This week was the PGR symposium, and I received my feedback from last unit, which i have reflected on.
PGR Symposium:
The importance of methodology and reproducibility for research. - not a reduction of the phenomenological event, as some made the excuse for, but a way for researchers to open up their research to wider collaboration and participation. Also a way of universalising the qualitative data, elevating its academic value to a more quantitative degree.
My methodology:
Installing sound into an empty gallery space. Specifically sounds which challenge the gallery with a subwoofer and parametric speaker. Emphasising the sounds which already haunt the gallery space and encouraging a mode of active listening and engagement with the architectural space.
My thesis will reflect and explore the importance of this haunting experience of sound.
Feedback:
LO1: A broad knowledge and a critical understanding of the contexts, theories, practices and technologies relevant to your research project.
Not fully convincing how sound per se acts as a challenge to the white cube. (- This requires greater reflection and contextualisation, perhaps I can write in one blog post, a reflection into how i see the importance of the relationships between sound and the white cube. This will hopefully then better inform what each of the sections i am currently discussing offer towards a critique of the white cube specifically.)
Needs more work on engaging with ideological critique, in particular how and why claims to neutrality have been historically challenged and become institutionalised themselves. - see Hans Haacke and Hito Styerl’s critiques of museum funding obscured by the ‘neutrality’ of the white cube. (- this disillusionment of neutrality is a big part of my contextual review, perhaps it is something that shuould find itself being referred to a lot more in the main body of the thesis.)
More current writing on hauntology and its critiques (- This is something i will have to look into more of, I thought that mark fisher was relatively contemporary, but i suppose it would be good to have other contemporary angles. I wonder if i can find any hauntological critiques on curational practices in general.)
Echoes in the gallery should be expanded to include the ‘excellent quotes’ identified in the Annotated Bibliography
Incorporate Labelle more for example as he is a key text (- Here I am debating on replacing LAbelle's website with that of Sonic Warfare which has been a much more influential text on my writing, though I'll admit that i do wish to investigate further into Labelle's discussion priamrily with architecture and the idea of socialising sound.) - This will help to contextualise my own project in relation to sound art and related debates, But it is not yet clear where this section needs to go, perhaps it would fit within the section i am studying for, the 'psychogenic' experience of haunting.
Answer the question of whether sound is being used to interrogate the already haunted space of the white cube or exploring ways in which sound can haunt in general (and therefore potentially in any space?) (- this could be explained in psychogenic haunting, exploring the haunting quality of sounds and their integral dependance on meaningful places. - This will reinforce connection to the white cube site. I am hoping the answer to be the former of the two, however it is through understanding the different ways that sound haunts the gallery space that we can understand o measure the importance of its presence within the site. - Otherwise the critique will not be on the white cube itself but specifically on the social conditioning of sound experience from associations with art.
If the white cube is important as a site, the sounds already ‘haunting’ the white cube is important as ‘data’ and should be documented in a more systematic format, potentially on the research journal as a haunting sound archive. (- I feel for this however that I would need to reflect on the necessity of this act for the goal of the research project. While it is true that I can argue that sound already haunts the space, (both in its presence and attempted absence) the implications of this assertion does not have to rely on recordings to be falsifiable, but instead, the evidence can be understood in theory.)
Simply put, it is not the individual 'sound objects' which exist in the space which haunt the gallery as a site, but its architecture and implementations of its ideologies which seeks to suppress or modulate the continuous soundscape of the environment within its white walls.
- I will not refute that there may be realisations and insights that might emerge from cataloguing samples of sounds into an ordered database with naturalistic attendance, however, i fear that separating sounds in such a way would contradict the argument of the thesis, that sound evidences a nexus of relationships that disprove the neutrality of removing something from its greater context.
Perhaps, what will be most useful is a catalogue or description associated with the aesthetic implications of the sounds through the sound clips (from various white cube galleries) I have decided to use in my sonic composition. In other words a more detailed reflection on my practical process, in the same documented format as my other compositional reflections.
The radiator sound recording serves in this sense as a pilot study for an engagement with a physical space and the sounds that can be heard within it.
LO2: A thorough understanding of how to initiate original decisions in the context of your research practice.
I have established a taxonomy of ways in which sound can haunt. This forms a welcome contribution to sonology (the theory of sound).
Not all modes of haunting may be relevant to the context of the white cube. (while i will attempt to reflect on all the forms of haunting which i have mapped out and identified, it is possible that some do not benefit to the conversation quite as much as others, and so instead of forcing a connection, I must remind myself to remain academically neutral to the evidence of the research. This will allow for a more balanced critique of the ways in which sound does ( and thereby does not) reveal the hauntings of the white cube.)
Some decisions may need to be made in respect to how the gallery space might be used to explore or test in practice aspects of the theoretical premise. (The Media and Performance (MAP) space of the Northlight Studios at AUB, should be open on the week starting on the 11th of July, I intend to request an installation there during that time, however I wish to reflect on my process and specifically how to improve the installation since my first test, specifically in relation to the theoretical developments in my research.)
LO3: (my weakest grade at 50-59) - An ability to identify and communicate effectively a critical and analytical rationale for your chosen research methods and processes.
Clarify the reasons that haunting effects are relevant to the critique of the white cube.
Rationale for chosen methods needs to be given (p.32).
What are you trying to achieve with the research and why findings may be important. (I wish to reflect more on this, to attempt to understand the theoretical implications of this research on the curation of contemporary galleries i must first, however, complete more research into contemporary art curation methodologies and philosophies, with an expanded scope beyond just the white cube aesthetic.)
Acoustics of the white cube deserves to be unpacked further (p.23-24) (- There have been a trend of sound artists that have noted the ill-tuned acoustic properties of the gallery space. I have not yet included this however in my writing, this is something i realise now may be more important to include in my discussion of the modulating haunting field. And it would aptly associate my artistic practice with the research evident from interviews with other fine artists.)
Discuss the soundscape of the white cube, especially in relation to the acoustics of the space. (- characterising the white cube as filled with sound and not silence as oppose to an empty neutral vessel that accommodates the presence of sound as art, will help to enforce a continued dialogue between space, the boundaries of place (here the site of the white cube) and the inescapability of sound.)
This needs to be made clear of the white cube, where the ideal white cube is resolutely silent but in reality cannot be (as explored by cage).
Choice of methods to explore the haunting qualities of sound are in other words dependent on the architecture of the space. And therefore an investigation into the architecture needs to be more closely ‘tuned’ into. (- perhaps research the acoustic properties of the common materials used to construct a white cube gallery.)
All of this will help to refine my methods and the rationale underpinning them.
LO4: An ability to develop a sustained work plan appropriate to your research project.
Research Journal documents my work ethic and research activities excellently, as well as responding to changing circumstances.
The website forms an impressive piece of work and works well as an online archive, where the sound files are easy to find and listen to,
The RJ is methodic and consistent, and logs all the reflections of each week’s work. - it is also commended for its effectiveness and visual appeal. (- The aesthetic of the Research Journal is generally: black paper, white text, red accents. Is this too minimalistic, and should i look to find another way of breaking up the text/ introducing another graphic element to the aesthetic of the research?)
(Perhaps, I could further expand, experiment with, or highlight the graphic aesthetics of research elements i am already exploring. For example, the 'negative' photos of artworks in the white cube or the granular aesthetic of images translated into sound. I want to consider these alongside a reflection this week on the importance of visual iconography as I approach the planning stage of our course show, which will require images that represent the project.)
Summative Comments
Read goodman’s sonic warfare, especially in relation to his ‘unsound’.
More analysis is needed now, especially in reference to how the this practice has focussed and reshaped initial ideas.
Keep open to unexpected possibilities in your practice by sticking rigorously to your analytic categories in recording and editing.
Be aware of your own position in crafting sounds to create effects, as part of the ideology of the gallery too, rather than something outside of it.
The split screen video documentation needs greater reflections and perhaps experimentation as chosen format. (- this is the only thing I wasn't quite sure what it is in reference to. I am assuming it is referencing the documentation of my first experiment in a white cube space. I only put these videos next to each other vertically to be efficient with space on the website, rather than purposefully editing them side by side in a single video. Perhaps i need to be more careful in how i present visual documents to avoid associations such as this.)
Image sound works need explanation on how they relate to white cube focus. Or are these to be displayed as part of the final exhibition. (- This aesthetic value associates a personal experience of space with sound, and also time in a graphological manner, it does well to characterise the important themes of this investigation visually and so I would hope to use these in the final exhibition.)
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