Gallery Showing of "Religion" Sound Piece

This is a follow-up on the “Religion” sound-sculpture piece as described in the Dec 2, 2006 blog entry. This piece was submitted, and later accepted into the “Dada, Surrealism, Readymade & Found Object” show in Long Beach’s 2nd City Council Art Gallery. Above is a photo of the piece as it was situated in the Gallery. The juror for the show was Jon Meoli.

The Artist Statement, as submitted to the gallery, is as follows:
_________________________________________________________

"Mythological representations have been neither invented nor freely accepted. The products of a process independent of thought and will, they were, for the consciousness which underwent them, of an irrefutable and incontestable reality. Peoples and individuals are only the instruments of this process, which goes beyond their horizon and which they serve without understanding."
..... F.W.J. Schelling, “Introduction to Philosophy and Mythology”

Using Readymade and sound sculpture, “Religion” takes the familiar but subconscious mechanisms of consumer mythology/religion, tunes it, and reintroduces it to the audience in a more conscious mode of presentation. Sculpted into a new form, the audio clips of television commercials projected through shopping bags of red, white, and blue now invite conscious scrutiny: The stories that you believe in, the patterns in which you base your life, whose reality is it? And if it is yours, then who created it? Is it really real? And do you want any part of it?

"Amaselu"

This is a portrait of “Amaselu.” The image is mostly blurred because she absolutely did not want her likeness to be taken photographically. And I was glad she trusted me to shoot her in a blurred state. As a matter of fact, I like blurred imagery and was happy to have at least a few done this way. Also I’m trying to balance the black-and-white works (majority) with more color images--of which this is.

In my field work, Amaselu must be one of the very few with the hardest childhoods I have heard of. In addition to being a witness in her mother’s successful suicide attempt, her life after that traumatic event was unbelievably difficult. That she shared the details with me in a recorded interview was quite amazing to me. Currently she is a struggling painter (contemporary paintings with a good resume/record, MFA from a East Coast University) trying to make ends meet doing other work.

Production Discussion with Louise Lewis

(Above is a portrait of a homeless "Dancer" at a public music event.)

Louise Lewis is a faculty and curator of CSUN Art Gallery. She asked a interesting question when she saw some of my work and blog entries. Below is the question and subsequent reply:

>Does working on these images become
>more objective as they are
>completed, or do you maintain the
>potency of the emotion beyond the
>darkroom? (dumb question, but am
>struck by your directness and clarity
>in describing what you are doing).

Actually, I like the question. (Funny, I don't particularly like talking about my work, but I seem to like writing about it... Strange... I have to figure out why...?) I hope I'm reading the question correctly, but here's the answer: I think while working on the images (digitally compositing them, then gluing them) the work makes the process objective, less personal. But then I'm almost always surprised how the emotion comes back so strongly once the final piece comes together and is standing upright in my living room to dry.

Now to think of it, there seems to be three emotional stages to my work with each subject. The getting-to-know-the-subject part, which I feel is a very "social" interaction. Then, taking the photo is also part of that social interaction. Then the compositing and gluing part is mostly technical, imbued with little or no emotion. At this stage I'm thinking about tonal values, roughness of finish, surface treatment, etc. Then, finally, when the entire piece is done and I'm finished with the work... and the person's image is there staring back at me quietly, I feel the most emotional connection with the person. It is, as if in the silence of me looking at his image, and the silence of his image looking at me, we're connecting at a deeper "soul" level then even in person. This is really the time when I "integrate" my entire experience with the subject into my being, and then beyond even.

... When is it socially acceptable to look eye-to-eye with someone for such a sustained duration? Never. Looking at these portraits seem to allow that interaction--albeit not with the real person. This viewing interaction with his/her image really does have a visceral effect on me (and I hope on the viewers as well).

For the blog, I tend to focus on the technical points (is this the directness and clarity you sense?) mostly because I wonder if I might be betraying the subject by publishing my personal take on him/her? I know emotionally we can never be objective and non-judgmental, so I have avoided that area in the most part.

Lee

"Jaramiah"

This is a portrait of “Jaramiah.” Like Ed’s portrait below, this too is a darker image--not so much in the background, but in the figure itself. I darkened as much of the figure as I could, keeping the key areas light so the image still reads well.

Jaramiah is not homeless. He sells hair scarfs on the Venice Beach boardwalk. I want to include more people who are not homeless to the series, because the project is not about the homeless, it is about real people. It just so happens that I started out photographing and talking to the homeless because I felt they have more interesting lives; or, at least, lives that are more removed from my own experience. This photo also is printed in color; though the color saturation is highly muted.

Variations in "Ed" piece

Just finished the portrait of “Ed” above. It’s the only the second half-body piece I’ve done for the series. (Previous pieces all show the entire body either standing or seated.) As part of the “variability/variation” aspect of the series, I want to make a few more partial-body pieces. There was another change up in this image, and that is the background was made darker instead of the usual high-key white. Visually, I find myself in a darker mood lately; and if the mood stays with me, I’ll be making more dark pieces. That the concept of the series allows me to follow my mood, and not a randomly forced style/guideline, is the freedom I’ve been looking for in doing my art. The freedom is satisfying, and true to the creative nature of our being that is forever fluid and changing. Being at one with the change comes through in the art I believe; and I feel a lot of photographic work do not follow with this flow/variation. (Note also that the background is done in an abstract/cubist style; also another change-up.)

Bill Fontana

(above: Portrait of "Jon")

I had learned about Bill Fontana when I was beginning to play with sound in my art explorations. Fontana is a sound artist who works out of San Francisco. His thoughts on sound art published on his website had a great influence on how I now see sound in the realm of post-modern art. So I think I will reposit some of his ideas here as a record of the thoughts that have move me forward on the aural side of my art:

**********Bill Fontana quotes***********

My sound sculptures use the human and/or natural environment as a living source of musical information. I am assuming that at any given moment there will be something meaningful to hear and that music, in the sense of coherent sound patterns, is a process that is going on constantly. My methodology has been to create networks of simultaneous listening points that relay real time acoustic data to a common listening zone (sculpture site). Since 1976 I have called these works sound sculptures.

…The visual aspects of these environments (architecture, interior design, landscape design, urban design etc.) have long histories of being designed. The acoustic aspects of environment are in most cases not designed, and it is only very recently that the concept of sound design and soundscape have even existed.

… It is a general fact that most people in our Western culture find little meaning in their everyday experience of ambient sound. Sounds are normally considered meaningful when they are part of a semantic context such as speech and music. Most ambient sounds exist in a semantic void, where they are perceived as being noises. In addition to the semantic context in which meaningful sounds are experienced (music and speech), the physical context in which this semantic context is experienced is a crucial perceptual issue in the potential meaning of ambient sound… the physical contexts in which music is experienced are nearly always isolated from the physical contexts in which ambient sounds take place (concert halls, home stereos, walkmans etc).

… In my sound sculptures of the past 10 years, the relocation of ambient sounds to urban public spaces is a radical attempt to redefine the meaning of the acoustical context in which the sound sculpture is experienced. By comparison to musical situations, the use of these public spaces exposes the sound sculpture to many people who would normally never think about such aesthetic issues. This experimental redefinition of acoustical context is also a way to temporarily transform the concept of noise.

… If you think of the difference between looking at a movie with the sound track running or with the sound turned off you can best understand what the presence of this sound sculpture will be. Most people in modern cities tune out the sounds around them as noise, making the visual experience of the city like the movie without a sound track. Over time, individuals will gradually turn up the sound in their own acoustic perceptions of the city, so that the presence of this sound sculpture will be a sound bridge to an enhanced experience of city life.

**********more Bill Fontana***********

I began my artistic career as a composer. What really began to interest me was not so much the music that I could write, but the states of mind I would experience when I felt musical enough to compose. In those moments, when I became musical, all the sounds around me also became musical.

This kind of subjective musical transformation of wherever I happened to be was fascinating. The investigation and isolation of these experiences became my obsession. I began to carry a tape recorder wherever I went (the most interesting tape recorder at this time as a miniature Nagra), so that when the ambient sounds became musical, I could make a recording of them.

As these recordings accumulated, I began to wonder what it meant. Should I make concerts out of these recordings? Should I use these recordings as raw material with which to create studio compositions out of sound?

I began to regard recording a sound as an act in mental intensity equal to writing music, with some of these recordings having the real possibility of being accepted by me as a composition. But who would believe this?, composing by listening?

… Two recording experiences of this period had a seminal influence on my work. One was a recording I made in a tropical rain forest during a total eclipse of the sun (in 1976).

The total eclipse recording documented a unique moment that was a once in a lifetime experience in this environment (the next occurrence at this location will be 25 November, 2030 - a span of 54 years) . During the minutes just before the moment of totality (having a duration of 2 minutes), the acoustic protocol between birds, determining who sang at the different times of day became mixed up. All available species were singing at the same time during the minutes immediately proceeding totality, as the normal temporal clues given by light were obliterated by a rainforest suddenly filled with sparkling shadows. When totality suddenly brought total darkness, there was a deep silence.

This recording was seminal for my work because a total eclipse is always conceived of as being a visual experience, and such a compelling sonic result was indicative of how ignored the acoustic sensibility is in our normal experience of the world. From this moment on, my artistic mission consciously became the transformation and deconstruction of the visual with the aural.

This led me to not only become interested in the musicality and compositional wholeness of environmental sound, so that the act of listening and its extension through sound recording equaled music; but that the visual space that was sounding equaled sculpture and architecture.

**********end Bill Fontana***********

Arthur--Painter and Fortune Teller

This is a portrait of “Arthur” that I completed just two days ago (5x3 feet). Arthur is a homeless man who spends his time painting on wood and canvas. His pieces range from small (3x12 inches) to large (10x6 feet). His paintings are interesting, but I first got to know him when he had inherited an old set of tarot cards and was trying to make a few bucks telling fortune.

At the time, I wanted to learn how to read palms and tarot cards, so I thought I might learn a few things from him. I really don’t think he had much experience with tarot cards. The cards were just something he was given and he was mostly improvising with great sincerity. I didn’t learn anything useful but I did appreciate his effort and commitment in something he wasn’t well versed in. It was as if I were to pick up a deck of tarot and immediately set up a stall to tell fortune with no previous experience at all… Something I would never have the guts to do, and something I could never do a hundreth as well as he did. So I appreciated his flair and hustle.

Since that time, we have become friends. I have not interviewed him however. I just feel as if he’s the type of person who hides deep, personal feelings behind his jolly, cheerful exterior. I don’t feel like I’m at the point of being able to penetrate his facade. Perhaps one day I might… Then I will ask him to tell me his stories…