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Word of Mouth: Christof Migone’s Little Manias presented some very philosophical ideas on language. It touched upon finding identity and losing identity. I find the concept “The whole is a hole inside of which individuality if formed” very interesting. Language is so intact to our “self”. As a child, as we learn our first words, we slowly form our individuality and our connection to our society. Language in a sense allow us to be unique individuals as we are able to express ourselves in our own unique way. In the same time, language takes away our individuality because under the same system of speech, we become limited to our expressions and unified.

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Reading Sophie Stevance’s work really made me think about the credibility and originality of creating art using ready made. I believe every art showcases the Artist’s creativity to the audience. Any piece of work can be recognized as art from the audience when they see creativity input in them. The problem for ready made may be that because they are usually familiar objects from our daily life, it is more difficult for the audience to spot creativity in the work. Hence the hard part of creating art using ready made is how can one dig into the unexpected manipulation and usage of the object to spark creativity and make the audience question the definition of the object. I think ready made art can be as credible as originally made art when one is able to let the audience see the creative inputs within the ready made work.

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One thing that I really like about Neuhaus’s works as I read through Alex Pott’s Moment and Place is that as Neuhaus “envisioned his work as impinging on everyday experience… and integrate with everyday life.” Many of his works does not stand out and would easily be ignored if one doest pay attention to the aural environment. Especially in today’s society, so many people are wearing headphones or earphones as they walk on the streets. “Listening to the voice of the city” has became the unusual for an impetuous generation now. And it is in these times, in my opinion that shows the importance and significance of Neuhaus’s art because they encourage us to “live in the moment” and pay attention to the art that exists in our daily life.

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In Seeing, hearing: Fluxus, I see how Cage approaches sound art as a very inclusive concept that can be found in everyday life and our human body. I find it very interesting in how his “Spanish Card Piece For Objects” performance piece puts the “intentions” behind people’s gestures, actions in daily life into theatrical context. He mentioned that when people walk down the streets, everyone is moving with intentions. The intention can be the direction in which people are walking towards, the gestures they are making with their body, the expressions on their faces, their outfit, the sound… etc. It is a very interesting concept that made me think and see more about human behavior.  Also, it is very interesting to me in how he uses the cards and instructions as a “tool’ to observe people’s subconscious decision in their voice.

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Here is the video edition of my work! The previous app I used crashed so the visuals look a little bit different here. 

Hi everyone! This is my final presentation ^^ It is an introspective project focused on my own fantasy and imagination of the outer space and stars. I imagine the stars to be alive. Each and one of them have distinctive looks and characteristics... Most importantly, they produce different sound. The goal of this project is to realize my imagination of what the stars would sound like.  

PROCESS 

First, I designed the visuals of the star. For some stars, I took the inspiration of jellyfishes; for some, it was from rocks...  I tried to keep the designs away from the usual image of stars. 

I used my guitar to record a sound track that was playing in the background of the video. I used audacity to edit the tracks and used reverb, reverse, and delays..etc to create a spacey feel. 

After using procreate to animate the stars, I edit them together and projected it onto a larger screen.  

Then, I improv the notes and chords on the guitar according to the visuals. But this wasn’t the end of my project!!

Last step: I cut out some of the clips of the performance and drew over the film frame by frame to make the stars “pop out” from the tv. 

Finally, I presented to my family. Though it wasn’t live, it was really fun to surprise my parents with the animation. My parents were very confused and were like “wait why did the thing came out??” XD 

(Yayyy we made it! It was a fun semester with you all)

Notes on Steven Connor’s article: Resound 

- The concept of resound is very interesting yet confusing. This might be because it is the first time it was introduced to me. When I read through the article, I would try to imagine then understand the concept he is talking about but it was really difficult to try to understand without hearing them with my ears.   

- In the beginning when i saw the word “resound” , I thought it is purely conceptual idea that is used in artistic terms. I was surprised to see the science behind it as it says for example, “a skinned lizard usurping the place of the full-bodied phantasmal organism that ordinarily occupies our heads, amplified and fattened by the bones of the skull.”

- A concept that I found really interesting: “A note plucked on one lute will cause another unplucked lute in the vicinity to thrill faintly in sympathy. Sing into an open piano and certain strings will give back buzzing assent to your voice. Resonance is therefore to be understood, not as  conduction, but induction, not as effect, but as affinity.” This paragraph reminds me of the times when i play guitar in a music room with a drum kit. As my volume goes up, the snare drum would give back buzzing sounds. I would have never thought that it was a part of resonance of the environment. 

Notes on Tonisha’s presentation on Public Art Intervention 

- First of all, the video and presentation was really well done and the information was clear and diverse. 

- I really liked some of the examples of public art intervention that she gave such as “Non-Violence”. It was a powerful piece :’)

Hi Everyone! here is my tutorial video on how to animate transformations. it is around 4 minutes 30 seconds long. Hope you learn something new from it and hopefully use it someday!  Enjoy! 

This is my sound score project named “SOUND SHAPE COLOR AND JUST FAMILY TIME” I wanted to play around with motion, shapes, sound (both voice and guitar) and color. But most of all, I was trying to have fun with my family and forcing them to be involved in my class project. The hidden goal of this piece is to see my dad’s reaction to the blob shape (that supposedly should be a rectangle) and see what he will say. His response was “what the heck is this” (in Chinese) XD. 

After seeing many examples of sound scoring methodology and approaches, I had an idea what I would want to do for my own score. I want to create a score that is mostly dependent on visuals. The participant has to use their imagination to express their interpretation of what the image would sound like if it has sound quality. I thought that it would be nice to have multiple materials. I want to combine animation, pictures, and words together. I will have a guiding chart to inform the participant what each element stands for. 

So here is the ideas that I have:

Pictures-Mood: Audience will use their voice to show the MOOD they feel from looking at the picture. it can be a melodic song that you find resonating with the picture or just a single frequency.

Example:

Picture found on Pinterest 

Animation-movement: The animation will be indicating the movement of sound. The audience will be imagining what movement would sound like using their body and props around them. The colors will indicate strength (for example: red=strong, blue=soft)  and the shapes will indicate pitch or other qualities of the sound.  

Example:  

Gif drawn in procreate  

(Maybe) Words-Read out: Words would be put in the score for audience to read out, using any tone/speed they want. I want to see how they associate with different words.

Example: Mother. Home. Cat..etc.

Notes and reflections on lecture:

Hi guys! This is Boby and here is my Artist research on an Egyptian-American artist, Guilia Loli who is also known as DJ Mutamassik.

Photo by Geoff Albores

She found her DJ name in an Arabic language book - The word Mutamassik “means many things...” She said, but “mostly “stronghold” as in someone who hangs on firmly to their beliefs”... 

Reading through her chapter, I couldn’t believe how many instruments she plays, the breadth of musical interest she has. She started playing piano, sax, violin, in her early childhood. She became big fans of hip-hop until she was twelve then got immersed into loving punk rock. Meanwhile, she was into classical European music (especially baroque music she mentioned) and played cello and drums for some punk rock/experimental bands. And from kindergarten to ninth grade, she was always in various choirs singing the usual repertoire of Latin hymns, English madrigals, pop tunes, etc. In college, she worked in the music resource center and played music to people. She would make loops from tape to tape of parts of the songs that she likes. Meantime, she started digging into cassettes of Egyptian folk music, continued playing music in bands, and went on her friend’s musical radio shows. It was after she moved to New York in 1995 when she started her DJ carrier and gave her self the name DJ Mutamassik. 

She started off strictly sampling from vinyl and cassette for her music to exalt the old crusty Egyptian tapes and remix them with hip-hop beats to draw the musical dots clearly. Her intention was to search for her cultural roots. She mentioned, “growing up in Ohio... I never learned about the vastness and depth of African civilization, only the humiliation, and savagery - (which is)  truly scandalous” Perhaps that's why Egyptian and African elements in her works are so apparent (even though the major music influence throughout her childhood was not Egyptian or African). Later on, she began to sample herself playing different instruments such as cello, percussion, guitar, bass, drums, etc.

Photo from High Alert: Interlude for Grampa [Vinyl]

She is also a sound collector. She collects worldly sounds that are meaningful to her and makes music out of them. Some significant features of her work are the layered mixes and diverse sounds. From her work, I can hear the creative clash of Egyptian folk beat and hip hop.

In an interview she had with META MUSIC, she mentioned the major influencer in her life is Sun Ra, an American jazz and experimental music composer, and The Dead Kennedys, an American punk rock band. As I listen to their works and went back to her work, I can somehow sense elements of punk rock influence in the composition of the drums, electric guitar, and bass and jazz elements in the keyboard lines. 

Initially, I was going to research another artist, but when I flipped through the book once more, I came across her chapter and noticed her. I searched her up on youtube and REALLY liked her works. I think for me what caught my eyes (ears) was the uncertainty of how to categorize her work. Her works are very rhythmic and most of them have a hard syncopated beat where I can jam to. At the same time, there are elements in her work that made it distinct to conventional music. I think her works are experimental, yet musical. And this is what made her work eye-popping for me. Here are some of her works! Hope you will enjoy them!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzusAY4kO9Q  - Omani Revolutionary Army - A'aish El Shaab (Ragamuffin Mix)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIOs_ARBZ4g - "Shaky Knees" (1999) متمسك