There are many forms of collective creation that run the whole spectrum, from merely coloring in someone else’s existing drawing to the actual creation of a thing from scratch. Often this spectrum of distinction is lost in the rush to embrace the amazing and wondrous, collectively created works like Wikipedia and, um, Zagat guides—these being held up as models for the possibility of collective creation of all and every kind of activity—from politics to newspapers. I’ve maintained a fair amount of skepticism about the idea of crowd sourced creative works for some time, which is not to say some of them don’t work incredibly well. But, they’re not all the same. To me, even though Wikipedia is indeed an example of the wisdom of crowds producing an amazing work—one that is possibly better than those that are top down in their inception—it seems that the claims made for this kind of creative process are often a little misleading. Each Wikipedia entry is not vetted or added to by everyone—by the lumped masses—but by self-appointed experts on each subject. Then, after these experts have had their say, we, the masses, tend to accept on faith that they have haggled amongst themselves over a particular subject to determine what will be included and the accuracy of what is in the entry. Of course, everyone considers themselves an expert on some subjects…
I’m not going to claim that only folks nominated as experts should be trusted to manage our world and create the things we enjoy and consume. I’d be the last person to believe that a college degree or experience in a field gives one a guaranteed wise perspective—would you trust a Rumsfeld? Often, it’s the perspective of amateurs that is more accurate than the professionals who are embedded and entrenched within their field of work. That said, nature seems to have found that some level of specialization is proven to work on some level. Though it seems clear that certain ants are designated as “experts,” and are deferred to as such, I admit that I have a bias against deferring to experts. Despite the sound social management system of ants that is responsible for their long survival—a system that we often believe that we might do well to emulate—I refuse to believe that the bankers who got us into our current economic mess are the best minds to get us out of it. Similarly, I sense that one maybe shouldn’t trust the military in evaluating and establishing their own budgets. It happens over and over—the police have proven they can’t be trusted amongst themselves. Economists? Oh, forget it.
The popular hive analogy, which compares insect societies to human interactions and creation, is often applied to the idea of many doing and creating what one alone cannot. Even in the hive though, there are “experts”—worker bees are given right of way to accomplish their tasks by the other bees because it seems that everyone recognizes no one can do their job as well as they can—there is not a mass consensus meeting or discussion amongst the entire hive about the role of these worker bees. For example, it is assumed they know best how to forage for food. Like the worker bee, the area of expertise of Wikipedia contributors may vary widely, potentially covering topics from Glee to String Theory. When one of these experts writes an entry, and then annotates and/or expands on it, we (in some sense) assume they are wise and perceptive in their particular field. Also, we assume these contributions have been vetted by that expert’s peers—not by everyone. So we, the non-expert readers, give respect.
With ants it is similar. Certain worker ants (all of whom are female) have designated tasks. A quick smell, via an antennae brush, identifies what a specific worker is best at doing—foraging, cleaning debris elimination, guarding—and no one tries to “tell them” how to do their jobs. There are no bosses. It is possible for the worker ant to switch jobs, but usually, as with humans, that opportunity arises when the colony is relatively young. After that, the job pool, one’s career, is more or less set. Though, there are always reserves of other ants underground that are recruited if a new food source suddenly becomes available (Thank you Deborah Gordon’s TED talk 2003).
One of the ways an ant figures out what is going on is oddly similar to the Google search algorithm—it “counts” how many encounters it has with a specific kind of worker. Based on these encounters, the ant can deduce that there is, for example, a major clean up in progress. Instructions and situations in progress are not “described,” but are inferred by the aggregate of encounters.
The consensus “rules” of OWS were (are?) possibly a more accurate example of real crowd (or democratic) decision-making. How did the OWS group, who struggled to maintain their leaderless and self-organized identity, ever make decisions? They endorsed the idea of consensus as opposed to voting. The word consensus comes from a Latin word meaning, “feel together”. Consensus means everyone (eventually) arrives at a place where they will give consent, although they might not be in 100% agreement. The distinction seems a little vague to me.
The well-reported use of hand signals, as a means of reaching this consensus, was adopted (microphones weren’t allowed due to noise restrictions) by the movement. One would be very tempted to ask who exactly decided that consensus would be the mode for decision-making? Who and how was that decision made?
Many of the participants found the assembly and consensus reaching process a bit tedious and boring—some would wander off from lack of interest.
Maybe the ants are on to something. They too have no leader (the queen lays eggs but doesn’t manage the colony via smell, as used to be thought) nor do they have a central control. On the surface, this sounds very democratic—even anarchistic. A completely leaderless society—that works! Although it might appear this way to us when viewed from a distance, you, as an individual ant, are very much programmed by your evolved instincts and your innate reaction to smells and behaviors. While having no leader might imply absolute freedom, there are other restrictions among insects. The leader, the guide, the rules, are not external, but are built into you as an individual.
Therefore, it statistically appears as if there is no free will in the ant colony. Each individual seems to go about their task without questioning things or stopping to ponder why or what for. But, maybe on the individual level, to each ant, they feel like there is, in fact, free will. Maybe they do agonize and make specific decisions. Maybe they have simply “learned” that following the aggregate tends to give the best results for the colony as a whole. They may feel that they have made a personal decision to join along with everyone else; they may also feel that they have acted of their own free will and are not forced into joining a specific program or activity. They’re acting in consort because, from their point of view, they want to…. or so they may be telling themselves. Maybe, their “government” is internalized.
According to Gordon, when you look inside of ant colonies, the behavior seems pretty haphazard. They’re not the well-oiled, smoothly functioning machines we might expect from a species that has survived for millions of years. As in human society, the behavior of individuals is not predictable. We all, as individuals, appear to be acting on our own—but just as it is with the ants, there is a kind of decision-making based around aggregate behavior. I’m not sure how this translates exactly—how this process works with people. Does it mean that if everyone is “drinking the Kool-Aid,” I intuitively “decide” that I should too? If everyone watches Kim Kardashian, then I better join the bandwagon and do what everyone else does? If the ants appear to have some sort of free will on an individual level, but in actuality it is mostly an illusion, does the same apply to us?
How Does Anything New Come Into Existence?
I’m curious as to whether or not what we call creative works can come into fruition as a result of the contributions of countless individuals. Must a creative work inevitably be guided by the tyranny of one person’s vision—or at least a very small group (Pixar films, for example)? Can the crowd write a great novel? A symphony, or pop song? A feature film? (Hollywood films are notoriously made by a committee—and the results speak for themselves). Do we all have a kind of innate (possibly unconscious) wisdom that can profitably guide us to influence and direct the track and arc of a creative work? Do these deep instincts, if trusted and tapped into accurately, and without bias, result in a work that is inevitably true? Is this why we feel cheated when a Hollywood movie has an obviously happy ending tacked on? Do we sense that the instinctively “true” ending was abandoned? Or, is this why the happy ending was tacked on in the first place? Is the happy ending what we instinctively want in a narrative? (Is this making any sense?). If, to some extent, a sense and structure of narrative is innate, then are authorship and writing skill overrated? Superfluous?
A parallel to the question of how new works come into being are some ideas that seem to be related to collective creation, but that might not really be the same at all. Are open-ended works (e.g. video games in which the players determine details of the story) and self-generating works—such music and visual programs that accept outside input but are designed to endlessly generate content on their own—truly collectively created works?
There is an established tradition of what are called indeterminacy in music—a not so new idea that has now migrated to digitally programmed works (musical and otherwise). In these earlier musical works, used by John Cage and many others, the player was allowed to determine how long to hold a note—and sometimes, what note to play from a set of given choices. Terry Riley’s “In C” is like this, as is Cornelius Cardew’s “The Great Learning.” These are all works that almost always end up sounding wonderful, despite being as open ended as they are. The marvel is why they don’t go off the tracks. We expect that, given free reign, chaos will inevitably result. Though, it doesn’t seem to—not always, anyway.
Maybe what is key is that the overall shape of the work has been cleverly pre-determined. There is free will involved in the choices the players are given, but within very severe limitations. One might say that this process is a way of fostering the illusion of free will. Maybe it proves that these compositions and social mechanisms, when cleverly “designed” can appear as though they allow for free will but, in actuality, they involve lots of restrictions—which have the effect of guiding the structure and the finished work to be something beautiful.
Cage used other devices to introduce chance and randomness into the “decision-making” process, but the “programmer” was always lurking. More recently in music, this process has been moved into the digital realm—with algorithms that do their best to randomize the choice of notes, along with other aspects of a composition. The Buddha Machine is a good example of this—a transistor radio sized device that plays endlessly changing sounds, chosen by the program, from a given set of notes and sounds. There is, as one would expect, no arc to these compositions—no beginning, middle and/or end. They are merely states of being, not substitutes for narrative.
These indeterminate scores can be viewed a bit like the literature that emerges out of oral traditions—the great epics and sagas. The process is not so different than what occurs in a lot of folk music as well—blues songs that get passed from area to area and subtly altered each time someone new sings them… but the main thrust of the story and the song tends to remain consistent. Everyone recognizes the song despite every interpretation being absolutely distinct.
There was a text version of this process called Consequences. It’s a bit like Mad Libs, though it originated much earlier (pre-1918). One creates a sentence by filling in the following blanks (from Wikipedia, of course):
1. A Man's name 2. A Woman's name 3. A Place name 4. He said to her… 5. She said to him 6. The consequence was… (A description of what happened after) 7. An outcome
Then the resulting “story” is read (for example):
Scary Bob met voluptuous Alice at the zoo. He said, "This is delicious.", she said, "Hit me baby one more time." He gave her a red rose, she gave him cholera. The consequence was that they eloped to Mexico. The world said, "the femme fatale will always win".
Could one write a whole book this way? William S. Burroughs used an aleatory (chance) literary technique that he and Brion Gysin popularized, called cut-ups. Cut-ups are created in two steps: by cutting a finished text into pieces and rearranging the words and then, by folding the linear text and looking for resonant bits of text when overlapped and placed next to one another.
There is the visual equivalent—collectively produced artwork like the Exquisite Corpse drawings. The Surrealists created these images based on an old parlor game. The idea is that 3 or more people contribute to a “body” by drawing on a folded piece of paper and then passing it around without knowing what the next person will contribute below the fold. Restricted by the rule that one is obliged to draw either the upper, middle or lower portions of the body the resulting monsters are, yes, beautiful and strange things whose authorship we could say belongs to an invisible 4th entity.
Here is a Chimera collectively drawn by Joan Miro, Man Ray and Yves Tanguy. They sort of didn’t adhere to the normal rules (in which you are to add normal body parts appropriate to your segment):
I’d argue that all of these forms are in fact authored. The programmer that sets the ball in motion, the one who determines the set of simple rules is, in these cases, the author. While you often get marvelous things through these algorithms, I’d be inclined to think that what you don’t get is a coherent story arc, complex characters or even a consistent vision—musical, lyrical or visual. That is, unless the framework has already been provided by a “programmer.” Follow a framework modified with embellishments, modification, additions, etc.—as in the oral tradition of storytelling—and, as a result, you get a coherent form.
Some of our most resonant works of literature have emerged out of the tradition of oral storytelling and do not have a single author credited. The tales of the 1001 Arabian Nights, for example, is composed of stories that have all been embellished, edited, written and molded by an unknown multitude of individuals over a long period of time. The stories hold up, and continue to move us today, as do the folk tales collected by the brothers Grimm. The Mahabharata and the Ramayana epics are similarly composed by a host of unknowns, as is the Bible. These all were all derived from oral traditions—in which each storyteller would add subtle embellishments and refinements to suit the local culture, time and place. The basic story arc would tend to be maintained and serve as a skeletal framework—though, in many cases, we can see where successive refinements over time completely altered the “message” of the tales. We know this because people wrote down some of these tales at different stages of their evolution and transformation.
The Old Testament tales are, in many cases, embellished versions of stories that were told (sometimes even written down) for hundreds of years. Though, by the time the stories came to exist as they do today, they had already morphed into tales that emphasized the overthrow of the older matriarchal society and spirituality by a more rigid patriarchal one. (There’s a very nice analysis of this in the back of the Crumb comic version!)
Even though these particular tales changed their emphasis in a majority of cases, usually not too much fundamentally changed in the narrative framework. The embellishments were mostly superficial… until the cumulative effect of the changes became something more profound. When reading these works, one can often sense the fragmentary nature of the chapters and episodes—many of which contradict one another. At other times a plot point or explanation is dropped for political reasons, leaving one wondering why there was a sudden shift in tone of a story or the behavior of a character. A single author would be less likely to contradict him or her self. But often, if we take each single episode—such as a single Grimm’s tale or one of the tales out of the Arabian Nights—it is often consistent, incredibly well constructed, efficient and resonant—like a tool honed by use over centuries.
These stories behave like living creatures that have evolved over time—adapting themselves, over and over again, to the psychological needs of the listeners and the creative embellishments of the narrators and their audiences. They’re not, and never were, fixed stories with an Ur version—there never was a primal text. They survive and maintain their resonance by mutating, changing and adapting to the world around them. As soon as they become fixed, they die (in a sense). They become a work that is somewhat ossified—rooted in a specific time and place. Then, the core narrative quickly resurfaces in another form—a film, TV show or popular novel.
Folk, blues, house music, pop, hip hop and lots of other musical genres might be viewed the same way—not so much as individual songs or acts of unique creativity, but as the cumulative result of many creative narrators pitching in to tweak a form that already has a given and collectively accepted shape and framework. The equivalent of the narrative arc of a story is already there in these song forms, and we songwriters, producers and singers are the storytellers in our own oral tradition—putting our own spin on an existing form, but not making substantial changes in the form itself. The point is, a lot of music that we think of as being individual acts of creation might actually be narrators contributing to what might be viewed as a larger epic work.
Though I am not a griot or epic bard, I am in my home studio making subtle adjustments and contributions to a form that came before me, and will later be picked up by others. I have the illusion of free will, of creating work and forms from scratch, but I am merely embellishing. Of course, successive embellishing will eventually lead one far from home…
That said—I believe I lean towards work that has a consistent vision. Don’t we want to feel that the version of a song, movie or narrative we have just spent time listening to, reading or absorbing is consistent—that every part was considered by its author, so as to adhere to a coherent vision? We assume that collective works don’t have the same intention as authored works. This view doesn’t totally exclude the author as a creative contributor to an ongoing epic storytelling effort though, as one still might hope for consistency from a narrator, songwriter or storyteller, even if the individual works that result are essentially modifications of something recurring and familiar.
Authorless Architecture
Architecture Without Architects is the title of a wonderful picture book, by Bernard Rudofsky, that came out in 1964. The pictures are presented as evidence that exquisite, “authorless,” architecture has existed for thousands of years—and that, despite not being designed by one person, it rivals individually designed works in beauty and, above all, practicality. One might view the simple and elegant furniture of the Shakers the same way. The buildings Rudovsky chose evolved much in the same way folk stories and oral narratives did—to best meet the demands of each place and society, while also maintaining an aesthetic and spiritual appeal.
Was the latter aspect an unintended consequence of meeting local and practical needs? Could one say that these entities that have evolved over time tend to be beautiful because we recognize that some deep parts of ourselves are expressed and manifest in them? Is the beauty a layer that is, in fact, serving another equally practical function that is as important to human beings as keeping out the cold or ventilation? Is the need for beauty and elegance also something practical?
It seems that the beauty these buildings possess is not an aspect added on, an appliqué, but an integral consequence of every other aspect of these kinds of works. When every other aspect is true and integrated, maybe you automatically get beauty. These buildings and houses have evolved so that they have a spirit of life deeply ingrained in them. By recognizing this, by sensing that these qualities are in there, we find the resulting structures beautiful.
In his book Rudovsky includes single-family homes, as well as monumental works.. All of them were molded over time by a kind of collective will and impulse; none were built by just one designer. The design is not open to anyone-—it’s clear that not everyone in the community would have voted on where the chimneys go—there are folks who know how to thatch a roof, for example, better than others. But, it’s the evolutionary process that tells the community, and the specialized workers within it, that maybe there is, indeed, a best place for a chimney or a best size for eaves—and that this wisdom shouldn’t be ignored.
Here is a vernacular plantation house in Hawaii and the Sankore Mosque in Timbuktu:
There are other types of architecture, not designed by “individuals,” and these are not so different from the mosque above—like these giant termite mounds in Australia (near Darwin):
The chimneys and air vents from underground allow the hot air, in the parts of the world where these things are built, to escape—so that the precious nurseries deep inside can maintain a constant temperature. It’s a fairly sophisticated bit of building and HVAC for a creature whose brain is the size of a pinhead. However, one might say that if you combine all of those pinheads, you get a more substantial mental capacity.
However, I’m not sure size is what matters. Heh heh. A fairly simple algorithm—rules and behavior that don’t require a lot of brain cells—can set in motion what, in retrospect, seems like a very complex bit of creation. So if over time evolution arrived at a structural solution by adapting to the situation at hand, and by using just a few rules, When these rules are set, the mental capacity of each individual doesn’t have to be so “big” at all. Everyone (or all of the workers anyway) can, and does build these incredible things instinctually.
Recently, there was a short film posted on the web of some scientists who poured concrete into an anthill to see what the network of nurseries and tunnels might look like. After the concrete (10 tons of it!) set, they painstakingly dug away the surrounding dirt to reveal an entire (miniature) futuristic city.
It’s easy to see how incredibly impressive the city is that these little things constructed. Overlap this town over a medieval city in Europe, in the Maghreb or in the Middle East, and one might see an almost an identical layout. It makes one think that: (A) we haven’t come so far, and (B) maybe the “hive mind” concept is more literal than metaphorical. Maybe we have retained elements of the insect mind, and we use and are guided by that, to order, build and organize our own cities. Like storytellers and songwriters, maybe in urban planning, we are merely embellishers too—we are reworking the same forms over and over, making slight adjustments to fit our own needs.
Others have preferred to view the social insects, not as social cities composed of individuals, but as single super organisms—more like one being made up of millions of semi-autonomous crawling “cells.” This would mean that these towering termite mounds and the tunnels of the ant colonies might represent the clothing or shell that belongs to a collective whole being. The mound is like the skeleton and the skin of a large creature. This view makes the cooperation of the little critters seem more like the cooperation and symbiosis of the cells and bacteria that make up our own bodies. The chambers are like the organs in our own bodies—each with its specific function and specialized job functionaries.
If we make that leap, then we too can be seen as sophisticated works of “soft” architecture. Just like the cities of the ants, bees and termites, one would never imagine that our little cells would be able to individually make and organize a structure as complex as we are. If we reorient our viewpoint, and can see ourselves as a kind of ant colony, we get a frightening insight that maybe our sense of free will is not much more than that of the ants and termites. Our most beautiful cities, and maybe we too, are not much more sophisticated than those of the social insects.
It was sort of a coincidence. I’d been reviewing the CDs I picked up on my trip to Japan a few months ago, and then I sat in with If By Yes as part of the Japan music festival here in NY last week. Then the earthquake and tsunami and the nuclear mess all hit—all of which made me want to get this Japanese playlist together faster than I normally would have. Thoughts of Japanese friends, culture and countryside welled up, and this music became a kind of soundtrack to my thoughts and feelings.
This music arrived largely through friends. Thanks to Yusuke, and all the folks at Vacant Gallery in Tokyo, who invited their musical friends round—who tipped me to a lot of new stuff I didn’t know about. Thanks Deerhoof for arranging that Ichi, from Nagoya, perform here at LPR. (One of the most pleasantly surprised NY audience reactions I’ve seen since Tune Yards opened for Dirty Projectors!) Thanks Diego Cortez for the Oorutaichi CD. Thanks Hideaki Matsuura for the tip about Soothe.
Can we help?
Traditionally, the Japanese have issues with charity. They see themselves as proudly self-reliant, and offers of aid after the Kobe earthquake were initially refused. However, times change, and maybe now there is an understanding that offers of help are as much a gesture of solidarity and mutual feeling as they are about money. The urge to reach out is as much about our own feelings as it is about Japanese needs. For folks outside Japan, it stems from an altruistic urge to show some connection and a human bond in a time of crisis. To say “you are not alone.”
Here are two ways to donate. Yuka Honda sent a link to a fund set up by Japan Society here in NY who are donating 100% of the donations that get sent (they’re even swallowing their administrative fees): http://www.japansociety.org/earthquake
My friends Gabriella and Chris offered that I join them last night at this event:
Golden Festival, January 14 & 15, 2011
New York’s only music and dance festival of its kind celebrates 26 years of live Balkan, Roma (“Gypsy”) music and beyond. The Festival is hosted by Zlatne Uste Brass Band and features dozens of live bands playing on FOUR(!) stages.
It was formerly held at a Catholic high school auditorium in Inwood (the northern tip of Manhattan), but now it’s at this splendid hall in Brooklyn, which seems to specialize in weddings—The Grand Prospect Hall.
Here is a clip they made of stuff from previous festivals:
Here is the entrance to the hall off Prospect Ave.
And here is the Grand Ballroom. People were still arriving at this point—soon the floor was packed.
Off to the right was a long room where you could buy drinks and get tasty Balkan food for free—though the lines were pretty long for the free food. People were wandering to and fro, going from one room to another. Beyond the food room was another room with performers—The Atrium—that sadly looked like the breakfast zone at a Holiday Inn. This room featured quieter music—I heard some beautiful Bulgarian type singing from a trio called Black Sea Hotel.
Behind where I took the picture of the Grand Ballroom above, were some merch tables with ceramics, henna dying, jewelry and CDs for sale. Behind that, there was another banquet room with large paintings and a Polish Masonic armoire shoved against one wall.
At that moment a Turkish Band (Wind of Anatolia, I think) was rocking out.
But there’s more! Upstairs—stairs that wound around a very old elevator in a cage—was an even larger banquet hall where there was some subdued music (Fishtank Ensemble?) and some dancing. Then Rakiya, a Roma band from Romania, kicked in. The guys wore cowboy hats and one guy’s shirt had flames up the side. The time signatures in some of their music were beyond complicated, but it grooved at the same time.
Back down in the Grand Ballroom the act that pulled this whole festival together—the Zlatne Uste Brass Band—was playing in the middle of the floor, as the dancers circled around them, like a massive swarm of bees.
The audience was incredibly mixed—young, old, hip, not very hip. A few folks dressed in costume, most of the younger audience members in dresses (girls) and narrow brim fedoras (guys). All very relaxed. A few helpers here and there holding signs that said “ask me” (I did).
I headed back to Manhattan around midnight on the N train—which was only 2 blocks away.
Went to Antony's show last night at the renovated Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, which was part of Jane Moss’ White Light Festival—a performance series more calm, Catholic and spiritual than most. This show featured Antony with the Orchestra of St Luke’s, as well as Thomas Bartlett from Antony’s band on piano. The sound in the renovated theater was spectacular. Congrats to Diller Scofidio + Renfrew on their work there; as well as turning what was a socially dysfunctional lobby into a real and vibrant space where some people seemed to be hanging out who weren’t even going to the concert.
The arrangements were by different people, and Nico Muhly described his contributions as being sometimes difficult, but always sight-readable. This was a practical consideration, as Antony toured this show (without the accompanying film) around the world, and at each stop needed to rehearse and perform with a new local orchestra. With limited rehearsal time, the arrangements had to sound good given the time allotted. And last night, they did—some were atmospheric, establishing a slowly shifting ground over which Antony could pour out his heart.
The music portion was accompanied by a film called Mr O’s Book Of The Dead by Kazuo Ohno, a groundbreaking Japanese Butoh dancer who passed away earlier this year. This film, something I’ve never seen before, was contemporaneous with the wild films by Jack Smith made in NY in the ‘60s. Here is a production snap from Smith’s Flaming Creatures.
Apparently, Ohno and Smith didn’t know one another’s work, but the results were remarkably similar. It made one think that this primal dress-up and cavorting style was in the zeitgeist—a case of parallel evolution, one might say. As if it had to appear at that moment, in different spots around the world. A response and evocation of something that was expressed in exactly this way, and now what exactly that was is not obvious to us…though one can see the lineage that extends to Antony pretty clearly.
Here is Ohno (though this is not a still from Mr O’s Book of the Dead).
For those who associate Butoh with the cosmic elegance of Sankai Juku, the troupe who perform semi-naked, covered in powder as if slowly enacting some deep profound and ancient ritual, the group in Ohno's film would be a shock. While there are white-powdered bodies in both, the group in the film also sports tacky women’s clothing and wigs, and in one scene cavorts in a pigsty—the style is a radical departure. And though sometimes profound, more often these Butoh groups evoke the chaos, repulsion and horrors of postwar Japan. Elegant, it’s not; groundbreaking it was—which is why I suppose Antony wanted to bring it to the attention of his fans, and on Halloween Eve no less! It’s a way of showing where he comes from as well.
Anyway, I can’t speak to the other programs in the festival, but seeing this one made me feel that the old, weird (and beautiful) New York that one often hears eulogized so often, as if it is a thing never to be seen again, is still with us.
The other day I stumbled across some photos of the late
Ronnie James Dio’s LA home, which is for sale. If you wondered what kind of place a metal God lived in, well, here’s your
answer.
The Teutonic touches, like the beer stein collection and the gothic windows, made me think of other Gods: the characters in the Wagner Ring
cycle that has just recently begun a run here in NY.
That production uses a high-tech set and video projections to evoke the Rhine
maidens swimming across the stage and other events in the story.
So, I wondered to myself, wouldn’t this be a natural fit?
Dio already lived in a kind of Valhalla, and the imagery and themes of metal
bands often deals with death, destruction, and demons, so metal bands have those
elements in common with the Wagner epic as well. Why not do a Ring cycle (or
maybe an abbreviated version as the whole thing runs 15 hours) with the music
played by metal musicians and sung by them too? The sets would be like Dio’s
house, a home fit for the Gods, and there could be spectacular live performance
scenes, which some bands already stage as myth-laden rituals. Here’s a live
shot of a Rob Zombie concert:
And the Gods, assembled:
Other metal genres are less ghoulish in their themes and
imagery, but are no less appropriate to this concept. Here is the band SUNN O))), an exemplar of doom and drone
metal, along with other bands like Earth.
While still others are blatant in their Norse, Viking and
Teutonic themes, this Swedish band sings about Valhalla and about having Odin
on their side:
Rammstein, a band composed of
former East Germans, is known for shows featuring amazing pyrotechnics, and for
lyrics that deal with politics, sometimes controversially. As the ring cycle
ends in the destruction of Valhalla and the end of the reign of the Gods, there
are some big metaphors at work that would seem to resonate and run parallel to
what this group is doing already. Here’s a shot from one of their shows.
Many metal musicians possess incredible technical facility. These bands often feature songs in odd time signatures and with complicated
fingerings, and the groups frequently possess a cohesiveness that leaves pop bands
in the dust. Which is to say: they have the chops to handle Dick Wagner’s
scores, no problem. They could probably even find a real dwarf to handle the
Alberich role (the creator of the all-powerful ring) which would mean we
wouldn’t have to imagine that a big actor/singer is actually small.
Has no one done this already? Have I just not heard of it?
Or are some of these bands sort of already doing it (or something very like it)
piecemeal, episodically—picking out random scenes and moments from a parallel
mythology? They’re definitely swimming in the same waters. Many of these groups
place a high value on their integrity; with such non-pop looks and themes they
aren’t about to get radio play, so their “authenticity” and being true to their
genres is of prime importance. That might be why no one has risked the ridicule
of a high-concept piece should it fail or be unpopular with their fans. Or
maybe they feel that tackling an old opera is superfluous, as they are doing
the same thing, but with original music, and updated imagery.
A while back a friend told me that the Republican Governor of Florida, Charlie Crist, was using the Talking Heads song “Road to Nowhere” in a campaign ad. He’s running for Senate.
Well, using a recording of a song, or even just using that song and not the original recording, in an advertisement without permission is illegal, unless the composition has gone into the public domain. It’s not just illegal because one is supposed to pay for such use and not paying is, well, theft — it’s also illegal because one has to ask permission, and that permission can be turned down.
Besides being theft, use of the song and my voice in a campaign ad implies that I, as writer and singer of the song, might have granted Crist permission to use it, and that I therefore endorse him and/or the Republican Party, of which he was a member until very, very recently. The general public might also think I simply license the use of my songs to anyone who will pay the going rate, but that’s not true either, as I have never licensed a song for use in an ad. I do license songs to commercial films and TV shows (if they pay the going rate), and to dance companies and student filmmakers mostly for free. But not to ads.
I’m a bit of a throwback that way, as I still believe songs occasionally mean something to people — they obviously mean something personal to the writer, and often to the listener as well. A personal and social meaning is diluted when that same song is used to sell a product (or a politician). If Crist and his campaign folks had asked to use the song, I would have said no — even if they had offered a lot of money, such as I have been offered in the past for ad use (though I’ve always turned these offers down).
I believe my audience is aware of this no-ad use policy of mine, and part of the respect I am accorded as an artist is due to my maintaining this policy. Needless to say, if they thought I’d licensed a song to a political campaign they might not respect me as much in the morning.
It might be pointed out that Republican campaign organizations have done this kind of thing before. John McCain’s campaign used the Jackson Browne song “Running on Empty” and Reagan’s folks used Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” Both were used illegally without permission, and in the case of the Jackson Browne song a lawsuit was brought. After the Republicans lost several motions attempting to dismiss Browne’s complaint, they settled with him. Part of the settlement said that the Republican National Committee promised to respect artists’ rights and to obtain licenses for the use of copyrighted works in the future. So, it’s not like they weren’t warned, or hadn’t been burned before.
Now, there is such a thing as fair use. Typically the type of free use that doesn’t require a permission might be a student quoting a passage in a book to make a point in a graduate paper, or someone using part (not all) of “Road to Nowhere” to identify, say, the marching groove in that song as a metaphor for the inexorable forward momentum of time, or some such notion. These uses are typically exempt from licensing, permission and fees. In this case, however, the use was not to comment on or explain something about “Road to Nowhere,” ’80s music in general, Talking Heads or Cajun accordion riffs — it was used solely to further Governor Crist’s advertising strategy in his Senate primary campaign… a campaign that has nothing to do with me or my music.
Another tactic the Republicans have used to justify this kind of thing is the right to political free speech. Their argument is that the song is integral to making a political point, and therefore falls under free speech. Well, that’s just crazy talk — the song has nothing to do with Crist’s political views. It simply has a title that is a handy catchphrase, as does the Jackson Browne song — but the content of the song itself doesn’t have any connection with the politician’s campaign or agenda.
So, my lawyers and I have filed a lawsuit — and we also hope the Republicans might not engage (again) in this kind of illegal behavior in the future.
We eventually arrived at Klaustur, the nickname for Kirkjubæjarklaustur. It was almost completely clean here... no clouds of ash being thrown up by the occasional passing car or truck, so we looked for a place to stay. Luckily we were directed to a hotel that seemed to have aspirations to become a kind of golf resort, as they’d made a 10-hole course around some of the nearby hills that all seemed to resemble women’s breasts — complete with nipples on top.
There were three other couples in the whole place, which was nice. In the summer this area is popular as a jumping off point for getting onto some of the nearby glaciers, and an area called 100 Craters, the road to which wasn't opened yet.
It rained in the night and we wondered if it would help out the guys with hoses in Vík.
On to a nearby gorge, again along a gravel road. It appears out of nowhere, and one can hike along the top of it and peer down...
The gorge is only a few kilometers long, so after a short hike we’re back to the road and heading towards a glacier tongue I spied as we sped by Skógar — if the ash had indeed been washed away somewhat, then it might be possible to drive up to the glacier. First we tried a gravel road that was supposed to lead up to Mýrdalsjökull glacier, but it started to get pretty sketchy, so we turned back from that approach. The landscape was nice and bleak.
Further on I could see the glacier tongue from the main road... a dirty, icy wall in the distance just a little inland. Along yet another gravel road we got pretty close, and after a short hike we were on it... covered with dark brown sand or ash, or both, hard to tell. The glaciers push a lot of rocks and dirt along in front of them, so glaciers with dirty faces aren’t all that strange.
I got up as far as an area where some crevasses began, and where there were some funnel shaped holes down which melt water was draining. I could see some hikers emerging over a ridge, and they all had on crampons and carried poles and ropes, so I thought maybe with all these crevasses and deep holes I shouldn’t proceed much further.
We headed back towards Vík, and it had indeed been washed a bit cleaner. The wind seemed to have changed direction, and the ash cloud appeared to be moving more directly south over the sea, and maybe even a little west. We heard soon afterwards that Reykjavík airport had been closed, again, and maybe this wind change was the reason. Our NY friends wouldn't be getting in for Cindy’s opening.
There was a little ash dust coming up from passing vehicles, but not so much in the air now. As we passed under the cloud it began to rain — black gray brown dirty rain, as if someone were throwing mud at the windshield. The more it rained the dirtier the car got.
Clear sky ahead. We headed back to Reykjavík.
Needless to say the tourism industry has been hit hard. The guy we rented our car from was sitting around the office with his mates listening to music on their computers.
Cindy had her opening and loads of people turned out — I ran into Einar, former Sugarcube who had brought me here for a concert in the mid-’90s. We played at a movie theater, which, as it turns out, is better than a lot of the venues where some acts play. Now Einar has other projects, among them Ghostigital, with whom I am slated to collaborate on a song. The new Icelandic minister of culture, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, opened the show. Here’s her official government portrait:
Went to Florence and The Machine’s show at Terminal 5 a couple of weeks ago. She’s one of the singers on the Here Lies Love project (title song), and her record has blown up in the UK. She came out in a “dress” that looked like a jellyfish trailing tentacles and proceeded to sing full out for the whole show.
I was on the balcony, and in the area in front of the stage I could see a young woman in a headscarf with her friends, bopping to the music and singing along. Don’t think I had ever seen this before and it gave the lie to many of our preconceptions about gals in headscarves. It was very moving. We’ll take our optimism where we can get it. In my phone video you can barely make her out — she’s in the middle on the left side, about ¼ of the way in.
The other day I watched a Brazilian film called Saudade do Futuro, a documentary about Northeastern musicians in São Paulo. This means the poor Northeast in Brasil, not Northeast as in Connecticut. The film is very poetic — there is almost no voice over, and almost no didactic explanations of what we’re seeing — but those techniques are made unnecessary because the style of music — forró, and especially repentismo — tell the stories of the singers’ harsh lives in the lyrics. The latter style consists of rap/rhyming duels, with the singers also playing pandeiros (tambourines with heads, to us northerners). They describe how they had to leave the Northeast — as Luiz Gonzaga did decades ago — and their struggles to survive in the big city. There’s a lot of humor and innuendo in the lyrics as well. Years ago I went to a forró club in SP and it was lovely — great dancing and live music blasting over a horrific PA system.
The filmmakers intersperse the musical scenes with poetic footage of São Paulo — the stock exchange, the street bustle, the commuter trains — that also have a kind of musicality to them. It all fits together in a way that is lovely but inexplicable.
I saw Caetano Veloso’s show here recently at Terminal 5. He’s touring with a band led by guitarist Pedro Sá. The music from his last two records is minimal and raw — rock with a subtext of samba. Lyrics about relationships gone bad, the US base at Guantanamo and drug addicts. Not exactly feel good stuff — but he manages inevitably to make it enjoyable and even beautiful. His pleasure in performing was infectious. It was the best sound mix I’ve ever heard at Terminal 5.
Sunday night I saw Céu, a singer who is one of the exponents of the kind of electronic-roots hybrids now coming out of Brasil. She does a very contemporary kind of music that’s informed by a myriad of historical (mostly Brazilian) styles. The band was, like Caetano’s, minimal — bass, drums, keyboards, and a guy who played samples by using discs as a DJ might… but in this case he played the discs manually, triggering sounds off his laptop. In the last few years she’s gotten hugely popular — well, everywhere except the USA. I expect that might change soon.
I’ve just finished a press tour of London, Paris, Hamburg and Milano talking about the Here Lies Love project. It comes out in about a week over here. Norman (Fatboy Slim), my collaborator, would have joined me but he and his wife Zoe have just had a baby and have taken a holiday.
A tour like this consists of day after day of one interview after another. I was told that Ry Cooder once fell asleep in the middle of a phone interview. To be fair, in addition to fulfilling a publicity function, I also find out how the work is being perceived — if it’s confusing or if one aspect I hadn’t noticed seems important to people. For example, in this piece thus far, I don’t detail the Marcoses’ human rights and financial abuses. I allude to their nefarious behavior, but don’t list their nasty habits one by one. I often brought up this omission to the interviewers myself — saying I chose to intentionally focus on the psychological issues that drove Imelda… issues which, as I see them, manifested in more influential and sometimes tragic behavior later on — decisions that affected their whole nation.
I wrote in the HLL book that this whole project originated when I became fascinated reading the late Kapuscinski’s (now questionable) account of the court of Haile Selassie, and how theatrical it seemed to me. It was a theater of the absurd, stylized and in no way naturalistic — absolutely stagey, with proscribed movement and gesture, dialogue and ceremonial dress. I just now stumbled upon the phrase “political theater” in a book by Chris Hedges, in reference to contemporary TV reporters — they who often debate whether a pseudo event was convincing or not. Perfect. It’s already theater, I just needed to make it explicit.
I also mentioned that the piece might be an allegory for the human capability for evil. We see Imelda’s extravagant, ruthless and decadent behavior, which became especially prevalent after martial law was declared in the Philippines, becoming increasingly bold and widespread, as reporting of said behavior didn’t filter back much due to a censored press. When Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law, all opposition papers and TV were shut down; the populace only heard what the government wanted them to hear. (Hello, China and Italy!)
In the most inexcusable behavior I saw a manifestation of a common human trait — that when all restraints are removed, we tend to lose our moral compasses. I think it could happen to any of us. In the interviews I noted that, for example, I don’t think the soldiers at Abu Ghraib were particularly bad apples as was claimed, but that they were put in a situation where they were handed absolute power — and that kind of ultimate power corrupts absolutely. In a way, there are no evil people, but situations and contexts that allow the evil in all (or many) of us to come out. See the famous Milgram test regarding our capacity to inflict harm.
Granted, not every soldier at Abu Ghraib engaged in torture and disgusting behavior, but let’s put it this way — the leaked pictures that were proudly circulated were the whistleblowers, not the soldiers. The few bad apples rationale put forward by the administration acted in effect as an excuse for them, the higher ups — and let the poor grunts be the fall guys.
Lastly, I stated that the project is about understanding that the Marcos era is perceived, especially in the Philippines, in shades of gray, not as black and white, good vs. evil as we outsiders might tend to assume. While both Ferdinand and his wife brutally suppressed dissent and opposition, and sunk their country heavily in debt, there is in the Philippines a common perception that they, at least before martial law was declared, did some good too. They built rural schools and clinics, roads and higher education facilities that everyone there is proud of. Later, there were vast, expensive art centers built that were meant to impress foreigners and the elite, and self-commissioned monuments to the Marcos glory. Also, in the early days of their era, as a handsome couple, they represented their country on the world stage — flattering photo essays in LIFE magazine, etc. This was all something that hadn’t happened before. Of course, the good does not excuse the bad, but it makes any absolute judgment more complicated. One wishes that in this and other cases the bad could be fixed or dealt with in some way, though the most obvious — revenge and punishment — doesn’t really get us anywhere.
Looking for other gray examples, I asked a friend in London, “Did Margaret Thatcher do anything good?” Needless to say I’m no friend of Thatcherism. The answer was yes — one thing she did was to allow people living in public housing to buy their own dwellings. Developers and speculators weren’t allowed to do this, only the residents. So, eventually you had people, some of whom might have been living in squalid housing estates (projects, as they’re called in the US), beginning to take an interest in their homes, surroundings and neighborhoods. Does this mitigate the other stuff Thatcher did? (With an understanding that not everyone might agree that this housing policy was good.) Well, it humanizes the Iron Lady just a little bit; it adds a tiny diamond to the pile of brutal nastiness.
Maybe the South African Truth and Reconciliation system is a model for dealing with past crimes? If the perp comes clean, absolutely, and admits to every wrongdoing, then forgiveness can be granted in some cases, and healing begins. But if there is an insistence on excuses and an attempt to justify offense, and the plea is refused, it gets them a court prosecution. Maybe this is better than The Hague, which the US set up as a sort of legalized vengeance institution. In this process it seems it’s not about healing, it’s about punishment. But throwing one man in jail for slaughtering hundreds, or hanging another, doesn’t soothe the pain — it merely makes the object of hatred vanish.
A lot of the interviewers zeroed in on the statement in my written introduction in which I proposed that this package — with its thematically linked songs, DVD, 120-page book and 2 CDs — might be a response to the “death of the album.” I guess there are some record collectors out there who will miss that format. All, however, agreed that CDs, especially in their plastic jewel boxes with tiny booklets, are ugly. Most had trouble imagining what might happen in the near future. I suggested that multimedia packages (with links, text, video and images) might be perfect for smart phones and other new devices; they might be better than CDs in some ways, which have gotten increasingly stingy in their packaging and content, offering the consumer less and less for their buck.
Mega pop artists might, for example, just release a few singles and attention grabbing videos of those songs. Many more millions might be willing to spring for a couple of songs (or video downloads) than for a whole album from artists who typically fill out their CDs with less than stellar tunes.
Others will have to find some other format, which is only regrettable in the sense that there is an economy of scale in selling bundles of 12 tunes. It doesn’t cost a whole lot more to market a CD that contains 12 tunes than a single — but the income from the 12 song bundle is 10 times as much, or more. So, while mainstream pop artists might sell many more singles, the lower ends of that bell curve — the artists whose output will never sell millions of singles but does have an loyal audience — won’t find that model very sustainable.
Much of the personnel of the local Warner branch have been laid off not too long ago. Some actually got their notices very recently, and the day I arrived was their last day on the job. The woman who represents Italian artists to the world was let go. I saw her vanish down a hallway — she resembles the fashion mistress in The Incredibles.
I wonder who and what will be left of these regional offices in the next few years. Not much, I fear. I heard a story that one executive felt the obligation to visit Tori Amos and her husband at their home studio complex in Cornwall to assess or hear a record of hers. It’s a good four hours from London by train and car (I know because I went there to record her vocals on this project), so the exec took a helicopter. Those days are over.
While at the Warner offices in Milano, I was right in the midst of a series of interviews when a siren went off and everyone in the building evacuated. We trooped down the stairs, 7 flights, to the front driveway where many turned it into a smoke break. We walked over to the hotel and continued over there.
For lunch we went to a nearby vegetarian restaurant with a molecular cuisine slant — my entree was called “A stroll in the forest” and consisted of a bowl of two colored foams under which lay buried crispy and flavorful vegetables, each flavored with a different spice. As one of the Warner staff mentioned, “Each bite gives another flavor and another surprise.”
In case you think this meal is proof that helicopter-style extravagance hasn’t gone out of style, the set lunch here goes for 17 euros — not as low as a cheap slice or a gyro from a Halal cart, but not a helicopter either.
On lunch break in Paris I used the local press officer’s metro card to bum a ride on one of the Vélib' bikes. It’s a little bit confusing, all the swiping and button pushing necessary to release the bike, but then it’s easy. I went for a ride down along the Seine, over a pedestrian bridge by the Eiffel tower, and circled back to the hotel. It costs one euro for a 24-hour period (or you can buy a monthly or yearly pass), and within that period there is unlimited use as long as each individual ride doesn’t exceed 30 minutes. So, you could go to get groceries, or to the movies, or to meet friends for dinner or commute to work, if it’s not too far. As there are Vélib' stations all over town, you reinsert the bike in the nearest station-locking port to your destination, and the clock stops ticking. Then, at no additional charge, you pick up another one to get back home or to your next stop and the clock resets at zero again.
[Photo: Matthew Rankin]
One bike at the station had a flat tire, and its port flashed red, indicating it was not available for use. I was also advised to check the brakes and chains before removing a bike, as sometimes they’re not kept up. When I asked about the recent US news reports that the Vélib' bikes were getting vandalized and trashed, mostly by the immigrant population of the Parisian suburbs, I was told that it seemed like an anti-immigrant rumor and that the theft and vandalism rate is much lower than reported in that article.
The bike itself is heavy and has only three gears, so it’s fine for most of the town but riding up to Sacré-Coeur might be inadvisable.
I recently got an email from Annie-B Parson, the choreographer/director who helped on my last tour. She’s in France, where The Anticodes Festival is funding development of a new show by her group Big Dance Theater, and the company is touring their previous show. She said some of her choreographer/dancer pals were upset at Tino Sehgal’s piece that just closed at the Guggenheim. To some of these folks, it seemed like “cheating” — the idea of putting a theatrical/performance/dance work (it is choreographed, in a way) into what is certainly a more financially lucrative context. A museum presumably pays more than doing a similar show at Dance Theater Workshop or The Kitchen.
Of course, Sehgal’s piece is somewhat conceived specifically for museums and art spaces — I saw it at the ICA in London, another art space which, like the Guggenheim, was emptied out to become a rambling shell expressly for this performance piece. It’s true this particular piece wouldn’t work on a conventional, theatrical proscenium stage — but in quite a few alternative performance venues it wouldn’t be too much out of place.
The piece consists of a series of hired people, of ascending ages, who one at a time engage the visitor in “conversation” while leading them around the institution to an encounter with the next conversationalist, who replaces the previous one. In my experience I took it all in naturally — I’m sort of used to being asked curious philosophical questions by total strangers, so this didn’t seem out of the ordinary at all. Well, not much anyway. In London I answered the questions the conversationalists asked sincerely, and didn’t notice the ascending age aspect, or much else, until it was maybe half over. There’s a whole structure here! Duh. I also didn’t try to subvert the piece or ask meta questions such as, “Do you get tired asking the same questions all the time?” It seemed that if one were to experience the piece one had to play along.
As a theater piece it’s unusual, though I’ve seen quite a few that are site-specific. Anne Hamburger, who later became an executive at Disney, did a bunch of site-specific works in abandoned theaters when 42nd St. was mostly shuttered, and one in the Meatpacking District at night when it was still a derelict zone at that hour. There were elements of urban archeology as well as narrative mixed together in those pieces. Noémie LaFrance has staged dance shows in a stairway and in a parking structure. Other theater pieces I’ve seen required interaction and audience movement as well. There’s one that was done in London recently in which the actors are anonymous bodies milling about in a train station crowd, but the audience — seated on benches nearby — can hear them via radio mics… and soon enough can follow a little drama that takes place. So the argument that the Guggenheim show is something in which the context has been changed is not without validity, though I would say that as it seems to have been conceived specifically for these large rambling spaces, it isn’t as much a fish in a different pond as some might claim.
Others have had issues with Sehgal’s business savvy that also relate to context issues. The NY Times reported that he “sold” the rights to a different piece to MoMA for 70k — whatever that means. (Does it mean that it can only be performed under the auspices of whoever now “owns” the piece? And can they presumably have it performed, like hanging a picture they own on a wall, wherever and how often they like?) Maybe the poverty-stricken alternative theater and dance folks got wind of this new kind of transaction and are jealous or incensed that he found a way to cash in on the same kinds of work they’ve been doing for years — except most of them haven’t been getting anywhere near that kind of cash. Should one congratulate him, or is he in fact “cheating”? Would they even want to “sell” a piece in this manner?
When artists who do live pieces perform them in galleries, I’ve been informed that they might not get paid, or at least not much — and admission to galleries, unlike many museums, is free for all, so there isn’t that source of income from which to draw. Often photos of the piece or other ephemera are sold to in effect fund the performance.
Last week I went to the Whitney Biennial and there were a number of pieces I really loved. Pae White’s giant woven piece depicting smoke blew me away (pun intended), but four others struck me as being all about this context issue. Kelly Nipper’s five minute video of a masked woman dancing is, in my opinion, weirdly out of context — much more so than the Sehgal pieces might be construed as being. It’s a single screen video of a short dance. The soundtrack is someone counting numbers. Whether it’s a good dance or performance or not is besides the point — it seems to me it’s better suited for the Whitney’s short film screenings, or a collection of shorts on DVD like Wholphin. Actually, it wouldn’t fit that well on Wholphin, but someone should start a DVD “magazine” of dance and performance work, and there it would be perfect. Similarly, Rashaad Newsome’s almost 7 minute long video of voguing without music has some conceptual underpinning about the movement and gestures being passed on — but it’s pretty much some nice voguing with the typical music removed. Nice to see some cool voguing, but refer to the previous dance piece for suggested placement. Jesse Aron Green’s 80 minute video of some folks doing old (1858) German exercises is an interesting idea, but again, why here?
The work is a dance piece shot — or rather, documented — with a video camera. Lastly there is Marianne Vitale’s video — an 8 minute harangue regarding an imaginary philosophy called neutralism — which is funny and disturbing, but this one really could be included in Wholphin.
I hate being negative about anyone’s work — and I hope this doesn’t come across that way — but in these cases I have to agree with Annie-B’s friends, as I feel that the recontextualization doesn’t add anything. In fact it makes one less likely to watch the whole thing! I might sit down for an 80 minute video of a dance piece at home — or go to a screening, if it is sufficiently filmic… or even watch it at a gathering of friends. But on a hard bench in a museum, no way. The Sehgal piece belongs in a museum much more than these do, in my opinion.
Annie-B pointed out the other day that dance is notoriously hard to film. When we experience dance, or any performance, she suggests that we simultaneously get the big pictures and the details — we see the shapes and bodies moving about on a stage, how the thing is organized, and at the same time, we see individual performers’ bodies and faces. Perceptually, we see with our minds both close-ups and wide shots at the same time. Not everyone is in agreement with this. Others have told me they think we “edit” between the two — making choices as to what to focus on. This would explain why film editing isn’t more jarring to us than we might expect.
Obviously video and film can jump from one to another via edits, or do split screens, but they can’t quite duplicate that experience — that simultaneity — to say nothing of the social/physical experience of being part of an audience. Multiple screens can sort of do it. Annie-B believes that an installation with one screen showing a wide shot and another showing details comes vaguely close. One can be aware of the intensity of an individual performer and at the same time how they relate to the whole… but it’s still a weird substitute. The wide shot that comprises the German exercise video only gives us part of the picture, for example — and a part that is, objectively, the whole thing — but subjectively much of the emotion that we would derive from closer shots is missing.
Movies As a Kind of Installation
Not only dance videos, but a lot of experimental film has recontextualized itself over the last couple of decades. Relatively short videos and films (between 10 minutes and an hour) are often shown in galleries inside black sheetrock boxes, usually with just that same uncomfortable bench for viewers to sit on. There are no “showtimes” and no sense of where one is when one enters the “theater.” You could be near the end or still have an hour to go, there’s no way of knowing. Full disclosure: I’ve done this myself with some of the short (4 minute) PowerPoint-generated videos I created. Most of the time these are not like the above works — documentations of performances — but works in which the editing, the effects, and the manipulation of the footage all contribute.
For filmmakers who show in galleries, the possible upside is that their work can, in this context, be sold for thousands of times more than what these same filmmakers with the exact same work would net from screenings at Anthology, IFC and similar venues. Those film houses used to show the works of Stan Brakhage, Michael Snow, Bruce Conner, the Kuchar brothers and others — work that is not entirely dissimilar from what’s in galleries today. Sometimes, in purely visual terms, the 16mm films they made in earlier decades were easier on the eye than contemporary video works — they had higher resolution, and film, until recently, was simply nicer looking than many of the grainy videos shown in galleries. Film grain in general is nicer than video grain or pixels.
I think that when these works are shown in galleries they are generally sold in limited editions to collectors for sizable sums. What does that mean? Does it mean that the new owner can show them to their friends at their homes but no one else has access to the work? Imagine having one of five copies of, say, Pink Flamingos? Or Gus Van Sant’s Elephant? No one else would know about the film from then on except by hearsay — which, depending on your taste or lack of it, might be considered a good thing. It would be like only seeing the masterpieces — like the one Steve Wynn put his arm through, or the Barnes collection — in reproduction, unless they were lent out from time to time.
One might think these artists are cashing in, but I’m informed that the cash part might actually be negligible. While many more folks may see their work as they pass through the Whitney, for example, the artists would presumably have previously shown the work in a gallery, whose attendance is nothing like the crowds at major museums. Those galleries actually have a pretty hard time selling most video works, so the change of context can’t be all about money in many of these cases. Prestige or glory maybe, but not strictly cash.
At least these videomakers and filmmakers who show in galleries have found a way to get their work out there. Or some have, at least. At last, some might say. Brakhage and many others used to teach to support themselves. They taught young folks how to make films somewhat like theirs… folks who, until this new situation arose, would inevitably be looking to replace Stan at his teaching position before too long. The British artist Steve McQueen used to show in the gallery/museum context, and still does sometimes, but his film Hunger, about hunger striker Bobby Sands, was shown in cinemas. I saw it in Wellington, New Zealand! Likewise Sam Taylor-Wood used to show videos on flat screens in galleries — and maybe she still does — but her latest is a regular feature on the childhood of John Lennon. Cindy Sherman made a movie, as did Robert Longo, David Salle and Julian Schnabel. But those folks didn’t really ever try to survive showing short films or videos — that’s the difference. Matthew Barney does show his films in cinemas, though I doubt these theatrical runs recoup the cost of making the nice prints and ads. I suspect it’s his sculptures that pay for the movies — though the DVDs are sold in limited editions in super elaborate packages. You essentially get an artwork that happens to have a DVD tucked inside it.
Granted, many gallery and museum video installations aren’t things that could ever be screened in cinemas; they are immersive pieces that can’t be experienced in any other way — they have multiple or oddly shaped screens, for example. But… even so, Warhol’s Chelsea Girls was shown on multiple screens simultaneously too, and in regular movie theaters. But despite the success of that film, he mostly had to churn out silkscreens to fund his films — the recontextualization wasn’t an effective financial strategy.
Sometimes the switch in context goes the other way. Not too long ago MoMA curator Klaus Biesenbach did a reversal of this at P.S.1. He took all the episodes of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s TV series Berlin Alexanderplatz and screened them simultaneously in a museum — as if it were an art installation! There was a circular construction that filled a large room, with all the episodes running at once; in other spaces there were larger fragments from the series projected on screens. Later the films of Kenneth Anger were screened at P.S.1 as well — in a large, dark, rubberized space — again with many films running simultaneously. These were pretty cool environments, immersive and considered, though free of any narrative or episodic structures that might be inherent in the works. They are also miles away from what the filmmakers might have envisioned when they made the work.
At a recent art world dinner Biesenbach mentioned to me that he’d crossed paths with Lady Gaga, who said that she felt she was a performance artist — or an artist of some sort. Biesenbach responded that she was not, and reportedly she was a bit taken aback and stunned at his reply. Biesenbach
didn’t exactly detail as to why in fact she wasn’t an artist, but by way of a
sort of explanation he related that Susan Sontag had pronounced to him, “All we
have is our opinion.” We must be referring to cultural critics like
herself and other curators. Well, her opinions were always backed up by
extremely well-written and thought through arguments, and Biesenbachs’s
opinions now carry the weight of MoMA — so while some opinions are qualified,
some have more resonance and repercussions than others.* On the interweb everyone has an opinion, but most of it doesn’t matter. There’s no pretence of equal opportunity or democracy in the art world — which is probably fine. Komar and Melamid did “democratic” art as a kind of ironic exercise, and from their example I can say we seriously don’t want Wiki culture. According to their poll results, this is what folks in the USA want to see in a painting — even down to specifying that it should be “about the size of a dishwasher”:
I asked Biesenbach about the Fassbinder and Anger shows, and he quoted the attendance figures — 100k or so. Much, much more than might turn up to see screenings of Anger films at Anthology, I replied. The Fassbinder comparison is a slightly more complicated one, because it was originally a TV series — and it’s possible that many more than 100,000 saw it in Germany, though certainly not in the USA. The fact that Anger’s work was made to be watched in a cinema setting, and that changing the context to an installation might be in fact changing the work, wasn’t discussed. I have a hunch that Anger might have approved the rubber, clubby setting as a fun, kinky ambience for his films even if most viewers didn’t watch many of them all the way through in this new setting. His films were already about changing context — throwing leather boys and low car culture in front of bohemian experimental film audiences.
Recontextualizing work is a savvy strategy these days. In an extreme view it might appear that some folks simply move the exact same work around to different kinds of venues until it clicks — and the money magically starts to flow. Some see any presumed cleverness or market savvy on behalf of an artist or performer as distasteful. They feel that serious work should be driven primarily by passion or some kind of authenticity and purity, and that financial considerations — figuring out how to monetize one’s work and activity, as it is phrased in dot-com terms — is tacky, and goes against the rules. What rules? Where are these rules written down? Shouldn’t artists be cheered for making money if they can, if they don’t dilute their work?
The “rules” as I intuit them say that cultural production takes place on some moral and ethical high ground where money is not a consideration. According to these rules, for an artist or musician to take financial factors into consideration is to automatically lower and demean work that is supposed to stem from and engage our higher impulses. The work, once money enters the picture, is now assumed to be “work for hire,” to use the legal term. This is why fine artists often look down their noses on craftspeople, illustrators and graphic designers. During the Renaissance, they worked hard to separate themselves from the laborers of the trade guilds, and worked hard to gain acceptance for the idea that they were more than mere craftspeople — so to risk slipping back into that ignoble territory is completely unacceptable.
Speaking of craftspeople and work for hire, I’d argue that some TV ads, which are most definitely “work for hire,” are as innovative and transporting as any art film you can name. The production values are quite a bit higher, so the poor struggling artist can’t afford to compete. But, as if to balance the scales of value in some way, whispering into our ear is a little guy saying, “But it’s an ad!”
Here’s a recent Audi advertisement that features gymnasts as a machine:
Some ads appropriate — steal might be a better word — ideas from the bohemian art underbelly and redo them with higher production values and tighter editing. The experimental gets absorbed into the mainstream, inevitably. One could cry foul, but to some extent it’s just proof that the idea was good. When I did a feature film, I hired Meredith Monk, Spalding Gray, Jo Harvey Allen and a few others on the performing arts circuit who had inspired me to do what they did, or sort of. Better they themselves get paid and make their own unique contributions than just get copied, uncredited.
According to the old fine art rules, it’s nobler to be poor — which is a cliché for sure, but one that is still held on to dearly. The assumption is that being paid well allies one with the bourgeois one is supposed to be busy offending and shocking. As if anything is shocking today. And making art — if these innovative car ads could be considered art — in service of machines that guzzle fossil fuels is not exactly seen as taking the high road either. Musicians have the same problem — in certain territories one’s peers look askance should one of the old gang get seriously financially rewarded for their work, the hip hop community excepted.
The Theater of Ritual
Along with being upset with Tino Sehgal’s clever dealings, some also view Marina Abramović’s recreations of her earlier performances now on view at MoMA as sacrilege — or at the very least, inauthentic. I can see their point — lots of work that has power in a garage, a funky loft, or in a cold and drafty art space loses some of that power when set in a well-lit white museum room.
The show is a retrospective, so there is a lot of stuff — live people reenact earlier pieces, videos of older pieces run on screens, stills line the walls, and there are also some objects. It’s noisy too, as opposed to what one might imagine these pieces engendered when originally presented — a somewhat respectful silence in the observer. The bustling crowds at MoMA don’t allow for that.
Is it that these pieces weren’t originally created for these museum spaces? Is that what bothers some folks? Are they just nostalgic for the bad old days? Isn’t almost half the stuff in museums — tapestries, frescoes, altar pieces and Greek vases — out of context? Didn’t those objects come from temples, churches and castles? Only contemporary artists really make things for the museum context — giant, oversize paintings and sculptures that wouldn’t fit in any homes I know. The context for many performance pieces might have been more solemn than what I saw — but I have to remind myself that I don’t dismiss all the sacred art displayed in the world’s museums automatically… though I feel a little queasy that much of the power has been drained from it.
Looking at the feats of endurance and bodily mortification on display, I wonder: Are these performances more or less powerful than when Iggy Pop cuts himself or stage dives, or when — to really stretch things — David Blaine lives in a Plexi bubble or is frozen in ice? Are those guys not performance artists too? Are they any less as artists? In some respects aren’t they are doing very similar things? The context is vastly different, again, and something tells me Blaine makes money off his stunts… as did Houdini. So the context seems to be what makes all the difference.
Why, in a museum setting, don't they exhibit all the documentation of early pieces instead — couldn't that make up the show? Because it's sexier, and will sell more tickets, if there are a dozen naked performers on view. And the alternative might just seem a bit too academic and boring.
Another difference, maybe, is that by clearing space around these acts, placing them in a less sensational, muddled, chaotic or media-saturated environment, they are given an aura of solemnity, ritual and spirituality. At one extreme are sideshow freaks and geeks, and at the other is Abramović cutting herself with a razor blade or Tehching Hsieh living in a cage — or even religious ascetics. Iggy and Blaine are somewhere in the middle — though something tells me that Iggy is loved by both artists and sideshow performers.
Here’s a still from the Buñuel film Simon of the Desert, in which a religious ascetic in Spain isolates himself atop a pillar.
I’ve seen Hindu adepts during the Thaipusam festival in Malaysia pierce themselves with steel rods and hooks, and others in Bali attempt to stab themselves with daggers while in trance. The performance of these rituals is open to the public — though it’s not usually advertised as a “show.” SEE the man hang from a hook going through his tendons! SEE the Indian sadhu buried alive! SEE men covered in ash and blood!
Usually it is other faithful who turn out to view and witness — I think that word is key — these acts. And that might be what happens in certain kinds of performance art as well — the art faithful come to bear witness. In many Asian religious festivals there is just as much noise and chaos as at a rock show or at the MoMA, filled with visitors — but the attendants manage to keep their focus despite all the possible distractions.
A sadhu is an ascetic who has renounced the world and seeks liberation through contemplation, often via tests of extreme physical endurance. I would argue that performance art like Abramović’s and that of Tehching Hsieh has a similar goal in mind… and like the sadhus, they present themselves and their mortification of the flesh to the public as examples to be witnessed. They don’t hide their asceticism or physical feats from the public — they’re not locked away in temples or monasteries — quite the opposite. According to the photographer’s blog, the sadhus above quickly disrobed and struck a pose when they saw Boiteau’s camera come out.
Likewise aren’t these artists “striking a pose” in museums? Does that make them, or the sadhus above, less authentic?
The Kumbh Mela, a gathering of ascetics, is the world’s largest act of faith… and that’s saying something. In some areas of India it takes place every twelve years, and in others every six years. The pilgrimage in 2001 was — get ready — attended by 70 million people! Not only did that make it a huge show of faith, but it was also the largest gathering of people ever in the whole world! Woodstock? Feh.
Obviously, not all of these people were sadhus — many came to watch. Some watch out of curiosity, and some as believers who observe as the sadhus act, in a way, on their behalf. Does that make it a show? Many of the acts and images here are undeniably and incredibly theatrical — one could argue that the events here are evidence for an innate human tendency for stagecraft and organized, aestheticized spectacle.
A mosh pit, but more artistic, almost staged… and with mostly older men:
So one way to look at performance art is as a form of aesthetic ritual enacted so that the faithful can bear witness — the art faithful, in this case. As we in the West have lost much of our deep faith, we still long for what is missing, and part of that is ritual — ritual that goes beyond the proscribed and formalized behavior of business meetings, PowerPoint lectures, conferences, frat house initiations, toasts and drinking games. Here, rather, are rituals and performances in which the performer, to some extent, loses their identity — either by disguise, nudity, unnaturally formalized behavior, collective activity or muteness — and using slow and methodical movement (implying considered intent), an action manifests and takes place that resonates with us in some hard to define way. The fact that this resonance is elusive is probably part of the reason ritual has so much power. It’s doing something nothing else can do.
If the museum is a kind of church — and I’m not original in saying that — then besides the art that has become the altars and sacred objects on the walls, one needs the presence of real body-based ritual to complete the cycle of need and connection that we all share. Some smells and bells would be nice too.
In the rituals that adhere closest to the above traditions, it is naturally out of place to buy and sell “rights” to the “performance” — to do so in a religious setting would be outrageous, sacrilege. Performance works that come close to these traditions likewise have a heavy aura.
Germano Celant is the curator who arranged Abramović’s piece “Balkan Baroque,” which was performed at the Venice Biennial in 1997. It has been re-created, or rather re-imagined, for the MoMA show. He felt strongly that much had indeed been lost in translation. In the piece she continually cleans a pile of beef bones, and in Venice the bones still had traces of meat and blood on them — and after a while, it got stinky and foul, and reportedly there were even rats.
While cleaning she sings songs from her Serbian childhood, and tells a story of a Wolf Rat that eats it’s own when it is afraid. It couldn’t be more clear. This conjures an image of the artist as a woman who has taken on the dark chthonic role of scrubbing bones as metaphor for memory, guilt, and pain. It is the artist becoming a mythological figure, a stand-in for historical memory; it’s pretty powerful stuff, even without the rats and smells. It’s a fairy tale image straight out of Grimm. Celant claimed that by cleaning things up — the MoMA bones have no flesh hanging off — the power of the piece is diminished.
Hard to argue with him in this case, but in other instances I see the change of context as being inevitable and well, deal with it. Some folks complained, for example, that all the pieces in Abramović’s show were originally performed by her, and that teaching others to do them is just not the same.
A friend says, “What's lost is witnessing the woman who feels she must endure this penance, the more punishing the better; we're witnessing her self-flagellation, knowing that she finds (somewhere) pleasure in it; the audience gets off on her suffering. That can't happen with paid performers.” The art and the artist (the artist or musician’s body) in this case are presumed to be one, inseparable.
No, it’s not ever going to be the same when someone else does it — but sometimes, if we’re lucky, it might even be better. Though, as my friend says, any presumed masochistic motivations and subtext are gone. People get all nostalgic over bands they saw in dank clubs, plays and musicals they saw with the original cast, and operas with specific divas in the lead roles. Yes, sometimes one cast or one set of musicians is better than others, but sometimes the first incarnation isn’t the best either — sometimes a new performer brings fresh life to a role or song. At some point, when a work is truly without resonance, no one will want to see or hear it anyway, regardless of whether the originator is performing or not.
Some of this might have to do with the presumed connection between the author and performer in certain mediums — but that presumed unity is a whole different discussion.
Songs being re-performed by successive singers who didn’t actually write or perform the songs are too easy to bring into this — we’re used to songs being reinterpreted. I prefer Fred Astaire’s version of Cole Porter’s “Night and Day” over Sinatra’s — though some will go for Bono’s spiritualized version. (There are recorded versions of Cole Porter doing his own songs as well, though I doubt most people would prefer those. So much for the author being the best interpreter.) That a piece — a song, a play, an opera — can be reinterpreted is acceptable. It means we see it again, and from a new angle. New aspects are brought to light or are sometimes obscured, but if it works at all, the song or the role remains alive, which is the point. It’s a kind of continual resurrection, in which the new being is never the same as the old one.
Alternative Models
One could, following a connection between performance art with other performing arts, also view performance art for what it is — a performance, a special kind of show, and a subset or genre of theater. Just as I perform in front of people for money (or not), I sometimes feel that why shouldn’t others be subjected to some of the same forces as I am? — ticket sales, audience attention span, word of mouth and patience. Why not? Maybe, instead of selling the rights to a piece to the Guggenheim, Sehgal and the museum might have considered splitting the income from admissions. Maybe any performance artist, videomaker or artist whose work has no physical manifestation might do the same thing. When there is nothing physical to sell, you can always sell tickets. (Maybe they should even have merch tables like we musicians do to supplement their income and provide keepsakes?) Fundamentally we musical and stage performers don’t have anything to sell either — we are selling an experience that takes place at that moment. That moment and no other. It happens and then it’s gone. If you pay to be there, you experience it — and a live record, still photo or video is a poor substitute, a mere souvenir. A totem, a relic. A phone video? Forget it — it’s not the same.
The downside of that idea — treating performance art as if it is like any other performance — is that inevitably less popular work would eventually get pushed aside because not as many people would buy tickets. (But haven’t less popular musicians, and theater and dance groups, managed somewhat to survive? Yes, but barely — most still make very little money.) Not just less popular work, but work that doesn’t require a long time commitment to experience might also not fare so well. One might want to gaze for a while, in curiosity and weird rapture, at someone uncomfortably suspended on a wall or counting to a million, or at someone living daily life in a window or a cage, but how long can you view these things? How much would you pay for a glimpse? Many are not very theatrically engaging, so would you actually pay to see them? There’s no entertainment value either. These artists begin, as stated, in galleries, if they’re lucky — where admission is free — so only when they achieve enough success to be given a museum show can this admission idea come into play… but by then, they’re broke.
Part of the high art idea is that important work should NOT have to be popular; value, in that world, should not be subservient to market forces. It should not be expected to be simply or mainly entertaining. It’s got a higher agenda. I would say, yes, lofty and serious work should be allowed to exist free of Walmart or Wall Street. However, one could argue that they are simply ruled by another, alternative and more rarefied market with a set of forces of its own — a market that has other criteria and rules of play. Some of these criteria are, as advertised, heartfelt, intellectual, innovative and creative, while others are neither better nor worse than the values of the common market forces — just different, as are those of other unique subcultures: trainspotters, stamp collectors and comic book geeks. Each of these values things according to criteria that they alone understand. There are market forces at work, but only within a proscribed world.
Anyway, I say more power to the artists who can place what they do, without adulterating it, into a context that will possibly provide them a living and ideally expose the work to a larger audience. Even those videos of short dance pieces might be reaching a larger audience than they might otherwise (though I still have issues with whether folks are really watching them). One doesn’t necessarily always do better work with more freedom or money. Sometimes to write you just need a pencil and paper, and you can create a whole universe.
Among musicians there is the aphorism, “The musician who doesn’t pay attention to their business soon doesn’t have any business” — which is a response to the snobbish and romantic attitude that to be pure and authentic one mustn’t be concerned with money.
There’s certainly a difference between simply being on top of your business and letting the business guide and influence your creative instincts. That’s a valid distinction, but the border is often fuzzy. If something is placed in a new context and becomes successful, was it necessarily because the creator cynically tailored the work exclusively to a business plan? Not always. But yes, sometimes.
So, what do I think? I would argue that nothing exists in isolation. Not an original idea, I guess, but we still tend to view things as discrete — songs, performances, artwork — though they’re not. Maybe the stuff around an object, film or performance is as important as what we’re looking at or listening to. Maybe context is the work. In which case we might be back to “all we have is our opinion.” Sheesh.
