Last night (27 April) I went to see Mogwai play at Usher Hall in Edinburgh, and it was one of the more amazing experiences I have had going to gigs. First off, Mogwai are loud, the low-end frequency vibrates through out your whole body, and the actual physicality of the rest of the sound is huge. Usher Hall is the grand old place, but I have a feeling Mogwai sound that big when they play in their basement. Beyond the complexity of their actual songs, the layering and the way the bits worked together the volume was its own entity. I am not too sure if I can describe it, but the volume became tangible. It didn’t hurt my ears but it was like being surrounded in a whiteout when it snows really hard. Its omni-present.

The actual songs themselves were amazing, and it got me thinking what happens live vs. the album out-with how loud something is, and is it possible to take the dynamic, that element and transfer it to other experiences? To transfer it, one needs to be able to name it, but I am not sure that I can. You can ask anyone who goes to see a band play live, and people can tell you why a gig was good, or bad, but there is an intangibleness to some of it where people count on the experience of other to relay their experience. That unspoken quality-how do you flesh it out, how do you boil it down and ascertain what it is?

But why over intellectualize that particular aspect of the experience, the aspect that is most special? Will greater intellectual understanding change my understanding and ability to experience music in that way? Of course an enhanced knowledge will change my experience, but will I enjoy that bit of the gig less?

Another thought that came up during the gig was what happened to the joy. At times sound art feels as if it’s restraining itself. In Mogwai’s songs or sound-scapes there was an emotional accessibility and it felt as if a door was wide open to become completely involved in the sound. I do not mean to be overtly general, but sometimes, sound art can feel cold and standoffish. Part of the ineffable is the accessibility…it goes both ways I was at the gig with a friend who was not nearly as into it as I was, but the question I should have asked her was not if she liked it but if she felt something? You can dislike something but still be immersed and challenged within its parameters. But there is a lot to be learned by watching live bands, Mogwai are a tight cohesive very good band, but the structure of their compositions and their familiarity with the material allowed them push the structure. Can that only happen with live sound…..? (It would seem so if improvising were involved).

Theoretically according to Wittgenstein, philosophy is both the logical clarification of thoughts, and a method of critiquing. Through philosophy we are able to clarify the limitations of meaningful language. Indeed if this is the case, then language or philosophy has failed us in some way when it comes to the ineffable. The ineffable can be realized in a number of different forms, however our only way of relaying facts or details about the nature of the experience is through words. The parameters of the experience(s) remain limitless, yet our ability to formulate and summarize through language remains so limited. Language has become a restricted medium in a sense. Wittgenstein states

‘What we can not speak about we pass over in silence.’

What does this mean for art? This weekend at the Berlin Biennale and one of the works was by Tino Seghal. Abstractly it featured a young guy and girl rolling about on the floor in a choreographed fashion inside of dilapidated ballroom. But it was more than that; their movements were precise and carefully executed. But I was totally uncomfortable, the work made me aware that I was witness to something that was something more than being in a room watching two people roll around on the floor. Beyond the fact that they were physically intertwined for most of the time that I saw them, and they engaged in some kissing and stroking that didn’t bother me. Sex in art has lost its charge, and at this point and it’s not shocking. What made me feel uncomfortable was the idea of the private and the intimate. There were moments when either the man or the women would touch each other with incredible intimacy or tenderness. Most people in their lifetimes experience some sort of intimacy and tenderness, and the words are used to relay experiences, but do we really understand the concepts? Is intimacy and tenderness the same for two different people? Its like love, they say you never know till you have been in love, but when you are, the feelings have no boundaries but the ability to explain those feelings, feels limited to me. Did I have an ineffable experience in the Seghal piece, I think so…..can I explain it? No I am not sure that I can, I can only explain how I felt, but the thing is…..whilst it was happening I was aware of how I was feeling but those feelings were muted…the connection to the work was very present. It was only after I left the room was I distinctly aware of how uncomfortable I felt. What does it mean, how do you qualify it, but do you even need to? Do we even have the intellectual capability to define and create vernacular about the thing, which we cannot name?


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Excerpt from email correspondence with Gerrie van Noord sent on 24 April 2006 concerning intimacy and Seghal’s piece in Berlin


I have to say that show (six feet under) always makes me feel a bit uncomfortable because of the intimacy. It’s a strange thing because it makes me think about the construct and make up of the ineffable, what are they, what comprises them? Is it just a clarifying of something like the intimate? I was speaking to (name removed for confidential reasons) about sat night and she was like I think intimacy is an odd thing, and I think that you feel threatened by it, in a way. There might be something in that, because my dad was saying when he sees intimacy like in the cinema or whatever he feels as if he is getting a gift, me I feel like I am being raked over the coals. But there is something worthwhile in the pursuit and uncovering of the intimate. Sex and intimacy in a way should go hand in hand-but one can be had without the other. If you use sex as an example and intimacy comes through or via being in love etc....then can you transpose that model to art, do people fall in love with the work if even briefly.... is that the key?

it's been a while since i have updated the blog, and while alot of the entries are dated 4th of april it's because i was able to sit down and really think about things...but from now on the updates will be on a weekly basis, if not more.

7 april 2006


Unpick the twee from the not twee….(nick cave-the idea of grating)
(these ideas were generated during a conversation with Gerrie van Noord in London)….


For the most part the idea of the phenomenological experience has had much to do with betterment or spiritual enlightenment. But based on the conversation today, and the ability to look at things from a more informed position thus far into the research, I have many questions about the nature of the phenomenological experience. For the most part within the art produced to date which is benchmarked for its phenomenological content is mostly the producer of pleasant spiritually enhancing experiences: Robert Irwin’s ‘Excurses: Homage to the Square’, James Turrell’s ‘Meeting Place’, Dan Graham’s ‘Pavilions’, Dan Flavin ‘various works’ for the most part are viewed as being spaces where one can go and leave feeling almost spiritually enhanced. The expectation is that the viewers’ experience will not be one of discomfort. What then of work meant to challenge the viewer both physically and emotionally perhaps in ways that are not always based within spirtitual enhancement? For instance Thomas Hirschorn’s work, at times it challenges notions of comfort, or at least my own personal notions of comfort, but it doesn’t keep my from interacting with the work. How can that feeling be used? What of the work where the intention is to make one uncomfortable? While there might not be a clear explanation within contemporary art, one only has to look to film. Why are scary movies such a huge genre? Why do people yearn to be frightened and challenged in what can be considered a perverse manner? This line of questioning brings up other ways of obtaining and achieving ecstasy: piercing, tattoos, S+M. While these experiences are considered on the fringes of society their pursuit is no different than Turrell, Irwin, Flavin etc. How then do we move beyond the idea of shock factor and utilize aspect from these fringe genres. The exploration of Horror has not been overlooked: artists such as Banks Violette look at construct of horror. I want to utilize the actual feelings being produced. Why do people like being scared, and in a sense being scared is a much more honest reaction than a lot of things. It’s completely in the moment…its not entangled in a sense of intellectualism. It happens and the reaction is quick and fierce. Irwin stated that he wanted to his work to be about the act of perceiving….which in some way is an impossible task. Can you be engaged in the action of perception while critically understanding the mechanics? Perception quite often happens before one has any idea that something has happened. In a sense then horror movies are a good genre to follow. Is it because being scared is a more honest response; is the phenomenological experience all about honest experiences? What is the basis or the parameters of an honest experience? Can there ever be honest experiences within art? Out-with art can there be honest experiences full stop? When we have experiences we tend not to question their validity….but can is it actually possible for an experience created by one person to be ‘honest’ to another. It would probably be said that yes it is totally possible, but that then begs us to ask what is an honest experience? Because of its highly subjective nature it would seem impossible to validate an experience as such, what is honest to one, could be a phallacy to another; this model is also highly applicable to phenomenological experiences. It’s a term fraught with false definitions and presupposed knowledge, but what does it mean? If it means something different for each person does one only create experiences for themselves and hope that others find some sort of in road into the creators hermetically sealed world of reference? (look at the practices of Mark Manders, and Tomas Demand as reference point. Both Manders and Demand have managed to create their own contexts from which to reference that both operate within the larger scale of contemporary art as well as out-with it. However work that is created with the hope of giving something to everyone is no better than your average Hollywood movie. The material should maintain a high level of critical rigor whilst being accessible

4 april 2006

Sound is not simply heard-but physically felt. With this in mind and wanting to be able to utilize the full spectrum of the term best suits the intended output of the research.

Sound-dealing with the interior and exterior. If one regards the interior as the [headspace], and the exterior as everything else the art/the other viewers/ etc. the creator has limited control. The question that arises is do you need the visual? Because people are used to looking before hearing when it comes to art within a certain context: what then becomes of the visual sense?

4th april 2006
(collection of various bits of writing..organized)

Sound Art is continually questioned [is it art/is it music]. These questions seem to be institutionally based more so within visual arts academies, which ask to a certain extent if visually arts based programs have the capacity to quantify and or house art that is being created out-with the visual.


What parameters need to be established [or created] in order to quantify and measure ineffable experiences?


What components need to present or inherent to work which is created for phenomenological experiences?

Who or what deems experiential artwork ineffable?

Various acts such as listening to music, meditating, drug taking, can produce ineffable experiences. What is to be learned from those experiences? Art making tends to blur the lines between practices and often tries to establish a different platform from which to look at such experiences. How can the results of such acts be more closely explored to fully realize and understand the scope of ineffable experiences? Can such experiences be considered transferable, or rather can such experiences be viewed as dormant within the viewer; and the artwork, the drugs, the meditating are all just different access routes or triggers to phenomenological/spiritual/ineffable experiences.

Phenomenological experience is a much bandied about term: what exactly is a phenomenological experience in respect to contemporary post-war art?

Just thinking about the phenomenological experience-performance art, installation art to some extent is theatrically based, but for many people the only interaction they have is through the document. For example Aileen Campbell’s work As Jane Edwards and Geoffrey Rush watching it is not particularly phenomenological because I am constantly aware in a sense that I am seeing a document-so then the question arises what if the process is the phenomenological part? How do you even begin to convey aspects of the private?

Is the idea and the concept of installation art in itself not a phenomenological construct? To enter into a space and make one more aware of the chosen construct. Installation art inherently is already phenomenological. Whilst mediums such as photography and painting have a certain spatial quality, their two dimensionality limits the viewer’s physical body experience to one of object and viewer. To phrase the train of though in a more existential dynamic, the art may and can as a mirror from which the viewers can view themselves. Rosiland Krauss spoke of the grid to the same effect saying it served both as a window and a portal to the unreal. Regardless the painting/photograph etc. remains work that is to be viewed with the eyes. Installation art however allows the possibility for the entirety of the viewer to experience the work, and is quite often constructed on being an complete immersive experience within which the viewer is asked to question how they relate to the new environment within which they are placed. Using Krauss’s grid description as a foundation installation can be though of in similar light. The white cube of the gallery is the grid-the platform for transformation-the work which is installed within it is the new space, the new reality. Whilst I have provided two completely realistic scenarios-the pursuit of phenomenological experiences through sound dictates that the work is installation based.

4 April 2006
(glasgow to london train ride)


Are my research questions still the same?

Research Questions

What components of a perceptual sound-space need to be identified and/or created to create a collective phenomenological experience?

Within the context of contemporary art created for phenomenological experience(s), how does the creation of a perceptual sound-space establish itself as art?

By questioning the very construct of space [material vs. immaterial] what implications and questions will be raised by the success of a perceptual sound-space within the context of contemporary architectural practices?

How does a piece of art quantify and document the ineffable?

Is sound a germane medium to generate an ineffable experience-or is a visual component necessary to generate a phenomenological experience?

Can phenomenological experiences be the same for two different people?

What are my questions as of right now? At this stage in the research what are the changes from August. Firstly the pre-occupation with architectural space per se has changed. What has cleared up is the desire to look at pre-existing architecture for ‘sonic’ architecture’ and look more for individuals whose practices may reside more in ‘paper architecture’ The idea of idealized spaces and the possibilities that model spaces provide have more potential for change than looking at ‘sonic architecture’. But can these spaces exist without the visual? A few months ago I was willing to say yes… but the idea of creating idealized phenomenological spaces within which actual people can interact with on a real scale is exciting… but then where does the sound fit in? How does the sound become more than just an element… the idea is to challenge the construct of the term installation. Installation art implies a sense of intervention in the white cube, a rescuing and removing of the sterile towards an immersive experience (either enjoyable or challenging) But that the context of the previous space is removed if only for a temporary time. (come back to)

NB asked me why could it not be painting, watercolour in particular. Whilst I do not disagree that paintings or photographs for that matter can produce phenomenological situations (Rothko, Eggleston, Uta Barth) sound as a medium does not necessarily lend itself to passive observation. The combination of both sound and space lend themselves to a more physical experience. Perhaps installation is the wrong word: interactive physically immersive art. Sound can be more than just listened to-it can be felt and if one had the ability to move about a space, then that element can be more highly utilized. Also the ability to have a versatile physical experience has more potential to realizing and creating a phenomenological experience in my opinion than a static experience does.


What do I want to know from this research? Where is it headed? Are both the question and the concern mainly dealing with the creation of phenomenological/spiritual experience? Through the research done to date, questions have arisen about what particular school of phenomenology to seat the research (existential or transcendental). As well whilst it is probably a second or third tier question. The sound art debate is still a valid issue.

20 March 2006
[written at Tate Modern in response to walking about and interacting with the ‘moving people about playlist']


It was really interesting to look at the work in the kippenberger and the bauhaus show whilst listening to ‘people moving about soundtracks’. First because it isolated myself in such a way, that the usual aspects of what can make looking at art difficult (i.e. the other people) become a secondary focus. I couldn’t hear their chatter, I could just see them, but their presence became less. There was only this strange meandering soundtrack [which I had created for the purpose of being in transit] which began to form its own narrative. In particular the Workbench track. When it finished I was empty and tired, as if I had been sucked into something I am not sure I can describe. Lucier’s track Music on a Long Thin Wire has continually snuck up on me all day, it almost feels although when I hear it, it bites me. What does that mean? Where does Guns N’ Roses fit between those two tracks? Because the mix is so varied, you have everything from Lucier to Fleetwood Mac, it makes me questions issues of construct. While Guns or Fleetwood Mac are not sound art per-say, could they be if I used them in that particular context?

What does that mean for the whole concept of the piece?

How do tracks like the Workbench track fit with something by say Belinda Carlise?

Is it a matter of using the more abstract tracks to find the abstract qualities in the pop?