Blurb about my work 3.0

What would it be like if our brains had a ‘Shuffle’ feature; If we could experience the world as a de-contextualised succession of moments and impressions? Would we find serenity in the blissful waves of meaningless stimulation, or would we become consumed by the void of nothingness between sensory pulses?

 

Blurb about my work 2.0

Andrew Burgess’s meditative video interface entitled shuffle is on public view for the first time during the M.A digital arts show at Camberwell.

This work is motivated by Paradoxical enquiries into methods of capturing the ephemeral and searching for the meaning in the search for meaning.

Shuffle consists of a media database that is played in an unpredictable order through an interface designed within the Pure Data programming environment.

It has been designed to describe an unresolved journey into a landscape of de-contextualisation and unlearning.

Blurb about my piece_V1.0

Shuffle is an interface of moving image and sound work, conceived as a methodical description of an arbitrary existence.

It is a meditation on disassociation and fragmentation.

The programme which runs this interface shuffles playback through a database of recorded material, enhancing it’s ephemeral quality.
With this work I want to ask the question – is consciousness regulated or de-regulated by visual stimulation?

Paik’s T.V Buddha and Lacan’s theory of the Mirror phase.

Found some footage of an installation of the T.V Buddha piece  by Nam June Paik. Originally exhibited in 1974.  I really like this amateur documentation,  the guy waiving in the background of this Youtube clip somehow draws out the sense of humour which I think is often overlooked when people consider this work, which was born from the same mischievous ‘hacker’ spirit as all Paik’s work.

Beyond this though, the work is literally about eastern philosophy meeting western media. And statuesque idols of old colliding with ephemeral electronic images in the present,  unfortunately the light hearted almost kitsch appeal of the work to contemporary audiences,  might overshadow a more serious consideration of what Paik was exploring here.

What is it about this narcissistic Buddha statue that is interesting?

One answer to that might come from considering Lacan’s theory of the mirror phase. The Mirror Phase , occurs  in child development roughly between six and eighteen months. This is believed by Lanan to be an important part in our social development. In the Mirror phase the child first discovers an ex-centralized image of them self, an image that relates to the self, but that does not contain the self or provide any solutions to the problems posed by the physical world. The reflected image can not resolve the search for identity that is sought, and a sense of uncertainty soon fills the void between the embodied sense of self and the reflected one, a crack thus becomes apparent in our general sense of self awareness. And so the child’s first awareness of his/her own image is an awareness characterised by a split. This is supposedly when the need for language arrives, language being a tool to fill the gap between the embodied sense of self and the ex-centric mirrored self in symbolic terms. Based on Lacan’s ideas then we can view language itself as an interface that performs a functional mediation between both our centric and ex-centric notions of self.

‘The Human being has a special relationship with his own image – a relation of gap, of alienating tension’ Jacques Lacan The Seninar. Book II. Pg 323

Interestingly Paik’s T.V Buddha video work was produced as a spontaneous gap-filler for an empty space in his fourth show in the Galeria Bonino, New York.

Maybe Paik did not fill the gap but was instead filled by the gap, and in closed circuit video  saw something that interacts with the gap fundamental in our sense of self awareness.

Paik’s T.V Buddha is like a sad joke, as the statue Buddha attempts to stare through the screen into infinity his vision is blocked by a symbolic reminder of his own physical situation in the world,  the T.V in it’s efforts to exert it’s own physical statuesque presence in imitation of the Buddha can only fill the void within itself by an ephemeral imitation of superficial appearances . The two entities become entangled and consumed by each other.

TV Buddha (1974) Closed Circuit video installation with bronze sculpture. image from http://www.paikstudios.com

Reflections on Mid-point review.

Found the mid point review encouraging. + it was fantastic to finally show some work in a critical environment

The main thing I took from the, discussion overall, was a sense that my ideas are starting to take form, and the most encouraging thing was the sense that my research interests are starting to become evident within in my work, which is a very nice feeling.
Apart from this I understand that my work could be even more focused, and that I need to start refining my projects into more sophisticated, meticulous products. The most profound criticisms were that my work, particularly Metro-Nome were in some respects seen as ‘a piss take’, or a ‘childish poke’, in other words slightly juvenile and unrefined. Very grateful for these points in particular because, I feel they confirm what I already felt which was that I need to focus and work more, and to craft my pieces more meticulously, I think this will eliminate these kind if reactions. However I do feel my work in general is playful and would like to be perceived as such, fun?. Though obviously the term ‘Childish Poke’ is entirely negative and not what I want to communicate so have to work more on getting the balance right. I generally though I feel encouraged by the proceedings of the mid point review and know that my work was received well and praised in many ways also, and that people were interested by the themes, ideas and methods that I am exploring. I feel both encouraged and motivated by the discussions in general.

It is always difficult to notate such a big discussion so I decided to record just the Key words from what was being discussed, I will list these now, and also use them as tags.
Interested to see what this does to the tag cloud on my blog.

Key words from mid point review in (un-ordered)

Performance Piece, Chuck Norris, Mid-point-review, Documentation of a performance, Andy Warhol, Heart of the City, Childish Poke, Greenwich, Non-Metronymic, How to Capture Performance, Containers, Anecdote, Heartbeat, Pyramid, Glowing, Introduction, Edge of the Abyss, Light in the Sea, Education, Walking, Abstract, Mythology, Meditation, Repetition, Multiple Buildings, Getting closer to something unreachable, Kenneth Anger, Heart, Tour Guide, Mars, Beats, Rhythms, Interpretations, Transformations, Taking the Piss, Expansible, A beam across time, Simplicity, Metronome, Unit, Law, Flashing, Otherness, Window, Faces, Drama, Motorway, Iain Sinclair, Failed Bypass, Disembodiment, Project as a whole, Mimicry, Sound, Claire Bishop participation, Relation Aesthetics.

Meditation – immediacy of experience.

‘Naturally it is difficult to explain meditation experiences, since they contain at best rough analogies with other mental states, but a key feature is the immediacy of experience. The breakthrough comes when we no longer think about what we are doing in meditation but just enter into the experience itself.’
Teach yourself Philosophy of the Mind.
Mel Thompson.
Publisher: Teach Yourself Books; New edition edition

Meditative absorption – loss of self awareness

‘From the moment of meditative absorption the issue ‘who am I ?’ becomes irrelevant. The very notion of defining the self – and thereby distinguishing the self from everything else that is not self – ‘is superficial and pointless’

Teach yourself Philosophy of the Mind. Mel Thompson Publisher: Teach Yourself Books; New edition edition (26 Dec 2003)

Excentration of the self – Meditation

‘To be lost in music, enraptured by a work of art, absorbed in a creative activity – all these approach the same experience that is explored through meditation. It is an utter excentration of the self, turning it inside out, so that personal meaning is now experienced as much on the outside as on the inside.’

 

 

Teach yourself Philosophy of the Mind.
Mel Thompson
Publisher: Teach Yourself Books; New edition edition (26 Dec 2003)