This week I refined my abstract and designed a poster to display at the degree show. I also had my second installation and prepared for my Mid-Term Review next week.
Abstract:
Here is my updated Abstract:
'The white cube is the name that has been given to the aesthetic of curating art on matte white painted walls with a slightly darker toned ceiling and floor that reduces our gaze to the horizontal. Famous critic of the space Brian O’Doherty says we can understand these painted walls of the physical white cube as an attempt to realise a second ‘ideological’ white cube, and it is this “second white cube” as he calls it, that will be the object of this research projects critique.
In this project we explore critiques to the white cube in a new way, considering a hauntology of the site through sound as a surrogate for our own experience. Specifically, here it is argued that as sound is experienced both in time and in place, we can therefore investigate the ways that sound can be perceived as haunted (by a dis-adjustment of either experience, place or time). We can then use this framework to reflect on how the White Cube affects our experience: how it is haunted by ideological phantoms and incongruous spectres despite its attempt at providing a neutral container for art experience.
We investigate our human experience of sound in the gallery, emphasising the sounds that already echo within the aesthetics’ walls, to challenge the ideologies the space promotes. These imbalances can be made uniquely perceptible in sound and demonstrates a greater influence on other art forms within the white cube.
My research experiments with contemporary technologies to emphasise the haunting experience in practice, with a focus on amplifying the sounds that already haunt the gallery space. Using field recordings, a granular approach to compositions and image to audio technologies to define a surreal soundscape. With sound installations composed to explore the six fields of haunting that I have defined and reflecting on how its ideas contribute a multi-faceted critique of the aesthetic.
Through this research we can demystify the ways that the white cube conditions our experience of art to critique its attempt at neutrality and to allow for us to imagine new aesthetics that will be able to better facilitate the contemporary art experience.'
Poster:
Title
For the degree show poster I designed I needed a title and sub-title for the research project.
I decided on the name 'Sonic Hauntings' drawing specific focus on the ways that sound can haunt, rather than reflecting a primary focus on the white cube. This places the analytical structure of haunting fields at the forefront of the research project, but also suggests the importance of the practical research.
I then decided on the sub-title 'Navigating the White Cube through sound', explaining that it is specifically to the white cube aesthetic that this analytical structure will be applied and suggesting that the haunting sounds have insight on the relative experience of the site.
Design
I don't have an image of the poster (as I don't have the adobe suite installed on my personal computer), however the image I used as the central image which I felt best demonstrates/ symbolises the thesis is the image of Yves Klein 'Les Vide' translated into sound and revealed as an image again through spectrography.
Willem came up with the design, and everyone on the course that will be exhibiting will use this design template to allow a certain uniformity, while also allowing each of our projects to stand out in our own unique ways.
The design places a key image in the centre of the poster, with the abstract surrounding it. It was inspired by documents on religious texts in which the annotation surrounds the image, creating an interesting balance where it seems there is more written about the text than on the image of the text. Similar to the phrase 'a picture tells a thousand words', this format symbolises the importance of visual and practical research towards the research project.
Originally I edited the design such that the background was black, the text white and the title a darker red, just like the research journal. However I have had to change this as the printer would not have allowed it. I will keep the spectral glow i placed around the image though and the red text for just the title.
Second Installation:
I will not document here ALL of the feedback, thoughts and reflections, however i do wish to at least document here my experience of the installation that have changed since the last installation and save the important reflections for the thesis.
SPACE - For this installation I had arranged to use the Media and Performance (MaP) space in the Northlight studios, which was fantastic as even though it was a space set apart specifically for works that might use sound, the acoustics were especially awful. - this is a good thing for my project which calls attention to this aspect of the White Cube, but obviously it is less than ideal for sound based works.
SPEAKERS - I painted the speakers in matte white paint, just like the walls of the gallery so that they would blend in more with the space and would be less noticeable. This worked really well, their box-like geometry allowed them to integrate with the space as a white box plinth might, though with better equipment, it might be better if the speakers could be installed above the audience projecting down through the space as ' the space forces a horizontal focus' the vertical is often ignored.
making the speakers blend in with the space more, encourages an acousmatic experience as the 'event' of the sound in the space becomes less about witnessing the speakers themselves.
LIGHT - Another way that I encouraged this directed focus is through light. The MAP space was already fitted with a spot light, which I used to my advantage. The 'White Cube' installs bright white lights that fills the space evenly eliminating all shadows.
The spotlight at first was installed in the space with the lights on, where the presence of a the spotlight suggested that there was something of note where it was pointed. It also created shadows, when people entered that space, that would appear as hauntingly as the sound would.
I then used the spotlight as the main source of light in the space, the light was a neutral white and so it still fit with in the aesthetic of the space, but by dis-adjusting it as to point to the wall of the gallery, this put a unique and off-kilter emphasis on the space.
Responses from those that attended also remarked that they felt more able to focus on the sound when the lights were dimmer. This is interesting as one would not assume that visual distraction, even in the apparent neutrality of the white cube space, could be so overpowering visually, that it affects the experience of the sound.
The light also detracts attention away from the speaker equipment.
While I will have less control over the lighting in the degree show, I was glad i could experiment with these aspects in this installation as it was the perfect 'White Cube' space that the work fits in to.
The emptiness of the space and the limited lighting gives a feeling of being haunted and liminality. the reactive images of spectators also supports this haunting association.
TECH - Another thing I did for this installation was that I experimented with using an MP3 Player instead of my computer. While it does allow for the parametric speaker to play the sounds without the need for my personal computer, reducing too the size of necessary equipment, the sound quality was far too low. For the degree show I would want to use a mp3 player, but i may have to order a higher quality one online or ask to borrow a laptop from Uni.
RESONANCE - One thing i was surprised to see in the space, was its resonant frequency haunting the space so much. I moved a chair when the door was closed and the architecture was sudddenly overwhelmed with sound. here is a recording of me creating these resonant tones:
(The rhythmic performance is my experimenting how best to create these resonant tones, I found that it was not through making the loudest noises, but through consistent vibrations in the space, these types of vibrations can be caused by anything that makes sound, but it was interesting to hear the resonance from something as common in the gallery as a chair.)
As I said, i will reflect further about this installation in my thesis, i just wanted to present here how it has developed since the last installation.
Comments