DEF*GABC*D and Loss of Signal?
Thought
Brain
Dendrites
Soma
Axon
Myelin Sheath
Oligodendrocyte
Myelin Sheath
Axon
Synapses
Dendrites
Soma
Axon
Myelin Sheath
Oligodendrocyte
Myelin Sheath
Axon
Synapses
Dendrites
Soma
Axon
Myelin Sheath
Oligodendrocyte
Myelin Sheath
Axon
Synapses
Dendrites
Soma
Axon
Myelin Sheath
Oligodendrocyte
Mylin Sheeth
Axooooooooooooooon
Synapses
Dendrites
Soma
Axon
Myelin Sheath
Oligodendrocyte
Myelin Sheath
Axon
Synapses
Body
Actiion…
…is where it begins.
Working across the Art/Science border externally articulating the brain/body internal communication system and the happenings when this breaks down causing lost and broken signals, misinterpretations and errors. The resulting manifestations can be completely random, contradictory and bizarre, and difficult to explain verbally. I have MS and experience this ‘lack of transmission/mis-communication’ daily in ordinary functionary tasks. I need to express this artistically as verbal description is just not enough. After an encounter with my work I want people to have a better understanding of the frustration; the miscommunication; the randomness. The aim of my work is to heighten an awareness of this bodily (mis)communication process.
For my sound piece I used the musicality of the Piano, repeating the scale of D major for six minutes before looping the sound. The work reveals how a simple repetitive and rehearsed process can malfunction. On first exposure DEF*GABC*D sounds quite monotonous, repetitive and hard to listen to. Richard Serra said about Steve Reich’s work ‘great composers need great listeners’ (http://www.stevereich.com/). This is a cerebral piece therefore the listener needs to give it time to hear the eccentricities, skips and mistakes working to articulate it through their subjective idiosyncrasies. The sound travels and permeates throughout the whole building subtlety. Getting into the psyche. Having no beginning, no middle or end, exactly when the piece is encountered is irrelevant and now it is heard wherever you are, the time spent with the piece is also immaterial-you do not enter a room listen and leave, the sound follows you around, you cannot escape…
In my second work, Loss of Signal? I wanted to bring the audience into a participatory engagement with my work in order for the audience to personally experience a bodily (mis)communication/failure like my own experiences. I made the work on a large scale to force whole body movement and coordination, while still keeping the sculptural element rudimentary and raw. The participant is required to navigate the length of the straight pipe with a hoop connected to an electric circuit. With each point of connection a buzzer goes off; the buzzer signals their failure to complete the task correctly or completely – leaving the obvious choice to try to repeat the task again in the hope of achieving it fully/correctly or to accept their own failure.
The two pieces complement each other working as inversions, reversal in focus from me to you, the participant.
American writer Rudulp Wurlitzer wrote a description for Philip Glass back in 1969 for the Anti-illusion: Procedures/Materials exhibition, which resonates with my work;
A length of sound that is not involved in beginning or ending…Duration becomes a function of attention, a focus, a physical act, a catalyst towards contemplating the present. The drama can be one of transcendence. Our drama. Our transcendence. The piece goes on. We participate in length, in the mechanics of chance, in our own distractions, which bring us toward or away from the line of notes. Emotions diminish or increase as the piece goes on. The objective content is never relinquished. The rhythm id endurance becomes a presence, a meditation, a location. We are free to come and go, within our own time. As we wish. There are no commands, no directions, no theoretical gestures. The journey is already over… The composer is not involved with pointing to himself (herself) or articulating his own emotions, his own psychology. The listener is free to deal with the experience directly. As he so chooses. While the piece goes on
Other influences include Steve Reich’s Piano Phase (1967) and Pendulum Music (1966) (remade by Conor Kelly in 2012) for their combination of simple, repetitive intense sound. The experiments between the Edmond Dewan and Alvin Lucier using EEG brain wave equipment and amplified brain waves to create Music for Solo Performer. Additionally Robert Morris’ 1971 Tate participatory exhibition Bodyspacemotionthings which was closed after four days deemed too dangerous and ‘Morris, now 78, said “It’s an opportunity for people to involve themselves with the work, become aware of their bodies, gravity, effort, fatigue, their bodies under different conditions…I want to provide a situation where people can become more aware of themselves and their own experiences rather than more aware of some version of my experience.”’ (http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/apr/06/tate-modern-bodyspacemotionthings-turbine-hall)