Snohetta - design

Worm making music

From building the theremin, I have become interested in how music can be created by our interaction with it, but not necessarily with us knowing about it.

this work doesn't know he's affecting the sounds. but then he's a worm.

Now getting people to do a similar thing....

hmmm...

theremin

This is the video tutorial I used to build a theremin out of three radios. the internets god for things like this. having a video helps such a large amount. this guy also put a up a download able set of written instructions that where invaluable.

Frank Zappa

Known more for his later successful pop career, here we see a young Frank Zappa appearing on the steve Allen show in 1963. as with Cages tv appearances, Zappa seems to know what he's letting himself in for, and happily plays along with Steve Allen for the interview part of the program. (parts 1-3 of this video-can be found on youtube)

I like Zappa spirit of inclusiveness, trying to include everyone in the performance, taking charge, but encouraging spontaneity. It is this playful spirit that seems to be lost in the more self obsessed Fluxus movement, but that here allows for these concept and ideas about what makes up music to be accessible to a general public. humour is key.

John Cage

This is footage of john cage performing water walk on the tv programme i've got a secret in january of 1960. I find it most interesting how he manage to get to perform this piece on a fairly main stream tv show. It seems that the genre of "variety" can be a use full outlet for the avant garde music, giving an outlet for frank zappa to play a bicycle on live tv, and more recently, Henry Dagg playing his cat organ on britain s got talent.

I like the way that Cage seems to coyly understand his audience. Though in his writting he can muse very intellectually and philosophical about what he does, here he works the crowd well, allowing and almost encouraging laughter, and playing the character of "the weird avant garde guy" to a tee, with his sharp suit and non-plused expression.

it is the integrity and seriousness that makes it funny, but also makes his performance so interesting. The exactness of timing with which he makes seemingly mundane noises make us realise it is composed and precise. so does this make it a piece of music?

Tonkin Liu

Tonkin Liu are and architecture and company made up of Anna liu and mike Tonkin.

The "singing ringing tree" was commissioned by Burnley council and sits on a hill out side the town. I think it is a very clever idea, and quite elegantly executed, with the shape seeming to mimic a wind swept tree. I think the idea of using nature to create sound is an interesting one, seeming some how more mystical thank Henry dagg's very "invented" instruments. Wind instruments are of course common to many orchestras, yet your never normal see them where there is actually any real wind.

I think this idea of out door musical sculptures is one I will keep in the back of my mind. I have always agreed with henry moore's opinion that sculptures are always best out of doors. It would be finding the balance between the musical and the sculptural elements that would be key.

the wind can also play a harp.

Henry dagg continued

I think the "pigs blood organ" was probably build on a similar principal to this.

I like the way that the principal that it works on is a simple one, the dunking of a diving bell into water, yet the mechanisms that make it work are so present and such a part of the sculpture that they give it a sense of grandeur and a strange, looming elegance.

Henry Dagg

From finding out about his through matthew Herbert's "one pig" project, I have discovered henry Dagg to be some what of a sound sculpture superman. His contraptions are truly amazing. I think the level of craftsman ship that there appears to be in the works is commendable, as is the element of humour, especially shown in his "cat organ" made from singing toy cats.

He chooses to base his instruments on traditional notions of melody and tunings, which probably makes his instruments more palatable than many of john cages pieces, or frank zappa playing a bicycle with drum sticks. This is not a bad thing. It indeeds could be seen to add a level of integrity to what are other wise wacky and off the wall ideas. The works do not seem to be trying to subvert anything, more embracing a sense of playfulness and the spirit of invention.

Matthew Herbert

apologies for the shit lay out. blogger is a piece of crap.

One pig is the title of an album made my matthew herbert, using recordings made from the life of one pig. from birth, through farm life to being butchered cooked and eaten. ( interestingly he was not allowed to record the slaughtering process.)

It is interesting to see in this video the different recording techniques he uses, from fairly basic field recordings on the farm, to very considered and carefully set up recordings when the pig is being slaughtered and cooked. In this video what is off particular interest is the pigs blood organ that has been made using the blood of said "one pig."

Billy Childish

These images have been published in the last two issues of stool pigeon magazine, the top image appearing an issue before the second, and we can see Childish's bold combinations of text and image becoming more direct, possibly in line with his political emotions. I Find the first reaction to this is laughter, probably more on the second image when the combination of text and image is not so subtle. not that a swastika is particularly subtle; but the beauty of texts inability to convey sarcasm and the proaganda style stragely haunting.
I find Childish treads the line between really good and really shit, and it is always impossible to tell what side hes one, but always interesting to try and find out.

Peter Kennard

Kennards internet describes his new book, @earth as " a story without words. Told in the language of photomontage, it exposes the current state of the earth, the conditions of life on it and the need to resist injustice." I find his highly doom and gloom view of the world stangely apealing. This Photomotage using the haywain demonstrates the power and stange dark humour of very simple, restrained and careful juxtapositions.

Q. and babies? A. and babies.

produced by the Art Workers Colaition in 1969, And Babies is a prime example of the power the juxtaposition of text and image can have. The simplicity of the poster, produced initially for the museum of modern art but pulled by the owners, means that the message is absolutely clear. Yet the choice of text does not patronize or demonize as many protest posters can.
The text itself is from a CBS news interview with a Vietnam soldier on the subject of the massacre of civilians.

Q. So you fired something like sixty-seven shots?
A. Right.
Q. And you killed how many? At that time?
A. Well, I fired them automatic, so you can’t- You just spray the area on them and so you can’t know how many you killed ‘cause they were going fast. So I might have killed ten or fifteen of them.
Q. Men, women, and children?
A. Men, women, and children.
Q. And babies?
A. And babies.

The question and answer are only differentiated by punctuation, making the viewer say the words in the there head, using there internal voice in order to understand them, and possibly meaning they are thought about more.

Roy Voss

Bringing to written word into an outdoor environment, especially a rural one, is something that I have dabbled in in my work and have found hard to judge right. Ross does it extremely well, using text to provide a cation for a scene. in cross the caption is very much a part of the environment it is in, seemingly like a bridge, its function and form literally being the same.

In legless the caption is more like a traditional humorous tag line, but the words actual physicality in the scene make it more bizarre. we know that the words must have come before the sheep sitting around it - maybe it is this knowledge of Voss waiting for the sheep to sit around his sign that makes it funnier? or is the tag line some how more authoritative with the knowledge that it exists in reality?

Banksy

A nice crafty bit of work by Banksy here. The simplicity of the idea is enhanced by the clear and well thought out execution. It is the small touches like the jargon letters at the bottom, and the crest at the top (taken of a cigarette packet) which make it believable and thus effective. I like the way that this is merely a starting point, with the outcome to be determined not by the artist but by others, wether fooled by the artist's trick or not, it is either way highly likely to encourage graffiti.

Peter Blegvad

Peter Blegvad is a musician and artist, in the series of works the pedestrian he makes drawings and photographs from various wandering in generaly urban spaces. In a statement about his work in the book the ganzfeld (Kaput press inc. 2002) Blegvad talks about " a tendecy to look at familiar things in a way that makes them strange again," this is evident in the way he uses juxtaposition of objects, grouping and classifying of objects and personification of them.

For example here by grouping the easily un-noticed discarded elastic band, they become part of something bigger than them selves and we begin to look for similarities and differences, to evaluate the information. Taking something which we see in our day to day lives but pay little attention to, and putting them in a more visually isolated context is, I find, strangely compelling to look at. In a similar way to Harvey Pekar's American Splendor comics document his everyday life, we see nothing particularly unusual or bizarre, but are made to look at it in a new way, often thus making it seem bizarre.

Blegvad describes himself as "essentially a humorist," and this I feel is important when he tends to deal with fairly tricky abstract concepts, such as the power and importance of our imagination when interacting with art. I feel these unresolvable ideas are interesting to think about, but ultimately highly laughable.

Jerry Niemi

I like the fact that Jerry Niemi's scenes are so small that you feel you would be unlikely to notice them if you were to walk past one. It is in stark contrast to the tradition of street art being bold, brash and "in yo face." Instead the fairly quaint scenes seem to be more about looking closer at your surroundings, playing with scale to create some good visual gags. One could argue that the small scale and fairly in-permanent nature of the works means they are merely set up photographs as apposed to "real street art," however the concept of street art seems to me very broad and I'm sure no ones going to take him to the cleaners about it.
having only seen the photographs its hard to say what the impression would be if seen in the real world, however they provide a cheap laugh, and at the end of the day maybe that's all art can hope to do.

David Shrigley

Ive always been a big fan of David Shrigleys. More recently He has moved away from his funny wee drawings we all fell in love with ( im assuming that every one else is a big fan too) into three dimensinal works (click here). They vary in success in my opinion, but then possibly so do the drawings, its just more noticable when its an actual object i guess. Also I deem Shrigley thing to be a sucess only if it forces a gueniune physical laugh on first viewing (other brands of success are available)

I feel when his 3d work succeeds it seem to effortlessly bring his drawing into the real world, and this can offten make then that little bit funnyer as they seeme even more out of context to there surroundings. They work best when simple - simply adding and it to the stop sign - his objects often very close to how we normaly view them in the real world, but as if there has been a lapse of perceved logic some were along the line.
This mimmicing of the real world is something I strive to do in my own work; this way of looking at things from a slightly different angle and reasasessing them and re editing them.

Phil Jones

Phil jones puts up funny ersonal public notices. He plays around with the convention of the hand written help needed style of public notice, with often witty and of kilter notices. I like they way that they imply certain cenarios, guiding you to conjour up in your mind a portrait of the person and situation. see more on his website ( click here)