ON A QUEST FOR MORE SUBJECTIVITY, HEART, SOUL, SPONTANEITY AND REAL ART!!

"Junk Mail", photograph by Vivi-Mari Carpelan.
This is a comment, I hope I don't need to explain myself.

As we all know, over the past 250 years science has taken precedence over heart and soul. For every invisible phenomenon, there is supposedly a perfect rational and visible explanation, and they presumably match each other without fail. It is not about correlation, it's about blatant reductionism. The arts have followed suit because what is considered superior to the artist's inner life is an artist's ability to state an objective point of view about the world. Spiritual concerns are just passé! But how does that help us recover our fragmented selves? Surely art should support self-development and the development of a more humane society? I find it immensely disturbing that subjective truth is so down market at this point, and therefore I'm on a mission to help bring it back into people's consciousness... to reinstate a balance between subjective and objective... a bit of a task, eh! This article has come about from discussions with my husband.

There is so much art out there to browse, so one must be careful about generalising the art world too much. However, I do see a trend which supports the idea that an artist must start with a clear concept that they then create the art to fit the concept. People who wish to be artists are desperately trying to think of more and more "clever ideas", because that's what art authorities seem to expect to see. For instance, if you apply for a grant from the Arts Council, you usually have to have a very precise idea of the kind of project you wish to pursue, and then make damn sure you deliver it too. Unfortunately, as Martin pointed out, if you make up the art to fit your concept, you're actually only illustrating an idea. And that's often just bad philosophy anyway.

Where is the true creative spark? Coming up with ideas is creative, but if it's not taken further and moulded into something a great deal more comprehensive and profound, then there really is very little creativity involved in the process. I'd almost go as far as to say that if a wannabe artist isn't able to let their soul sing in order to create something surprising and even wondrous in some ways, then they aren't worthy of being called an artist. It's amazing to watch one's own subconscious mind organise elements into an unexpectedly meaningful whole. It's in essence a spontaneous and life affirming process, not a dry calculated one (the calculation only comes in sometimes as a mere supportive tool). You start out with "some kind of idea', a hazy concept, and then let the alchemy take over and basically just see what happens. I'm so sick of seeing superficial, calculated cleverness in the arts... everything has been dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. What sometimes may appear as difficult art is often just very bland and superficial. Having the guts to trust your instinct and see through the veil of snobbishness isn't easy for everyone though, because we have been told it's good by presumably trustworthy authorities. 

The situation is so skewed. We saw one of the shows in the lovely BBC series "What do Artists Do All Day?" about the performance artist Marvin Gaye Chetwynd. She has tons of energy, which could account for the fact that people are so taken in by her that they give her lots of money and freedom to do what she wants. She engages a lot of people in her performances, too. But it's so badly made and so badly performed! It all really looks like a crappy school play with replicas from scifi movies, and all she's doing is just farting about a lot (as Martin put it) and then inventing some political story to cover up her dodgy tracks. The boulders made of paper the performers were carrying about that were supposed to symbolise debts... oh god, the banality and poverty of expression! Perhaps through this art you're supposed to discover your inner child? I have to say there was nothing I enjoyed more when I got out of school than burying my child self for good somewhere in very deep and dark forest, and no I don't want it back! Because Chetwynd's somehow gained attention (she was nominated for the Turner Price in 2012 for some rather sad looking performance that was supposedly about democracy), she was being put on show in the Nottingham Contemporary art museum. I feel that it's another case of the emperor's new clothes - because someone has put her there, people believe that she's worth appreciating. She says something to the effect that she doesn't believe that you need to know anything about art in order to understand what she's doing... well... it sure doesn't take much to realise what she is doing, or not doing... I'm sorry, but one thing it isn't, is art.

The other day someone passed on a rather innocent comment on the internet about how real art doesn't require any education, anyone can intuitively enjoy art and culture because that's what it's for... or something like that, I forget the exact phrasing. Of course lots of people would ascribe to this, and happily enjoy whatever art they feel drawn to, and that's fine. Yet... it would be an ideal world where everyone would just follow their intuition, but this is not the world we live in and very few nowadays have a clarity of vision that allows them to see right through the art - and I mean all art... There's a difference between enjoying what you feel attracted to (which is fine, but a limited way of experiencing life) and seeing art work in general for what they really are. Art is more than just Mona Lisa and Sunflowers, and by the way Picasso and Matisse are over-rated. 

The point is, education is valuable in today's world. I just said people should question authorities. Yes, but I also resent having it suggested to me that I can't possibly be less knowledgeable about art than an office clerk. The worst is, it's uneducated and ignorant people who would say such a thing. I thought about it and came to the conclusion that I wasn't reacting so vehemently to the statement above because I necessarily want to be seen as an authority (which is nice but not all-important). I was reacting because these days, laypeople don't seem to have any respect for expertise - everything has to be dumbed down so that the simplest of minds can understand what is going on. Everyone is subliminally told what to think but they often start believing they came up with it themselves. It's a great paradox, that people ingest so many relative "truths" without discernment that they find difficult to question, yet also want to be self-sufficient and rebellious when someone comes along with some expertise (a sign of the good old narcissistic individualism I expect). I don't blame them a lot of the time because many people with expertise aren't serving them well, and perhaps it's also a sign that attitudes are changing. Yet there is also the possibility that the internet gives people the illusion they can be an expert on pretty much anything there is, because they can browse so many pages... but someone put it there in the first place and a lot of information is superficial and biased in insidious ways. If you're not trained in critical research, this information could be difficult to handle.

Interestingly, almost anyone can get into a university these days, too, so it's no longer just for the intellectual elite. What will happen to the standard of teaching? Art authorities, who themselves have an education behind them, do expect artists to have one too. In this case it's very often about looking less at the actual art than the artist's CV... that's because in the end, it's still the objective view point, the lists, that mean the most (have you noticed how everything is always made into lists? Five reasons you're not a good artist!). Basically, it's all a terrible mess! That's because what is lacking is a clear distinction between the experience of deep feelings and intuition, and a plain rational evaluation of a phenomenon in the world.  People don't see these faculties for what they are, they tend towards one or the other without discernment (or awareness, even). The faculties are therefore usually in conflict instead of complementing each other the way they are meant to. Feelings and intuitions are immensely useful in helping us make real sense of the world and its objects from our subjective standpoint, whereas objective rational analysis is hardly any better than a computer's way of processing (though in fact slower!). It so often doesn't arrive at the correct answers, either - rationality usually comes from a very prejudiced place, the home of all our belief systems and other mental constructs. It's that thing about right and left brain, heart and mind, and so on. Collective consciousness is undoubtedly now on the level of thoughts (rational, cognitive processing), so it's natural that this kind of mental processing would seem very important to the majority, but it's a terribly insular level and really needs to start moving towards something a bit more lifelike. The world has become stifled and robotic, and lost much of the soul and spirit that makes life worthwhile in the first place. It's but one of the signs of a very decadent society.

However, the years of studying art and art history as well as experiencing the art world first hand that I have behind me do account for something. For instance, my education at a real University as well as the university of life allows me not to confuse "liking" with "understanding". If I feel uneasy and don't understand a piece of art, I usually find in conversation with Martin that it really was as meaningless as it appeared at first. It gives me confidence to pass a value judgment on art work. And though there is no objective guarantee that I'm right about what I think and feel and could in fact be a terrible culture snob, that expertise should still have intrinsic value. I was also upset because I feel that as soon as I make art that is a bit difficult to understand, people shy away. People seem to expect everything to be really easy and palatable, i.e. dumbed down. I don't want to be too harsh because I also see that people are tired, bogged down and in need of hopefulness. There's only so much people can take in. However... it's easy to escape into a world of pretty pictures and cute animals and twee spirituality. Suddenly everyone is an expert and able to say "this is good art" simply because it's pleasing to them. Even integral art can offend a serious artist / real imperfect human because of being so glossy, banal, often anti-feminist, and anything but all-encompassing (i.e. truly integral and integrated) like this stuff by a Finnish guy. I saw a visionary artist calling themselves a "conscious artist" today, no doubt meaning they have their eyes wide open and are spiritually receptive... however I believe that art has to be largely subconscious in order to be meaningful (for instance, creative solutions often come to us after sleep), and therefore that kind of statement to me isn't really analytical enough! Intellectual ability is a good thing too, just knowing its real place in the grand scheme of things is important.

Not everyone sees any point in dwelling on difficult issues. But I want to inject, that if people stop sharing serious issues with each other, nothing will ever change for the better. You have to take the bull by the horns! This is everyone's responsibility, is it not?

MY NEW SOUND COLLAGES - AT THE INTERSECTION OF MUSIC AND SOUND ART (AN EXPLORATION OF LIMINALITY AND RECYCLED SOUNDS)

Photograph by Vivi-Mari Carpelan copyright 2013

I'm getting a bit tired of explaining what I do and why... society is so obsessed with mental constructs. However... let's see what I have to say about the process of creating music as a visual artist...

I have now ventured further into the realm of sound and have lingered at the intersection of music and sound art. Compared to most sound art I didn't proceed in an analytical manner and almost solely relied on my intuition. The result is definitely more musical than noisy - sound art generally speaking tends to distinguish itself from music by avoiding sounding musical (sometimes successfully, sometimes not...). These are more poetic (they aren't strictly speaking "sound poems" though I've seen the term used for this kind of sounscape).

I am not just stringing sounds together in some random fashion, though that's how the process starts and you do of course make more or less conscious decisions along the way. It's in my mind a deeply creative process that demands a lot of attention and intuitive understanding of the way sounds work in harmony. It works much the same when I do physical collages, and I do enjoy this process of discovery and insight.

The two first pieces, "The End is a New Beginning" and "The Unexpected Longevity of Love". I decided to rename the second piece when I realised I was going to continue to work along these lines and might even want to make an album.


"The End is a New Beginning" and "The Unexpected Longevity of Love" (formerly part II of "The End is a New Beginning") are two experimental pieces of music that make something new out of something old. They use found sound. They are an aural representation of the kind of 2D collage that I have made using copyright-fee imagery from the past. How can you create a completely new feel from old material? This is the challenge I have set myself in this series. I decided not to include other elements and concentrate only on recycling the found sounds from two historical periods covering about 200 years each and only use vintage recordings of the public domain - at least for now. The process of picking the recordings from Musopen.org was somewhat haphazard (and was in fact done a while ago when I didn't have any clear intentions), and what I ended up with was recycled sounds (this is not an official definition). This is not unlike the process of taking an old object (preferably something unique and personal, of course) and turning it into a new expression of creativity.

This is my way of comparing music with images... generally speaking I don't agree with a lot of sound artists that you can analyse an image and construct sound/music that somehow corresponds with the image directly. To me, this is reductionism. Perhaps I feel that sounds are of a higher order in some ways, because of being more abstract, and complement images rather than represent them. (Check out this piece by Marios Athanasiou though, it almost works). In fact I'm a bit unsure of whether I want to put imagery to these pieces, as I worry that it will detract from the rich musical texture and twists and turns - these could be in conflict with each other, fighting for the spectator's attention.

Surprisingly, the pieces feel intensely personal - the process as well as the results had a deep emotional impact on myself. I therefore concluded that using found sounds rather than generating my own had little impact on how I felt about the finished piece. I was also interested in how this kind of work differs from work on a flat surface. Music and sound art depend on the passing of time and you can loop it if you wish. 2D work also has an element of the passing of time because of the way a viewer's eyes travel around the work. However, one compels you in one sequential direction whether the other compels you less. You also cannot loop a piece of 2D work so it doesn't have the same circular character. 

The first part comprises Renaissance and Baroque composers such as Monteverdi, Gesualdo, Palestrina and Buxtehude. There's mainly vocals and the organ. As this music has strange harmonies and a fairly simple structure, it was exciting to work with. The recordings were fairly good quality to start with so that also made the process a bit easier. The following challenge was using Romantic composers such as Beethoven, Verdi and Rachmaninoff, with a hint of Baroque in J.S. Bach's Goldberg variations. The vocal parts are an entirely different style, the tonality is generally speaking more complicated, and the main instrument is the piano. The piano notes resonate a great deal and the overall is more personal, two factors which makes it harder to mould clips into something new. The experience was quite different and as the recordings were somewhat lacking, the process proved a lot more laborious.

The title is philosophical but also personal because I feel that I'm at the end of a phase in my life, and it denotes a new beginning. This is a liminal space. It's reflected in the process of making sounds, which has left me feeling liberated and somewhat spiritually elevated. The end is also literally present in the beginning of both pieces.

I believe you can feel the flavour of these historical periods but also experience the pieces as completely contemporary that don't follow any common musical rules. In fact I'd say it exists in the liminal space between old and new, and is as much part of the collective consciousness as it is personal. I'm not a musicologist but that much I know! I regret not playing an instrument and knowing more about music (I was admitted to a music school when I was 15 but never attended due to chronic fatigue). However I'd like to believe that there just might be an advantage sometimes in not being bound by rules... please listen and judge for yourself! I'm quite happy with the results as I feel I have satisfied a desire to create music in spite of my educational shortcomings, and I might do it again. I have plans on using my own voice again at some point.

Martin alerted me to a sound artist who worked from the 1960s onwards, particularly in the BBC workshop - Delia Derbyshire. In other words, it's all been done before! Her electronically produced sound collages are well worth listening to and have something in common with my own work. I enjoyed seeing her demonstrate the process in a documentary by the BBC. I also found this series of the 1980s on Youtube which demonstrates the methods of making "new sounds" at the time (now rather historical but quite interesting nonetheless).

Do you really need to know the rules in music? Though I completely agree that you normally need to know rules in order to break them, perhaps you can also be self-taught just as well as being self-taught in any other creative area. After all, I have a life time of curiosity towards alternative music behind me, and I guess that's a kind of education too.

Delia believed that the way the ear / brain perceives sound should have dominance over any basic mathematical theory, but as with most things in life it is important to know the rules in order to advantageously bend or break them. (from the website)

)

"Don’t Tell Me You Don’t Have The Right Equipment – What Matters Is Your Musical Imagination!" (Steve Reich)

Listen to this piece, Somewhere a Voice is Calling, Voices from the Dead Wax and The Boyling Cells by Paul J. Rogers. He uses old recordings in his performances, while relishing the imperfections. Though I saw one of his performances ("Somewhere a Voice...") last August, he didn't give me the idea to do this sort of chop up of old music. That's probably because the main element in this work was all the old devices for playback that he used to create an amazing soundscape. Many of us are looking for material with soul, feeling perhaps that computer generated sounds can be soulless. At least for the time being, I am also making a point of using only sounds of the public domain.

Photograph by Vivi-Mari Carpelan, 2013

Please read more about liminality and the reasons for doing this kind of thing in this blog post.

BEAUTIFUL AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN "WOMB" ("CLONE")

I rarely feel like reviewing art films because I usually feel that great compromises have been made. After all, films engage enormous budgets and countless people. Often enough, directors have to give in to financial concerns, i.e. how much is the film going to draw in. Blockbusters use up a lot of money but usually make at least two or three times as much. Though we are artists ourselves, we also find most arty films pretty pretentious and contrived. Directing such an enormous project and making it work as a whole - well, that must be hard!

I really want to draw attention to a film called "Womb", though. For its UK release in 2012 it was renamed "Clone". This is the most artful and compelling film we've seen in years, and in our mind it's not pretentious. It's such a shame the marketing was so rubbish in the UK. We might not have even seen it if we'd just gone by the cover. You are lead to expect a typical Sci-Fi movie - that's judging by the change of name (Clone from the original Womb) and the tacky, banal green poster, but the film is anything but. This of course allures the wrong people to watch it - well, what was the point of that exercise, eh? I guess we are lucky to have it here at all.

Frankly this cover is shocking!!

You really should be prepared for real art (and I don't say this lightly). I wish I had, I would have paid much more attention from the start. In terms of pace, style and moral questioning it is a little bit akin to 'The Island', a Russian film by Pavel Lungin about a monk (see my review here). Of course, the director Benedik Fliegauf of Clone (Womb) is Hungarian, it's set in Germany, and was first released in Russia. I don't always see slowness as a virtue, but some directors make it work. Everything in this film seems a bit dislocated and not quite real, which I feel adds to the sense of meaning and atmosphere over entertainment. Both Martin and I felt that the vision expressed here comes fairly close to the kind of aesthetics and meaning that we are looking to create ourselves. Interestingly, the sea takes on a similar role as in my own little artist's film "Tides". I've noticed the sea is quite the theme in a lot of contemporary music with this kind of minimal and "grey" aesthetics (cf Peter Broderick and Graham Richardson aka Last Days).

It is beautifully executed in a very contemporary looking minimalist style almost entirely in shades of grey in the good tradition of Scandinavian drama, but it's not sterile and boring. How very easy to make this kind of film visually cliched. Instead, it's full of atmosphere and texture and a lot of beautiful close ups (quite a contemporary way of filming). The minimalist music by Max Richter (a composer we both quite like, for the most part) blends in beautifully with the rest of the film - you don't always notice it's there. This simplicity is echoed in the story, which is stripped to its bare minimum in order to highlight certain viewpoints, those little symbolic bits that you're supposed to pay attention to in order to string it all together. It's a deeply symbolic film that engages your braincells. I would recommend reading up on what it all means, since you could easily miss a few things. Maybe do it afterwards when you need to fill in some gaps? People have pondered the symbolism so you can look that up on the internet. You probably also need to understand a little bit about cloning and how it works. Consider that cloning doesn't involve two parents, so if a woman carries a clone, she's not the real mother.. There's also a 'full circle' so you need to pay attention to the first scene and how it relates to the end. I rather not reveal too much else as I believe you should watch it with fresh eyes.

The film makers also daringly tackled an interesting and contemporary, but difficult taboo laden moral issue, which should stimulate intelligent people. It's all done with great confidence and there are few shortcomings. It's not a film for everyone, for sure. Thankfully someone makes this kind of thing. And it only cost 13 million dollars as opposed to 130 for the really rubbish "A Good Day to Die Hard".

Related:
Check out this piece of sound art and artistic TV theme from 1963!
(BBC sound artist Delia Derbyshire and Dr Who)

)

MY LATEST ARTIST'S FILM, "TIDES"

My film project "Visible/Invisible" has finally been completed, after some delays. The (independent) third part, "Tides", was no doubt the most difficult one to put together. I collected clips throughout the summer and autumn and finished it all just after the holidays. The clips were mostly ones that I just felt like staging, not entirely sure how to put together in the end. Others I collected as I saw something that I thought could be interesting material. Then I had to figure out how to use filters and when to create my own colours and effects (all colours are mixed by me).

The sounds took a while to edit. As I have explained in previous blog posts, they were based on some material I recorded on my camera while in London, as well as the sound of some carillons and church bells and my own voice expressing disturbing sensations (which left my voice damaged for six weeks!). On top of that I used a vintage copyright-free recording of Verdi's Ave Maria, which I tinkered with to give it a personal and contemporary feel. 

Synopsis:

In "Tides", the third and concluding part of the trilogy, the contrast between objective and subjective reality come to the forefront. There is an almost unbridgeable gap between a person's subjective experiences and their objective reality. Jean-Paul Sartre stated that humans come into being in the eyes of the other. This fundamental truth is one I have carried with me all my life. Very often, the environment remains unaware of the agony of the inner self, but it is also often asked to remain hidden because of shame. Sometimes distress brings on a desire to cover up and to present a pleasing facade. Paradoxically, this facade also acts as a wall that can be hard to surmount, especially if there is no one there to assist. The film aims to raise questions to do with imprisonment inside the body and mind, identity, connection and social adaptation - issues many disadvantaged people face in today's society. How can society help its members overcome shame?

Perhaps the imagery doesn't seem to correspond with the idea of being disadvantaged, but that is actually the point. It's about invisible illness and inner distress. The issues of physical pain and not feeling comfortable within one's body regardless what it looks like, are crucial aspects of the film. It's also about trying to connect with nature, animals and other humans. The sense of connection is one of the most vital things about our existence - if not even a condition for life. Though establishing good connections isn't always very successful in the world today, it's still what helps us survive and overcome some of our fundamental loneliness. There is a looming sense of the finality and ephemeral quality of life that we can only overcome through acceptance.

Tides refer to the idea of the rhythm of life and the contrasts; imprisonment versus freedom, quaint versus dreary, beautiful versus ugly, emptiness versus fullness, connection versus lack of connection, togetherness versus loneliness, pain and illness versus health, sanity versus insanity... inner and outer, claustrophobic and open... in short, many of the fundamental dichotomies that define our dual experience of life. The repetitive music also underlines the rhythmic, cyclical quality and "eternal return" (or "eternal recurrence") of our experiences and affects.

"Whoever thou mayest be, beloved stranger, whom I meet here for the first time, avail thyself of this happy hour and of the stillness around us, and above us, and let me tell thee something of the thought which has suddenly risen before me like a star which would fain shed down its rays upon thee and every one, as befits the nature of light. - Fellow man! Your whole life, like a sandglass, will always be reversed and will ever run out again, - a long minute of time will elapse until all those conditions out of which you were evolved return in the wheel of the cosmic process. And then you will find every pain and every pleasure, every friend and every enemy, every hope and every error, every blade of grass and every ray of sunshine once more, and the whole fabric of things which make up your life. This ring in which you are but a grain will glitter afresh forever. And in every one of these cycles of human life there will be one hour where, for the first time one man, and then many, will perceive the mighty thought of the eternal recurrence of all things:- and for mankind this is always the hour of Noon". (Friedrich Nietsche, 'Thus Spoke Zarathrustra')

Stills:

Before Christmas I shared this project with a young person who was unable to understand why I would want to make films. Why make films when my collages are already personal and intriguing? As this person hadn't seen the complete films and was only judging a few images, it was an especially hurtful (or thoughtless) remark. The imagery and sounds make sense only when stringed together. Even then you sometimes wonder how people in general perceive this kind of thing. Perhaps they also fail to see the point. Learning how to do films was a big challenge but it opened me up. I felt that I had more means of expression, as more dimensions (moving image and sound) helped me create something that seemed to encompass more of life. Now I quite feel like making something in 2D again.

Some people also feel prejudiced against the tools provided by software, however I (along with my photographer parents and my husband) feel that they are just as valid as tubes of acrylic paints are for a painter, and how you use them is dependant on your talent and creativity. As I have said before, less choice (i.e. simpler tools) can be a good thing as it forces you to try harder and think your project through a great deal more.

I put my heart and soul into it and would hope that the message comes across, and does touch somebody out there. It's all done with simple means that come nowhere near the kind of gear that some people have. That certainly bothers me, however I do not wish to believe that this fact would be in the way of true, heartfelt expression. What defines an artist is surely their desire to keep exploring themes and media, and the wish to expand one's expression.

All three films are now available as a DVD!
For a sound artist who uses her voice in creative ways not unlike how I have been imagining using the voice, check out Iris Garrelfs.
The distressed voices may also bear some resemblance to Wahn by Tangerine Dream (from the album Atem)

AVE MARIA REMIX - IT'S ALL IN THE NAME

Still from my upcoming film "Tides"
Copyright Vivi-Mari Carpelan

This is a little ditto, a short minimalist remix of Verdi's Ave Maria, based on a vintage acapella recording from way back in time. The reason I used it is because I wanted an Ave Maria and it was the only copyright-free piece I could find (it's from Musopen). It's also for my current film project "Visible/Invisible". I'm sure it's not to everyone's taste but all I can say is that I myself have developed into being more receptive to unusual sounds and really enjoy a lot of minimalist, repetitive music. I find it strangely compelling as it disrupts my expectations of what music can be. Repetition creates structure where there aren't so many notes. A straigtforward narrative (through words, imagery, sounds etc) can often feel too conventional. A good story is great, but it's often more entertaining than meaningful. Westerners are so used to a logic that takes you from a-z - it is embedded in our alpabhet. Think of the Chinese and how their alphabet comprises entire concepts without a succession of letters (I studied Chinese so I know... it's an entirely different and more intuitive way of perceiving the world). In this respect I seem to often prefer a sort of middle ground, something that isn't too logical and straightforward.

Unfortunately the original recording was very distorted. I had to cut off huge chunks and that gave me the idea of reworking it altogether. I liked the parts that are dominated by male voices, and liked the female parts less. I also found a more personal sound by doing this. There's something very "me" in the way this little piece came out. I know, it's not very sophisticated. I haven't quite worked out how to begin and end something like this so it sounds smoother - I will no doubt rework the beginning. It was just an experiment and not really meant to stand on its own, however it made me want to do more similar stuff but with my own voice!

All the older versions of Ave Maria (Bach/Gounod, Schubert, Verdi, Caccini) are deeply meaningful to me in terms of a specific feeling in them, which I sense in all of the versions. It's also reflected in my name. Ave Maria means "Hail Mary", a salutation offered to Virgin Mary by Angel Gabriel. No, I'm not Catholic, however I believe that names are often deeply meaningful and given to us through intuitive insight from our parents. While Mary is no doubt the archetypal mother Earth, Vivi refers to life and being lively and animated. 

MY FIRST PIECE OF SOUND ART, "THE VOICE OF PAIN"

I'm quite excited because I've just released my first piece of sound art! That is, a soundscape that works independently of the film it's intended for (the third part of my trilogy). It has been a long process. The recordings themselves didn't take long, but processing them was quite slow. It was a case of figuring out how Audacity, the free sound editing software works, as well as deciding which effects are useful and how they work - not the easiest things since I don't understand the lingo. It was a bit of patient trial and error... I have used the simplest means, but I think the result is quite accpetable nonetheless. The ambient sounds from London were recording on my camera in mono, but Martin found a plugin called "pseudo stereo" to convert it into, well, pseudo stereo. I was amazed that the little recorder picked up distant sounds including trains, airplanes and river boats.

The recordings of sounds of the city, "the external sounds", as well as my own voice, "the inner voice of pain", is an expression of what it means to live with pain and fatigue. As one walks around in this cityscape, one has a subjective experience of life inside the body. The vocal expression is meant to be pretty unsettling and it did in fact damage my vocal chords quite badly... oh well, what we do for art, eh! The sounds from the city were recording on a walk along the Thames in London. What I find fascinating about sound art is that it often tells a very intricate story of a place ("local colour"), but you have to listen really carefully in order to fully appreciate it. It can, as I learnt during the Noises of Art conference, be a way of expressing architecture and space.

Sound art is an important art form as it provides a dimension to art that is often overlooked, and can also be enjoyed by blind people. Not all sound needs to be music or talk, though a sequence that is several minutes long has to have a great deal going for it in order for people to be able to sustain interest. People aren't used to listening to anything that isn't entertaining. I realise that most people will still not understand what this piece is for. Though I want to champion this art form, this is of course why I will incorporate it into the third film as well.

"A SEA OF MEDIOCRITY"...

Sharmila Samant: Against the Grain, installation 2008.
The cobras weren't stuck on with this clipper, but messy looking green wire.

I consider giving up this blog. These days, the world is so full of people's confessions. So much blabla that no one has the time and energy to listen to. Do I really need to add to this noise?

On top of that, I feel unsure about my future as an artist and writer. Frankly, I need to simplify my life even more. Living is too tiring. My head is too weary for any deeper analyses about life and art. All that noise is getting to me. I'm not sure I even care that much anymore about recording my impressions. Plus I seem to mostly see bad art about. I could say that it makes me feel a bit better about what I'm doing. But it's depressing as well. It would be really good to feel totally blown away sometimes. As it is, we're already drowning in the sea of mediocrity that Grayson Perry was talking about.

We went to see "Shakti Cymru" in Oriel Davies Gallery in Newtown where we go to shop for food when we can afford it. The entire space was filled with only one person's work. The artist is Sharmila Samant. Cotton wool on the floor and some handmade cobra heads in the style of traditional Indian crafts stuck on green plastic sticks and fixed with green plastic wire, all of equal length. "Oriel Davies is proud to showcase a major exhibition of work by Indian artist Sharmila Samant in her first solo show in the UK. Her work is visually arresting as well as critically and politically engaged." Basically the project is criticising the way cotton is being produced in India. There are a number of problems with the show...

a) The cobra heads seems to have been an installation in the cotton fields themselves. It's been transported directly into the gallery rather than being an adaptation for a different space, hence the naff looking green sticks and wire that are supposed to blend in with the landscape. It would have been so much better if the cobra heads had been suspended from the ceiling with invisible thread. They could have been arranged in an evocative way, at differing heights and slightly moving in the draft. There could also have been creative lighting. Or evoke the cottonfields in India somehow..!
b) The project is to literal. The cotton wool represents cotton wool. The cobras represent themselves too, possibly something else as well, maybe traditional values, threat, poision, etc. In combination, it just doesn't work. There is a soundscape, but it's just a straightforward recording and nothing creative has been done with it (so I wouldn't call it sound art, but documentation). I have to say there's one more thing... craft is a bit too close to art, yet so far from it at the same time. Craft seems a bit laden with negative associations. And finally, using other people's craft to vindicate one's own creativity seems to demean the craft rather than elevate it.
c) Poorly executed art should be banned! If a piece of art is neither aestethically pleasing nor intelligent, it really isn't art. It's possibly documentation, but not art. Even the fact that the cobra heads were made by crafts people rather than the artist herself puts me off. I can imagine it was difficult to bring stuff from India and that could have limited the materials, but surely the gallery should curate the show and help in making it appealing to the public? This show looked like something out of playschool.
d) If I want to hear about the problem with cotton in India I can read an article about it. I really don't feel that it works particularly well as the subject matter for some art, and the fact it's political doesn't make it anymore art. I dont also get a sense of the artist's passion, of the transmission of her zeal. The topic simply fails to touch me.

So this is the kind of art that gets grants.

THE FUTURE OF ART

Grayson Perry: The Rosetta Vase, 2011

Ok, that's probably quite a pretentious title, and no I don't pretend to have all the answers to it. However, I will present a few thoughts that arose when I listened to Grayson Perry on the radio. If you have access to BBC Iplayer, please do listen to his four lectures! I think he says what a lot of people are thinking, and that may very well be the secret to his popularity. He's very succinct, honest and unpretentious, but also funny and hugely entertaining. I remember seeing a book with his pottery in the Hayward Gallery art shop when we visited Tracey Emin's retrospective two years ago. The way he had analysed his own work seemed unusually down to earth, but also perceptive. I was very surprised to find out that this guy, whose visual storytelling is so representational, is in fact really famous!

At the end of the third lecture Grayson concludes that art can no longer shock and surprise. While the "real" art world is still quite small, there are more and more amateur artists. The idea that anyone can be an artist could indeed find us drowning in a sea of mediocrity. He's talking about the gentrification of art, how being arty and bohemian has become commonplace. Whatever is democratic, tends to become conventional and boring. I've no doubt that if everyone starts believing they can be an artist, the trade will lose its lustre and "real" artists with the intention of imparting some real meaning through their art work will lose the audience's respect. That's a bit of a bleak prospect. 

Grayson also says that you can choose what kind of artist you want to be. I guess what he means is that you can decide for yourself whether you want to be politically orientated, low brow, high brow, conceptual, modernist and so on. In an informed society, its educated members will know how to categorise themselves. It's more and more rare to find artists who aren't self-conscious. As we speak, outsider art is becoming increasingly sought after because it often has that quality of spontaneity and at least a certain lack of self-awareness. Yet even they have to find the environment that fits their art. Of course, in some cases it's the carers who do this for them. Most of them, however, are aware that they fit the outsider category of artists. I myself am already "ruined" by cultural sophistication and therefore don't fit that category all that well, however at the moment there are only few other peer groups that suit my needs. I'm guessing that identifying your peer group might become increasingly important in a world where art is an increasingly integrated part of daily life. In the past, society reacted to art (a lot of the time because it was perceived as unconventional and shocking) and so the categorisation often happened inspite of the artist. A lot of the time, it was impinged on the artist. If that is no longer the case, then it's up to the artists themselves to label their art and seek out the right kind of environment. I can imagine that most people would do that for convenience's sake, because navigation in an increasingly complex society calls for simplification. This way, you're also more likely to reach the right kind of audience. 

Of course, many artists will rebel against the idea of being put in a category. Many will be engaging in many different kinds of media and artistic expressions. However, perhaps there will be a category for various forms of eclectisism too!

All in all, people will have more and more choice... it's difficult to orientate when you do, and the results aren't guaranteed to be any good. In fact, artists often get to engrossed in all the technical possibilities while forgetting the real point with making art. Art is about communicating something meaningful about life in the present time. Often, this happens through exemplifying stories (cf. Grayson's vases). Otherwise it's just a sollipsist practice, one that you might as well call a hobby. That's just my opinion!

Are we living in the end-times of art? Please read my husband Martin's erudite discussion on Grayson's opinion that art has come to an end... here on his blog Artedstates.

SOUND MEETS VISUAL ARTS, ARCHITECTURE AND MORE + NEWS

Paul Rogers: "The media machine, a real-time, performative, sound and object based installation"
during the Noises of Art conference in Aberystwyth, September 2013.
This piece was a beautiful use of junk sounds.
I believe a video will be available on the internet some time soon.

Martin and I didn't decide to go to the conference "The Noises of Art" at Aberystwyth Arts Centre until just about ten days beforehand, when Martin managed to sell some older art and made just enough money for us to attend. As a university driven conference, it was subsidised and not especially expensive, but our situation is dire right now so this was a questionable expense nonetheless. When we heard about this conference we both felt driven to take part, hoping that in some way or another it would help us air our stuffy brains and that just getting out there into the real world among intelligent people with an interest in art for a bit would be inspiring. This venture required a massive effort from myself, as I had to get up several hours earlier than usual, try and make sure I got to sleep at a reasonable time (we commuted back and forth, as it's about 40 minutes by car), and put up with three really long days of stretching my attention span somewhat unsuccessfully and sitting down for most of that time.

Aberystwyth - photos copyright by Vivi-Mari Carpelan

The atmosphere was great and I think everyone enjoyed this conference a great deal (someone hinted that they had never been to one that was so interdisciplinary and interesting). Obviously I can't say too much about the contents of the 20 min talks as many are preparations for doctorates. Most participants were presenting papers (many of them being PhD graduates), either in the real or virtually, or offering artist's talks or sound art installations. I think we were the only ones who were there for the whole time and only to listen and observe. As expected, a few papers were as dry as the paper the words were written on, others were suitably entertaining. A potential problem with research into the arts is that by the time this becomes possible, the art in question is already quite old. Thus we heard quite a lot about Paul Klee and his influence on musicians, John Cage, and a couple of names that were unknown to me - Terry Fox who amongst other things, recorded the purring sound of cats (compare with my "production logo" at the end of The Title) and the disturbing art of voice of Vito Acconci. Especially Acconci's performances resonate to a degree with my "Insomnia", as self becomes objectified and manipulative of the imagined "other" through the use of obsessive speech, especially here in a performance called Claim Excerpts from 1971. 

'A documentation of one of Acconci's most notorious performances, Claim Excerpts is a highly confrontational work, an exercise in self-induced, heightened behavioral states, and an aggressive psychological exploration of the artist/viewer relationship. During the three-hour performance, Acconci sat in the basement of 93 Grand Street in New York, blindfolded, armed with metal pipes and a crowbar. His image was seen on a video monitor in the upstairs gallery space. Staking claim to his territory, he tries to hypnotize himself through language into an obsessive state of possessiveness: "The talk should drive me into a state where everything is possible." He becomes increasingly tense and violent, threatening to kill anyone who tries to enter his space. Acconci has written, "If during the first hour, I had hit someone, I would have stopped, shocked, horrified; if, during the third hour, I had hit someone, I would have used that as a marker, a proof of success... a signal to keep hitting." (from the description on Ubuweb)'

'In the 1970s, he produced a remarkable body of conceptual, performance-based film and video works, in which he engages in an intensive psychodramatic dialogue between artist and viewer, body and self, public and private, subject and object.' (From Electronic Arts Intermix)

Generally speaking the conference offered a great cross section of all sorts of stuff, though tiring as it was for my brain to process. I felt really privileged to find out what people are researching or working on artwise (though art practices were less represented and many of the theoretical papers were rather impenetrable, at least to my sorry brain). As I have a MA degree in humanities from 1999, I certainly felt reasonably at home, but it was also quite obvious to me how far removed I now am from the world of academia and the active world of working life. It left me feeling nostalgic. After my graduation my health declined quite rapidly and the start up of my PhD came to a halt quite soon after. I had to concede that the university years were behind me, and had to try and get on with my life in other ways. Some might even say that I have really moved on, i.e. gotten on with "real life", as a friendly person pointed out. Having now experienced this kind of conference, I feel that I might want to submit a talk myself if a similar opportunity came along, but I would have to consider the stress that this would put me under (if accepted of course). I want to fight the position of a complete outsider but we'll have to see how it goes. Martin on the other hand would love to pursue some serious studies in fine arts, and I know he'd be perfectly able to if an opportunity were to arise. It's an annoying fact that higher education is so expensive in the UK - if this was Finland, he'd already be doing it.

Andrew McPherson:
"The Magnetic Resonator Piano: Electronic Augmentation of an Acoustic Musical Instrument"
at Aberystwyth School of Art in September 2013.

Artwise, I think the conference confirmed the ideas about sound and multimedia that have already been brewing. My two previous multimedia projects will see a third part and I will thus end up with a trilogy, something to do with natural vs unnatural, control vs abandonment... The first part, Insomnia, has sound elements that I created through recordings of events in space as well as my own voice. I have thought some more about what it all means (and if it's still a bit hazy, I shall attempt to work on articulating it even better):

In this video performance, self becomes objectified through the use of voice art. A subjective experience goes through stages of expressions as thoughts become vocalised and then recorded as a token for the direct communication that would never take place in real life. Here, the body gains a semiotic quality because of carrying a potent message of distress, and it can only be a signifier through the process of art.

The second part, The Title, has some recordings of events but also introduces classical music as a symbol of history and the past (apart from being a mood enhancer, of course). Being faced with the problem of not wanting to use copy-righted music and thus not being able to claim full ownership of the work, I have been ruminating about creative ways of creating my own sounds. Perhaps attending local choirs has given me some self-confidence in this area, too. I have also been very adament about the importance of silence and of course, this was confirmed as well. Sound and silence are to me yet another undeniable dichotomy of negative and positive, and therefore of equal importance.

Next up, in the third part ("Visible/Invisible"is the working title), I will be experimenting with more ways of using my voice in an even more expressive way. I hadn't quite realised just how well tremor and feeling really does come through in the recordings, that I have done with free software on my laptop, and Martin's good quality Sony mic. However, this is partly apparent in The Title, in the laborious breathing sequence. Martin has been enhancing my soundscapes but I think that it's time for me to try and get my head around the editing of sounds through some free software called Audacity. This way I feel freer to experiment and create multiple layers without having to wait until Martin has a moment to improve the recordings. What would I do if Martin wasn't informing me about the technical side of things! As it is, I have a great opportunity of adding a new and wonderful dimension to my body of work. As John Harvey, a pleasant professor at the School of Art in Aberystwyth said to me; a lot of artists are starting to employ sound as a medium inspite of not having any formal education in music. It's obvious that this is absolutely the right place for me to be right now, and it feels quite natural. In the end, almost anything goes, and it's simply up to the individual to put their creativity to good use.

What really inspires me is that I can combine sound with my visual material, as this to me is a beautiful marriage. I almost feel that there's a bit lacking when visuals or sounds are presented on their own - this feeling was certainly reinforced by the conference. We have multiple senses, and visuals without sound could perhaps seem a bit like being deaf but have good vision, and vice versa. For this reason I have started to warm up to the idea of video art, which I used to sneer at. In fact it just occurred to me that I've always felt precious about sound, but was unable to do much about it. I used to play music at my private views and later on when I got ITunes, started to create playlists with selected songs for each exhibition. Sadly, playing this music during the exhibitions was rarely possible.

Please read more about my current sound art projects. You can find examples on SoundCloud or my website.

~~~~~

A few weeks ago I received a letter that my art work didn't make it to Shape Open at the Nunnery Gallery on Bow Street in London, but a week later someone wrote and said they thought I might not have been told one of my two pieces did get in! I really hope there's a way of attending the private view in November. Shape Arts is an organisation for disability arts and the exhibition was open to both disabled and non-disabled artists on the theme "disability re-assessed". I'm sure that the main objective is to present disability in a positive light, as 2012 was a year of many developments in this field (mainly through the paraolympics in London). My piece is, however, direct and confrontational.  Unfortunately they didn't want my confrontational statement for the catalogue, so it had to be rewritten. Funny that, as it's really the sort of censorship that I'm trying to fight through pieces like this!

Vivi-Mari Carpelan: "Your Indifference is Breaking My Heart".
Mixed media collage with
artist's photograph, moral poetry from the 19th C, and vintage engraving.
Copyright 2012.

In this piece, I'm suggesting that the conservative government (and the Atos system of disability assessment in particular) has a very Victorian moralist attitude towards those who are disabled and/or afflicted with chronic (long term) illness (a reason there's Victorian moral poetry in the background - nothing much has changed in terms of moral codes...).

Original version: "This is personal. Look me in the eyes and stop giving me moral BS about contributing to society on your terms. You feel you have the right to assess my abilities, but what does that even mean? I am ME, a unique human being. Do you care about that? I need your support and compassion, not parenting! We're in this together, you know.” 

The rectified version: This work suggests that the accepted moral codes of society are still “Victorian”. It is about the fundamental right to assess my own abilities and the ways in which I feel I can contribute to society on my own terms. I want to evoke questions about the validity of assessing people’s abilities from an emotionally indifferent point of view – is my value solely dependent on my economic productivity?

Another happy piece of news is that I sold "The Impossibility of Sleeplessness and Damien Hirst Doesn't Exactly Make it Better" at Outsidein West in Taunton. I'm so glad someone appreciated my hangman's humour! In both pieces, I have used photographs of myself, and feeling this is really the way to go for me.

Vivi-Mari Carpelan: "The Impossibility of Sleeplessness and Damien Hirst
Doesn't Exactly Make it Better",
Handmade photomontage, copyright 2013.

"In a general sense, this piece is about the fear of a sudden fall into a state of despair and depression, and how difficult it is to remain balanced and “on top of things”.

More specifically, this piece is about insomnia, which in severe cases involves constant threats of medication not working any more, while one is being pumped up with habit forming medication in the first place, of the fear of going insane with severe cognitive and physical impairment and physical flare ups due to lack of sufficient good quality sleep... and never getting any really useful help from the medical establishment. On top of this there's the sleep schedule which always goes wrong, ie. something disturbs one's routines and tips the wagon so you end up sleeping/dozing/lying around well into the afternoon and always feeling the day goes by while you're simply useless. Managing a condition that happens when you're not looking, is like walking a tight rope, knowing you could fall any time. This piece is part of Project X. When I thought of the name including the word "impossibility" it became a reference to titles by Damien Hirst and his somewhat doubtful financial success.ow difficult it is to remain balanced and “on top of things”.

THE TITLE - A SHORT FILM WHERE THE TITLE IS THE TITLE

Thumbnail picture for the film "The Title" 

This multimedia project wasn't all clear from the start, but I filmed a few bits that I thought I might like to use, and added other video clips and stills as I was going along. Martin helped me with the theatrical scenes where I'm dressed in black, in a Victorian style. There must have been a thousand little bits in the end. Premiere Elements isn't really designed to cope with so many layers and general complexity. The uploaded version still has a few faults in it, but I will leave it for now and fix it later. I spent a few weeks with this project and really need to get it out there and out of my mind!

This short film is a collaged conglomerate of fragments from my own life as well as my family's history - stills, moving images, performance, a poem I wrote long ago back in 1985 - the only poem I ever wrote! In the film a part of it is performerd in the original Swedish, with the English translation overlaying the imagery. And last but not least, there are many of my handmade collages. It's packed with symbolic imagery and the narrative (a kind of journey) is really an explanation to the art work. However, as this may not be immediately obvious, this multi media show can be taken in intuitively as well. It's an emotional life story, and I hope that comes across as the main objective for this project. Ultimately, the idea behind the quote "All the World's a Stage, and Men and Women merely Players" (Shakespeare) is once more one of the main themes of my work.

Ggenerally speaking I'm leaving it to people to make their own conclusions about this work, but of course I hope, as always, that there is universal appeal as it speaks about entitlement, loss and restoring a sense of dignity. The title "The title" refers to the idea of being "entitled", either physically (health, money, and other good things in life), or emotionally (having a sense of worth, dignity and spiritual stature).

The idea of using a journey as the narrative that pulls it all together is of course not an original one, but one that makes a story easier to watch and tends to keep the audience's attention. I decided on this format because "the journey" is a deeply archetypal metaphor or "monomyth" (Joseph Campbell) that is present in all cultural traditions, speaks to everyone on at least some level, and because it helps making sense of the fragments.

I think this representation of a heroe's journey should be taken with a pinch of salt, but
it can offer some viewpoints that clarify the concept of a journey through life that
is full of hardships but also some sort of benefits and rewards.

I also used the old film effect quite a bit because it helps create a sense of the past (which is an important element in this project), as well as providing great texture. I ponder each effect quite a bit, as it needs to support the symbolism or message that I want to get across. 

I think you can't make a long film with this much symbolism, there's a point where it overwhelms the brain. Recently, we watched some older Ingmar Bergman films and I was thinking how they were always said to be deeply symbolic. I saw them when I had just entered university and loved the atmosphere and the way Swedish was spoken, but I didn't get the symbolism. Now I realised, there is hardly any there at all! In my favourite, the tender "Wild Strawberries", there's a dream sequence that has some symbolism in it, notably in the clock without hands. Sometimes the weather is moody, which is meant to enhance the melancholy in the story, but that's not really symbolism, it's just mood. Of course, as a Cancerian I can recognise another Cancerian's flair for moodiness! The empty streets... oh so de Chirico, who was also Cancerian! Strictly speaking, Bergman's strength lies in conveying mood, but not really in the use of symbols - in fact, some of his movies are actually just nonsense. Anyway, this medium allows a lot of imagery that speaks to people as if they were symbols, because the performance in 3D can convey so much in so little time with the help of props, environment, music, temporality and other attributes.

The dream sequence in Ingmar Bergman's "Wild Strawberries" ("Smultronstället")

The classical music for my film was taken from a site with copyright-free classical music, Musopen, which I can highly recommend. Youtube suggested that I had nicked some music called "Tranquillity" from someone else's album, but the performer whose piece I used has never participated in any project called "Tranquillity". My guess is that someone else also took the Baroque piece, which obviously wasn't originally called "Tranquillity", and used it on their CD! Let me guess... with added birdsong and water splash... I have therefore debated Youtube's suggestion with a clean conscience. Oh and of course, Martin did some wonders to some of the recordings that weren't really up to scratch.

And of course, I always wanted to be movie star! I remember in the distant past, that a good friend of mine said about me that I'm always quite theatrical - and she meant it as a compliment, rather than in the sense of "drama queen". I think I have an imbedded sense of the theatrical, and it feels good to get some outlet for this side of my creativity.

I would love to hear comments!