a step away from sight
i study touch in its most basic form and musical instruments provide the best arena where to excercise this sense connectivity between hearing and touch. The repeated resonance of a touch repeating. The easiest way to climb something is to learn it trustingly. Then your body remembers and you remember how to move in this or that way. For the last few years my main opportunity to play musical instruments has been a few pianos situated in good locations, and the occasional piano I have got to tune, and the few musical instruments I have made in recent projects. This album is a musical journal of my return to guitar. It is a return to a musical discipline like I saw before when I trained with Mirkka.
To touch is more then just to make contact, 'even when coming into contact an "untouchable" is not touched
tuning as frame.
IN THE ARENA OF TOUCH
In the arena of touch, for objects and arena, one musician with a maximum of one viewer at a time into the arena and listeners who can all either be players in the performance, observers, or a mixture. Microphone is placed through top hole thus observing the interior soundscape from above. Thus the rig is extremely functional and can either be constructed in situ or transportted with little problems in luggage. The interior should never be revealed to the public beyond the viewing window and the arena should be bolted to the surface it is inteded to be used on.
The exterior surface uses raw aesthetics distinctly DIY, the viewing and hand hole are cut rough and glue is left on surface, with glue thin strips of rough and smooth surfaces have been created to further demonstrate the idea that the work really needs to be touched, but also further demonstrates in embodyment how seeing the hand playing something changes the way we hear sounds.
The objects used in the first experiment are a Aristo WD1 0.5 pencil, copper thimble, strip of linen fabric 40cm long 1.8cm wide, hairpin. These objects were chosen for their formal shape properties, a pencil, long thin, hard, smooth, possibly extendable, thimble, round hollow, rough, able to contain as well as cover, linen, flexible, soft, shaggy, hairpin, folded, patterned, bendy tension
Improvise first a short section, take pencil and use it to find the thimble, trying only with the pencil enter the thimble and lift it so that it is on top of the pencil, shake. Take a brake.
The arena of touch can take whatever objects one wants to use, but it is important to consider the objects carefully for this symbolic form, a form as a historical reference, like the cube for example, as well as what the sonic results could be. At its best it is an instrument for the psychoanalysis of the musicians relationship to eros and psyche. It is made to fit the mental projection, the identity of the musician. In this way it is related aesthetically as well as thematically to Neon Genesis Evangelion where the arena of mental expression of a teenager crossing puberty is imagined as the entrance of "angels", which symbolise the the consciousness of the event itself. And are resisted through an exteriorized "Mecha" prosthetic able to counterbalance the final death of childhood through (prosthetic-)hands-on violence. In this way it also connects to playing with toys and constructing imaginary worlds as a child giving a reason for the Arena..
I think it is important to form relationships with musicians in order to get to know them, especially in music which is novel, difficult technically, etc the level of commitment to music must be very high and it is important to help the musician commit to the music. In The Arena Of Touch rests on this notion of friendship because we must be comfortable with each other in order to understand each other through touch. In this way I do not feel it useful to engage with musicians who I cannot reach out to quite literally, and a transition from solely working alone with musicians to musicians working with these ideas themselves will be extremely interesting. But The Arena Of Touch requires more then mere connection, a throrough bond of trust must happen in order for the composer/curator/analys to choose the objects with care of aim.
Spatial embodyment is a difficult thing and a thought must be had at the experience of the audience in a performance such as In The Arena Of Touch where the real activity is happening only to the musician touching the objects. Obviously the audience is cut from this experience even when there is a peephole into the arena. I found myself placing my ear onto this hole as I played thus covering even this viewing point from the audience. Not to mention if it is performed on stage. Thus the intimate touch is countered by a dislocated embodyment of seeing a pyramid into which the musician puts their hand. This wall blocks the experience of seeing touching, and in this way the pyramid eats the hand. What happens here is manyfold, a strong emotion of curiosity, as demonstrated in the 'need to touch' scale, and I need to know what is inside as a physical sensation in my stomach at the idea of not knowing.
This is a very abstract piece combining two previous ideas, of boxes containing materials that are played and bags containing objects which are touched and discussed in a talk performance. The layering of these two
unloaded gun inside box, curiosity to fire, obscure make and functioning to engage hobbyist and expert.
Cement version.
i study touch in its most basic form and musical instruments provide the best arena where to excercise this sense connectivity between hearing and touch. The repeated resonance of a touch repeating. The easiest way to climb something is to learn it trustingly. Then your body remembers and you remember how to move in this or that way. For the last few years my main opportunity to play musical instruments has been a few pianos situated in good locations, and the occasional piano I have got to tune, and the few musical instruments I have made in recent projects. This album is a musical journal of my return to guitar. It is a return to a musical discipline like I saw before when I trained with Mirkka.
To touch is more then just to make contact, 'even when coming into contact an "untouchable" is not touched
tuning as frame.
IN THE ARENA OF TOUCH
In the arena of touch, for objects and arena, one musician with a maximum of one viewer at a time into the arena and listeners who can all either be players in the performance, observers, or a mixture. Microphone is placed through top hole thus observing the interior soundscape from above. Thus the rig is extremely functional and can either be constructed in situ or transportted with little problems in luggage. The interior should never be revealed to the public beyond the viewing window and the arena should be bolted to the surface it is inteded to be used on.
The exterior surface uses raw aesthetics distinctly DIY, the viewing and hand hole are cut rough and glue is left on surface, with glue thin strips of rough and smooth surfaces have been created to further demonstrate the idea that the work really needs to be touched, but also further demonstrates in embodyment how seeing the hand playing something changes the way we hear sounds.
The objects used in the first experiment are a Aristo WD1 0.5 pencil, copper thimble, strip of linen fabric 40cm long 1.8cm wide, hairpin. These objects were chosen for their formal shape properties, a pencil, long thin, hard, smooth, possibly extendable, thimble, round hollow, rough, able to contain as well as cover, linen, flexible, soft, shaggy, hairpin, folded, patterned, bendy tension
Improvise first a short section, take pencil and use it to find the thimble, trying only with the pencil enter the thimble and lift it so that it is on top of the pencil, shake. Take a brake.
The arena of touch can take whatever objects one wants to use, but it is important to consider the objects carefully for this symbolic form, a form as a historical reference, like the cube for example, as well as what the sonic results could be. At its best it is an instrument for the psychoanalysis of the musicians relationship to eros and psyche. It is made to fit the mental projection, the identity of the musician. In this way it is related aesthetically as well as thematically to Neon Genesis Evangelion where the arena of mental expression of a teenager crossing puberty is imagined as the entrance of "angels", which symbolise the the consciousness of the event itself. And are resisted through an exteriorized "Mecha" prosthetic able to counterbalance the final death of childhood through (prosthetic-)hands-on violence. In this way it also connects to playing with toys and constructing imaginary worlds as a child giving a reason for the Arena..
I think it is important to form relationships with musicians in order to get to know them, especially in music which is novel, difficult technically, etc the level of commitment to music must be very high and it is important to help the musician commit to the music. In The Arena Of Touch rests on this notion of friendship because we must be comfortable with each other in order to understand each other through touch. In this way I do not feel it useful to engage with musicians who I cannot reach out to quite literally, and a transition from solely working alone with musicians to musicians working with these ideas themselves will be extremely interesting. But The Arena Of Touch requires more then mere connection, a throrough bond of trust must happen in order for the composer/curator/analys to choose the objects with care of aim.
Spatial embodyment is a difficult thing and a thought must be had at the experience of the audience in a performance such as In The Arena Of Touch where the real activity is happening only to the musician touching the objects. Obviously the audience is cut from this experience even when there is a peephole into the arena. I found myself placing my ear onto this hole as I played thus covering even this viewing point from the audience. Not to mention if it is performed on stage. Thus the intimate touch is countered by a dislocated embodyment of seeing a pyramid into which the musician puts their hand. This wall blocks the experience of seeing touching, and in this way the pyramid eats the hand. What happens here is manyfold, a strong emotion of curiosity, as demonstrated in the 'need to touch' scale, and I need to know what is inside as a physical sensation in my stomach at the idea of not knowing.
This is a very abstract piece combining two previous ideas, of boxes containing materials that are played and bags containing objects which are touched and discussed in a talk performance. The layering of these two
unloaded gun inside box, curiosity to fire, obscure make and functioning to engage hobbyist and expert.
Cement version.
