Impressions of Music: Okay, Good. Improvisations of music?

Notes made between Impressions of Music; Music for 18 Musician and the following work.

For the next step in my exploration of how music might effect mark making, I continued with the parameter of using a single piece of music ('Good' by Okay from their album  'High Road' 2005, Absolutely Kosher Records.)

 Due to the shortness of the song I decided to repeat the song, playing it 20 times ( the song is 3:18 minutes long.). Which in itself was an interesting experience, I found that each time the song played I began I would pick up on a specific element of the song and would make marks following that particular element as it develops over the song, so for example in one play I would follow the guitar, in the next the vocals, and the next the bass. I'm not entirely sure how much that influenced the marks but it opens a question of development, I could repeat the process and in one play through use one colour to make marks then use another for the next play through. it might be interesting to see what would come from this.

The second development that came to mind was how long could I play the song on repeat? I chose to stop the experiment as I was tired from my day at work but I wander what might happen if I tried to play the song for an hour/2 hours/4hours/12 hours/24 hours? there seems to be a risk in this experiment, in that in the process of longer and longer duration the song may be ruined for future listening but it is definitely an exciting concept. it raises a notion of iconoclasm, in that through repetition there is the danger of boredom and eventual metamorphosis from enjoying a song to hating it, but the opposite view is that through a relentless repetition there may be some sort of meditative experience that might develop, in the sense that the song might become mantra-like. considering some of my larger scale causal drawing process drawings from my previous practice I would reach points that could be considered as meditative states, for example the work 'Itself within itself'  which consists of approximately 300 000 dots of ink, which took approximately 30 hours ( at that time I was making 10 000 dots per hour) whilst counting each dot I was making the counting I was doing of each dot took on a strange quality, the numbers would merge into one another and my voice turned into a rhythmic drone, this would go on for extended amounts of time until I would snap back out of the state feeling incredibly confused and unsure if I had actually been counting at all( I challenge anyone to try to count every dot in this piece, I tried once and a similar state overtook me.)

'Okay, Good'

2014 

pencil on paper

at the beginning point of this piece I started freely making marks across the page, I tried to keep looking at the page too a minimum but I found that my eyes kept being drawn back to the page, the question of denial needs considering here, my intention of this project is to try to make works that are more honest in their making, too allow myself the opportunity to explore the natural balance of control and chance in making compared to the artificial and controlled physical and emotional experience of my previous practice. therefore by forcing myself too not look at what I am doing is placing control on myself to achieve more chance in my mark making, by denying myself the visual treat of seeing the marks I am making and seeing how the image develops feels wrong too me, in trying to achieve more chance I am not creating a balance I am in fact just doing the polar opposite of extreme control.

So, as I made  the decision to allow myself too look at what I was doing ( which gave me quite a strong sense of relief) I found myself starting to pick out details within the marks I had already made, still reacting directly to the music I would work in particular areas, and as mentioned earlier it was a little like I was relating the specific instrument I was listening to with the marks I had previously made following another instrument. There is something about tacit knowledge  going on here that I am struggling to unpick, but I'm finding the link to what I have written about emerging images  ,tacit knowledge and the following of different aspects of the same image. ( I will come back to this!!)

 

 

'Detail i of Okay, Good'

2014 

pencil on paper

 

'Detail ii of Okay, Good'

2014 

pencil on paper

'Detail iii of Okay, Good'

2014 

pencil on paper

'Notes made during the making of Okay, Good'

2014 

pencil on paper