Sound and Social Practice Part 2

Something i forgot to mention: this term is coined through my conversations with the American media artist Kristin Lucas. i met her, when she was on residence with the ACC Gallery in Weimar while she was investigating "The Outside". Kristin took me on a little, mind expanding journey, for which i am very grateful.
Meeting Kristin (Foto taken by Kristin Lucas)

(more on her project can be found here: http://www.search4outside.com/doku.php?id=wiki:dokuwiki:about).

In our quite long conversations she made me aware of the fact that some aspects of my work actually relate to something that can be referred to as sound and social practice. that resonated in my mind and this is how these blog posts came about...

Sound and social practice. To me this sounds utterly fascinating. At least when I
let it ring in my brain. It sounds super fresh, doesn't it ? Maybe this has to do
with the way that the letter sound in this specific combination, but it just makes
an awful lot of sense when my inner voices pronounces it in my head...On the second thought i get to the point where I actually get interested enough to ask myself:
what does it actually mean ?

Here is a start. A humble attempt to share my practical thoughts on this subject, bearing in mind that my point of departure is listening as an art form. Listening as such can already be a social act in itself. When we get together we talk. We understand the talking through what ? Through listening of course. In order to understand properly, we have to listen properly.For that we, for once, take ourselves out of the picture and pay attention to the person who is talking to us. Quite nice, i think. We give attention and that in itself already is a social act to some extend. Now, I want to take this further. Much further, of course.

So last Friday i met up with a 71 Year old woman. She had written a poem on the neighbourhood she lives in. Now, she let me visit her in her home to record her reciting the poem for a project I am working on. So I was listening to her extensively. Even recording what she had composed in words. Keeping a record of her thoughts. I was lucky to meet her, because she allowed it to happen and so the fact, that i came to listen to her made us friends very quickly. And so I listened and learned. And so she talked and she learned.


(Foto taken by Alexandre Decoupigny, used by kind permission of both persons.. )

End of Part 2

Listening Art at documenta 12 in Kassel..

A special year for art, so they say.. Venice Biennale, Documenta 12,
Sculpture Projects in Münster.. I'm in Germany right now. The place for art this summer, since two of the three major art events happen to be in Germany. So this Monday i finally found my way to documenta 12 in Kassel on the look out for Art to listen to.. Let me say it right away.. there was not much at all !!!!!!
I was quite pleased though when i found out that a colleague of mine, Imogen Stidworthy actually had a room on her own.. I met Imogen last year a couple of times, when i was on a group show with her in Liverpool.. You should check her out, she does very important work. I love the humanity in her work the most about it.. The piece she was showing that i liked most carried the title "i hate".. it reminded me about the piece she was doing for the show we both were in, which was titled "get here"..Here is an image of me waving to Imogen while i am listening to her piece..
It is a 5.1 Surround Format, with speakers built into this U-Shaped wall.. We can listen to a person (I only remember one, could have been more as well..) trying to articulate the words "i hate". If we stay fixed at one point we quickly get the impression of being immersed into these different attempts and ways of articulating the phrase "I hate".. The sound quality is superior and the spatial quality of the piece areamazing.. I love this work, because to me it investigates into how language constitutes us as human beings.. how it is also a tool of liberation to express our internal emotional state.. and in return then highlights our aural perception as a tool to understand these essentially important messages and various pieces of information. Personally i think Imogen's Work is strongly influenced by her surrounding, which i believe to be the city of Liverpool.. She probably would not agree with me, since the work is totally capable to stand on its own. Still, after living in Liverpool from 2000 until 2005, i have to suppose that Liverpool as a place must have a profound impact on her work..

Then there was an interesting piece by Inigo Manglano-Ovalles called radio..it consists of a room covered in orange light and on the floor is a wooden object shaped after a stereo-type of a radio. There are two speaker that constantly transmit white noise like sound. I find it interesting in the sense, that it uses the medium radio for a very visual installation piece. Also the sound element seems ultra important, since without them the installation could easily fall into insignificance.. It is mainly a visual installation though and as such I do not consider it fully as a piece of listening art..

Having said this actually brings me to an interesting point.. why do i consider Imogen's Piece, (which also has a second part that builds on a video) more a piece of listening art than the piece by Inigo Manglano-Ovalles? I guess it must be our perception and what actually forms the basis of the work.. Inigo Manglano-Ovalles visualizes for me a radio moment.. the image clearly comes first.. whereas in Imogen's work I get the strong sense that her work is based on listening and actually being triggered by what she hers, rather than sees. This for me makes her work for me so much more interesting than Inigo Manglano-Ovalles.

This brings me to the last piece i find worth mentioning on this blog. Black chords plays lyrics by Saâdane Afif. 13 identical black guitars are hooked up to identical amps. All Guitars have a different tuning and are arranged in space. They are equipped with a technical addition that allows for the open tuning to be played mechanically as a chord. The mechanism is computer controlled and seems to be programmed in a random manner. This results in hearing a random series of different guitar chords in space. Visually this piece is very strong and it also is a beautiful idea. I personally would have loved to hear a lot more variety in the amp's set ups, but that is just a personal matter of taste. I love the combination of installation and musical composition although i have to say the space was poorly equipped for this piece. It is a straight forward piece, which is very beautiful and interesting although i am not sure about its depth. I would like to conclude that the metaphor and the language in this piece is also more of a visual
nature rather than a piece based on listening experience.

Apart from these pieces, I only found one more listening related piece, which i really did not like at all. I do not remember the title or the author. I apologize for this, but i think it is better this way. I have to add that out of six main location i only visited four: the Museum Fridericanum, the documenta Halle, the Aue Pavillion and the Neue Gallerie. So there could be a lot that i missed, but i saw enough to draw the conclusion, this artform is far from being understood as a valid contribution to the arts world and still has
a long, long way to go to be fully recognized. Let's do it !!!

Listening Art by Alexandre Decoupigny

Today I would like to tell about the progress i experienced since I started this blog..

I am currently working on three projects: 1.) Weimar West - (Un)erhört
2.) Forest II 3. ) Untitled - a collaboration with Live Artist Roger Hill..

Here are some more details about these individual projects:

1.) Weimar West - (Un)erhört: I am creating an Audio-Feature about a Neighbourhood in Weimar which is called Weimar-West.. I work with a
range of different groups and individuals creating a variety of contributions
all somehow related to listening to this neighbourhood..In addition we looked into broadcasting through collaborating with a commercial and an experimental radio station..
In the end there
will be a CD, which will be manufactured with a thick booklet. I feel a bit proud of this project, since I initiated it and made it all happen.. I think it is a wonderful
project, so email me about it, if you're interested.. also there is a German blog
about it, which is a sort of dairy: www.unerhoert.blogspot.com..






2. ) Forest II is a Multi-Media Artist Chris Ziegler. Chris is an associated artist with
the ZKM in Karlsruhe and currently develops Forest II Piece for the Art Festival in Weimar, called Pelerinages.. The main purpose of this project is to create a spatial, multimedia instrument for a group of composer, dancers and choreographer to create a performance
on from the 10th to the 12th of September in Weimar, Germany.
Since i don't find this that interesting I am lucky enough to assist Chris personally as well as developing the acoustic concept of a visitor based installation as well as the sound design and the patching of sound applications/programming for the visitor installation.
I just spent two days in Berlin in the famous Tesla Labs, setting up the installation
for technical rehearsals and also sketching some ideas. Very nice : )
Here are some images from the first experimental public installation in the city
of Dresden:





3.) Is just in the making.. more news later : )

I moved into a studio in Weimar West, which feels absolutely wonderful. It is amazing to have some space and place for your work.. I love it !!! It was given
to me because of the Project in Weimar West and as such I will also use it mainly for this purpose.. have a look :



That's it for now.. As you can see i have made some progress
since i started writing this blog.. Unfortunately i did not manage
to update this blog continuously, because i was quite busy
working or trying to get more work. This takes up a lot of time.
I did not know before how much really, so now that i am doing
it i can tell you it is an awful lot. . . On the contrary it might be nice to see now,
that actually there is development in my work and that since i started
writing this blog I actually managed to make a living full-time as a
freelance artist, which i think is superb. This, of course, brings us to
the next step.. what if you are starting to be successful in your field..
how do you maintain it ? ? how do you actually improve and keep it going.. ?
I feel this is the next step i have to learn. Cross your fingers if you like and hope the
best and that i am ready for it : ) I keep you posted ..

Thanks for listening, blog !