuesday for the Mexican flag raising. I can say from my experience that arriving at the event, I felt out of place, and as I remember, other members of the class expressed similar sentiments. Kwon’s piece, in conjunction with Judith Halberstam’s piece on failure, connected deeply with me, as my constant doubt regarding being in the “right place” and doing the “right things,” such as what I felt on Tuesday, are issues that I deal with on a daily basis (even right now I’m questioning whether my writing and contribution to the sound blog are “right”). However, as time progressed at the State House on Tuesday, I began to feel more comfortable in the place I was. I forced myself to embrace feelings of discomfort, and instead open myself up to the new experience. When I cleared away the apprehension of being in a place that seemed foreign, I felt so much more open to the experience that was around me: people coming together to share in pride for their identities; displays of beautiful culture through song, dance and spoken word; the sun setting on a brisk fall night. I think the trip to the state house occurred serendipitously with my reading of these pieces: I experienced the sense of mitigating place, belonging, and “rightness” in real time on Tuesday (while in an ephemeral sense). I believe these anxieties are derived from the capitalist society we live in; the ideas of “success” and “rightness” as understood by the contemporary mainstream public ultimately ultimately boil down to capital accumulation from my perspective. Halberstam reconciled this idea with the notion that “failure” ultimately leads to deeper understanding and a different perspective in the world than “success” does; similarly, Kwon explained through DeLillo’s play how sometimes finding a “wrong” place leads us to a greater self-discovery than we could ever find in the “right” one. I believe both of these arguments to be true; while goal setting is important and achieving what we set out to do is valuable in its own respect, I feel that understanding life and art as ever-evolving processes is a more healthy, respectful approach to living and creating.

How do we reconcile art/sound art in a dominantly capitalistic world? Is sound art a resistance-driven byproduct of a capitalistic environment or is it a response offered as an alternative for mitigating the issues that come with capitalism?

[sethisrael]

reorienting and reconstructing

(9/15)

I was fascinated by the variety of approaches to and expressions through sound art that Christoph Cox outlined in his presentation and in all the material we have encountered in these first weeks of class. I probably would have described sound art as melodic or harmonic pieces presented to audiences in a relatively linear way before watching Cox’s presentation, but after witnessing various projects that he offered as examples, such as La Monte Young’s Dream House or Max Neuhaus’s LISTEN, I found that my perception of what sound art meant was totally reoriented. When describing Dream House, Cox noted that “some of his friends could spend hours there and some can’t even spend 15 seconds.” Later on, Cox described a piece of wind recording sound art and recognized “how much variety there could be” and the subsequent ability for a piece of sound art that seems unpalatable to be able to completely captivate an audience. While I’m honestly overwhelmed by how many questions were raised by the writing and videos, my greatest takeaways would likely stem from these two quotes: the variety of sound art and the multitudinous ways through which an audience can interact with a piece. I believe these vast opportunities for sound art, such as redefining what a performance or an audience is, stems from the creators working in sound art’s approach to dismantling the preexisting structures of art, politics, and social practices that exist in the name of exploration and self-discovery. Ouzounian’s writing and Cox’s presentation argued for sound art’s ability to be the means for defining or redefining a space, whether than be alerting an unaware public of what’s going on around them in their daily lives (LISTEN or Times Square) or creating a political or socially aware space out of something that might not be seen that way otherwise (Rebecca Belmore’s Ayumee-aawach Oomama-mowan Speaking to Their Mother).

In what ways were your understanding and definitions of sound art changed after encountering the material of the class so far?