marielangleyblog

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private view performance

talking about the private view yesterday made me feel a lot better and more resolved about showing a final piece. Instead of focusing my energies on the static piece, I am suddenly really energized about the performance. 

working with time based media means static works holds little interest to me. I feel a renewal of energy, for the idea of a performance.  Moments like these remind me what area of art I truly love.

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how do I move my audience away from the idea of final finished pieces, with a final finished piece??

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a final show

I’m struggling with the idea of resolving this project. Having been working with sound for months, with no specific direction or intention, other than curiosity, I am struggling to conceive of finishing this project with a single, finite piece. It supposes this work is finished. It supposes that this work had a beginning, and that it will end, with the end of its exhibition. I can’t work out where art goes to live in this world. But I know, for certain, that it doesn’t go to live in exhibitions. Performances run alongside and inside life, affecting and changing the very nature of our existence. That doesn’t end, or start, or have a middle. Just a continuum. I don’t know how to contain this, because I don’t want to.

Maybe that’s why tattooing appeals so much to me. It is active. It creates bonds and relationships and changes things around it. It lives alongside and inside life – art, without detachment or white walls. And it dies with the person – slowly, over time, without an immediate end.

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Reflections from first performance

Yesterday I completed my first performance in this series. Based on the overground to Dalston Junction, around 1pm, I tattooed a participant guided by the surrounding sound, while amplifying the sound of the tattooing process.

I enjoyed it so much. I felt a massive rush of happiness and energy when we finished. That feeling left me questioning - how important is that in art? Does is matter if this piece speaks to any greater cause or purpose, so long as I had fun making it?

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fyi marie

if my relationship to final pieces is going to be so ambiguous, i need to get really really good at documenting my work

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and subsequently, how do we move our audiences away from the fixation on final, finished pieces? 

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we manifest in the making

how do we as artists move away from our desire to create a final, finished piece, that people like, and put more value into the process of creating?

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what would I need for site specific performance?

general run through of people/equipment:

- digital camera w/mic (loans room) - volunteer 1 

- analogue camcorder - 35mm camera - tape recorder -volunteer 2 (analogue person)

- battery powered amp - fx rig = 2 pedals, contact mic - volunteer 3 (caddy)

- wireless tattoo machine OR needle  - myself (artist)

- person to be tattooed  -volunteer 4 (participant)

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would this have to be london?

If it does end up being london, I want to make a Manchester edition.

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site specific tattoos

taking this idea out, to interact with various soundscapes, feels like the only way to make it relevant. To give it context.

To act as a metaphor for creating in a city, the tattooing and sound will be interacting and somewhat dictated by the soundscape I place it in - whether that be on public transport, out in nature, in a busy town square. 

1) It could be done via wealth of areas - performing in affluent areas of london, compared to impoverished, to see the effect general wealth has on soundscapes. 

2) It could be done via business - secluded landscapes compared to crammed tube rides. How does population density effect our ability to create?

3) It could be done via types of soundscapes - industrial noise created by building sites, compared to the middle of Kew gardens, compared to silence. How does sound dictate creativity? Is there an ideal amount/type of noise?

a lot to think about..

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Sound into drawings, drawings into tattoos

successfully creating a method of converting mark making into sound felt fantastic. it felt like a manifestation of an element of art that I have always espoused: process over outcome. 

By producing sound, the act of drawing and mark making becomes not about the final outcome, but about the process. The artist and audience are grounded in the moment, listening and the outcome is merely a byproduct. 

I want to take this one step further. Juxtaposed against the permeance of tattooing, I want to orchestrate situations where the act of tattooing is concerned with the process of sound making, and the final tattoo is merely a byproduct. 

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How do we turn shapes into sound?

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Uniting this Practice

As my exploration in sound moves towards the physical, I am starting to wonder how drawing could be brought together with sound. Although an integral part of my practice, I have often confined my drawing to sketchbooks, where I plan larger projects.  Mark making and drawing are physical acts, which can manifest as noise. Can I pursue a path of drawing/painting, on my journey with experimental sound?

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you can do what you do when you do  what you do

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reggie watts - Pop Tech

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word salad

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It needs to make me laugh

I suddenly found myself feeling very disillusioned by the path I am going down for my FMP. I wasn’t feeling as excited or energized as I first was.

I think the more I’ve researched, the more I’ve read in depth and found serious artists in the field, the more serious this has felt. One artist in particular, David Toop, who I have been spending a lot of time reading, takes his brand of improvisation and sound art very seriously. 

I watched Reggie Watts tonight and found myself laughing. He uses sound and music and language to create humor, to confuse, to take on characters. His ability and artistry is just as extraordinary, but he channels it into end results that hold a lot less tension, but just as much interest. 

whatever this project comes to, it must have this element. For any endeavor to hold my interest for this length of time, it has to involve humor. It’s how I best relate to the world around me.