Re: nature of collaboration (was live performance)

[ndk <ndkent@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> >..the enountered collages that take place in real life are seldom
> >willful and tend to be genuinely random in character.
> 
> Speak for yourself! Ever since I was a film student I've been
> particularly aware of the "framing" of my sensory input,

My background is in film also (degree in film, taught digital video at a
prominant art school).

You are incorporating your personal environment into your personal art
world. Once you present this to others and its no longer a personal
experience then you take some responsibility for its meaning or lack of
as art.

> and ever
> since I became familiar with Duchamp I've allowed for the possibility
> that everything an artist perceives can be art.

"Can" is the operating word here. Not "must be". I'm sure piles of
potential artists have annointed everything that ever existed or will
exist as art. Then I guess why should you consider anything as art if it
all is. 

Duchamp was making some extremely groundbreaking conceptual statements.
I can't make a blanket judgement or wish this to infer on your work but
I don't think a most of the people who use his work as vindication or
shall I say excuses for works ever go beyond empty acts refrencing him.

It's like Duchamp enables you to make an argument in favor of something
being art. Calling him into play usually assures that something lacks a
great deal of what rewards us in art, but that is speaking for myself.

> Of course, that point
> of view might leave out all the rest of the world, but I do know some
> others who have a similar approach to internally organizing their
> external environment.

internally

I'm talking about something not an internal decision. I'm talking about
an experience that is  willfully created.

My whole debate isn't so much about probing the boundaries of artistic
experience and credibility. My initial thoughts surrounded using
intentional works of art by others as key elements in someone elses new
work of art. Its rather hard not to use materials in our environment to
make art, its kind of hard not to. I question the strength of most art
that wouldn't function without the incorporation (not mere refrencing)
of third party art.

> >Otherwise people would perceive an artwork presented in a similar vein
> >as invisible or undetectable as artwork.
> 
> That's interesting when it happens. Pauline Oliveros did a piece
> called "Bonn Feier" that played with that sort of thing. Events over
> the period of a week were staged so as to emerge from daily life. The
> degree of unusualness or abnormality of these events varied a lot,
> both within the course of each mini performance and between the
> different performances. I've done some "stealth" audio pieces myself.
> In one performance I miked the seating risers in the recitatal so
> that the noise of people taking their seats was subtly amplified.
> Then I gradually increased the mic levels until the system was just
> on the edge of feedback. In another performance of a solo flute piece
> I played back a recording of applause during the actual applause, and
> I keep the recording going for quite a while so that people kept
> clapping longer than normal. I later did something similar with a
> long looping delay to capture the live applause and sustain it for
> several minutes which the audience exited the theater.

You are making the arguement that a work can be essentially invisible.
This is fine and the fact that you eventually found out about it
validates it if there was ever any doubt.

My arguement was if one decides any or all experience is art then whats
the point of calling anything art if there is no separation. One would
have to then make up some new term for all that happens with artistic
will to separate it from the environment.
> 
> >I'm all for the enjoyment of collages, to add or adapt whatever you want
> >for your own enjoyment, share it privately, I see no issues there.
> 
> Sometimes the "issues" are what's most interesting.

very true 

> >I'm not sure what the connection with TV commercials that use pop
> >recordings is. If its a problem for someone then they are badly in need
> >of competent legal representation or were fooled in their contracts. If
> >its not a problem for them then its not a problem.
> 
> Presumably when a pop musician sells the rights for a commercial it
> is understood that the song will be excerpted and edited, so it seems
> unlikely that the artist would object. I personally find it mildly
> irritating to hear these cuts, especially when they're poorly done,
> but my "ownership" of the listening experience has no legal status.

Agreed. I was bringing up that that example always involves the creator
deciding that the work is to be incorporated into something else.

I guess thats my very point. The irration is taken to a whole different
level when hypothetically your artwork becomes an unasked for vital
component of another artwork. Like I'd personally wonder, if its good
enough why not leave it alone, if one has a great idea why do you need
all this other artwork in it. I'm not saying hese questions don't have
answers, I'm sure there are some, but a lot of the time they aren't
answered and the people making these artworks value selecting over
creating though wouldn't think of being responisble curators. 

> >I think about it perhaps more in moral terms.
> >
> >I really see maybe not a quite crisis but a definite concern that in
> >todays post-fill-in-the-blank era of art that curation substitutes for
> >creation.
> 
> It's all part of a postmodern aesthetic, called by some "blend-o-media."
> 
> >But that's a kind of power struggle not addressing what is drifting into
> >a supremacy of audtioning and selecting sources over creating those sources.
> 
> So how do you feel about documentary photography and film making, and
> about environmental soundscapes and DJ practice?

First three:

No issue. They aren't using artwork as a fundemental material. Its
shaping material that is not artwork into artwork. Even something
reflexive, like a documentary film about art, there isn't much of a
question that its a straight forward operation. As of a DJ, you have
lots of areas in there of added creation but its fairly straight forward
it is curation going on. If it were more a veiled operation, like saying
"I'm creating this music" and they were spinning  other's material.

> >So I feel this kind of thinking is going on -- "I'm sharing this other
> >artist's work within some sort of framework of my own art" so tacitly
> >this also says "I hope some of this magic will rub off but I don't want
> >to bother with what the artist might or might not think of this... I
> >just want my work to benefit from its incorporation".
> 
> Many of the artists whose work I use happen to be deceased (Bach,
> Nancarrow, Xenakis, Cage, Burroughs) and some of them are known for
> making art that incorporates collage (Cage, Burroughs, Oliveros)
> an/or found sound (Xenakis, Reich). Others represent aesthetic
> positions that straddle conceptual art and commercialism (the Who,
> the Simpsons) or are emblematic of facets of popular culture (Dick
> Dale). In some cases I use recordings by artists who are themselves
> using appropriated materials (John Oswald, Carl Stone, Negativland).
> In most of these cases I don't think there would be a problem if the
> quoted artists were to hear my "spin" on their work. However, this
> doesn't rule out the possibility of deliberately selecting artists
> who WOULD object. In this case my attitude would be somewhat
> "punkier" than normal.

To be realistic, if that urge to collaborate is so overwealming then I
guess one has no choice. 

They "did it too" is IMHO an incredibly weak arguement unless your
artistic statement is about merely getting even somehow, because here
you are refrencing something that is a proven work. When they were doing
it were taking the risk and detemining what was the art

I'm sure it is pretty punk. Just my opinion but what it often really
says is "I know I can't obtain that kind of quality without
incorporating some of it, but hey my work rocks" 

> >it seems to shout that the urge freely use whatever is "out there"
> >negates responibility for determining to what extent another creator
> >feels about their art.
> 
> Do you feel this way because your own work has been appropriated or
> "misused" or are you just naturally sensitive to others' feelings?

Works of art say things. Works that can't function without some other
work being sourced might say something but are for the most part like an
intentional misquote.

> >Its sending a message to me at least some of the time that the
> >person can't make a suitable impression with their own work
> 
> For me the question of originality is more of an issue when
> considering work that is stylistically derivative, even though it may
> not overtly appropriate materials.

Certainly that's a grey area. Here the statement is not original. It can
certainly be an excellent learning experiment but also something that
one shouldn't share until the derivitave stage is passed.
> 
> >but don't respect what they are utilizing enough to make a proper
> >collaboration out of it.
> 
> I'd gladly collaborate with John Cage or William Burroughs, but the
> opportunity no longer exists.

I feel for you. Still one really should consider how you can obtain
those qualities in some sense to essentially say you've learned from
them. Because if one can't then I guess the most atruistic goal is
saying your work is somehow spreading their spirit not corrupting it.
I'd think its better to understand them and progress upon that knowlege.

> Even if they were still living it might
> be difficult to do so due to their status as "major" artists, so I
> treat them as cultural icons, sort of like Warhol's treatment of
> Campbell's soup or Elvis Presley. 

Though Warhol in his day was making really clear statements of numerous
things while elevating their iconography into "true" art status. If you
can make worthy statements then by all means go for it.

Throuble is a lot of people incorporate stuff for its unchanged
statement or find merely altering it to misstate.

> I HAVE collaborated successfully
> with some other artists (including a few whose work I sample in my
> improvisations) and I HAVE created works that don't directly sample
> existing recordings. But even in those pieces I'm basing what I do on
> SOMETHING that already existed, whether it be a C major scale or the
> scream of a spadefoot toad. To me it's all some sort of processing
> and recontextualization.

This is why I believe your comments are additionally interesting and thanks.

One has to believe that its not a given that its art because it exists,
its only a given it can be art. When numerous things are made up of the
same pieces then the real value is more than that of the pieces. When
something understood to be valid is substantially incorporated in
something then then how much of it is improved on, how much is just not
spoiling the original? But I'd rather further the art rather than quote
other art if my goal is to create.  One may very well have other goals

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