Not Bored in New York » new york

Once before, twice again

granger — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 02:59:59 +0000

Lately these things have happened:

I’ve been a consumer. I’ve spent money on goods lately. I’ve spent money that doesn’t immediately influence my survival; perhaps a secondary or tertiary influence on my survival.

I’ve been a bit less tidy at home.

I’ve parted ways with posessions of mine in an attempt to slim down tha amount of space that my property takes up.

I was part of an art show with some friends from Florida. It was a good look on all account.

I’ve been listening to tha carter 3 leak. Lil’ Wayne could creat–what I would consider to be–a hip hop artifact of massive quantity and quality.

I watched “2 days in Paris” today with Chris. It was pretty funny to me, perhaps because I have a girlfriend.

I’m starting a new job.

Brief excerpt from the midst of a paper:

granger — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 15:40:01 +0000

Our conception of the sonic is a phenomenological feedback event, while our perception, as an event, is equally a perception of our own materiality and the materiality of the sonic. The conception of the auditized sonic always leads to its interface with usefulness, while the perception of the sonic always leads to either quantification or qualification. Perception is cartography of the self (both collective and singular, physical and metaphysical), and the space around the self. Perception is not a document of what exists; it is an event. Perception is the construction of what exists in terms of potentialities of usefulness; the perceived is of usefulness, and the unperceived is not. It could be said that perception leads to conception, but such a statement would not be true, only mythic.

Like whoa…

granger — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 06:23:06 +0000

First:

My colleague Chris Tabron has a new blog: .::Light Matter::. where he posts photos.

Second:

I saw Sekou Sundiata’s the 51st (dream) State earlier this evening at BAM’s Howard Gillman Opera House. New York: you should be there tomorrow and/or Sunday. As you probably know most everything passes through John Cage before it gets to me, so my criticism is usually related to issues of overbearing narrative/message, decisions in production that seek to preserve/achieve meaning that wind up being reductive in regards to meaning’s potentiality to traverse the space between intention and reception, and other such audience-oriented heuristics. Sundiata is an overhwhelming exception to my redundant critiques, and a welcome one for me. He manages to present a context rife with implications of political critique, yet not born out of a desire to instill those critiques; his performance is fundamentally imbued with poetry, yet fails to access the format’s most tired breaths; he sets up a fecund bed in which the audience may rest their minds, and simply goes to work quietly in the corners: the corners of the space in such a way that the work never imposes (neither on the audience or any part within itself), and the corners of our minds in such a way that the work remains tangential and fragmented enough that it only hints at possible realms of thought, it never asks us to step into them. Over the course of the performance I was engaged mentally, intellectually, emotionally, and spatially. Half-way through I felt that I should do productive things when the time to leave would arrive; I came home and thoroughly cleaned a salvaged step ladder. It’s refreshing to be involved in something that can become a state of exception within the structures that mire me in life; thank you Mr. Sundiata and company.

Third:

I have a performance coming up on December 12th at Tisch (721 Broadway) room 636 from 7:00 PM until 8:00 PM. The performance will be the premiere of Music High for Bouncing Balls–a work that I began conceptualizing at some point in the summer. There will be ten performers including myself–five women and five men (these people as of right now): Zachary Moldof, Christopher Tabron, Daniel Coeyman, Sarah Lasry, Montzerrat Contreras Robles, Maria Amelia Franchignoni, (possibly) Biba Bell, and (possibly) Amalia Cordova. I still need two more male performers, and (possibly) two more female performers; holler at your boy. The composition will not be rehearsed before the performance; the performers will alternate between bouncing balls, and reading texts; time brackets, and dynamic parameters will be used. I am hoping to render a composition that is simple enough to not require specialized knowledge in order to be read, and does not have to be rehearsed ahead of time because it seems like a useful way to approach a compositional practice that grows out of an understanding of sound that privileges indeterminacy and the unaccountability of temperospatial multiplicity.

Two Photos from Saturday…

granger — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 04:07:28 +0000

I am doing a project in my musical ethnography course that looks towards the human event of hearing in hopes of uncovering some insights into the trace of a phenomenological interface with unmediated sound. By taking various instances of aurality and combining them into a single signifying matrix I hope to render some sort of artifact that can provide a mimetic conceptualization of unmediated sound; it’s paradoxical, but it’s fun. Friday morning Chris Tabron and I went out to do some field recordings. Here are some photos from then.

Performative of what though?

granger — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 04:28:20 +0000

I continue to work on/develop/think about body theories. School has been a bit slow the last week or two. My musical ethnography class hit a bit of a lull as our equpiment order has been sitting in limbo, and my Affect Terror Biopolitics class has been difficult for me to navigate. I feel like the discussion in class often focuses solely on the shortcomings of the texts that we read, and that conversation rarely revolves around points of dispersion, or integration. I don’t know why this is such a difficult thing for me to get over because I seem to spend so much time lately talking shit about my peers, but nonetheless I don’t think too fondly of my own digressions either.

It’s starting to get cold here in New York. For the first time in eight years I haven’t been sleeping well–it’s strange. I rarely sleep through the night, and if I do I don’t wake up feeling rested.

I took some splendid field recordings at the Southside Seaport last Friday night with Chris Tabron. We wound up with some great sounds. Of specific fascination to me were recordings of a footbridge (about forty feet in length) going from a dock to a boat. The bridge had wheels at its dockside base, and beneath the wheels was a large metal plate. As the boat shifted in the port’s water the footbridge moved back and forth slightly on the metal plate producing a massive squeaking sound; unique. I also got some great sounds by placing stereo contact mics on one of the steel support beams for the FDR overpass.

I met with Richard Shcechner today to talk about my bodily theories and he brought up some interesting points about genetics that I hadn’t thought of. I also met with Jason Stanyek today in order to discuss some concerns about my project for musical ethnography. I had originally planned to do an audio documentray on skateboarding, but scrapped that idea when I hurt my foot. My new project involves field recordings from all over New York edited together in a way that attempts a mimetic performance of New York’s unmediated sonic body. This project mimics my Body project as it is predicated on the notion that the individuated body exists only in its occupation of multiple parts of a larger whole. Individuated aurality takes place as individuated bodies accumulate a method for navigating collective aurality by focusing on certain sounds, frequencies, rhythms, et cetera, and then codifying these facets into a map that is continually transposed onto the immediate aural geography. My concern was that the project may not be focused enough and I may wind up with nothing but a mess on my hands. Jason suggested that instead of simply going out and recording, that I speak to some people about their notion of sonic New York, record the conversations, record their versions of sonic New York, and then edit the whole thing together. Such amazing advice. The dilemma of my aesthetic process is that in order to conceptualize a methodology I identify and occupy the polar opposite of anything that can be empathized with. In most cases my efforts work, but in this case the human identity provides a crucial aspect in the produciton of aurality, and thus must be integrated rather than expelled. Jason’s response was enlightening because he saw my concerns when I couldn’t.

I got a new job at Arium tea lounge. The job is great. I love being around tea, and people drinking tea.

Remember me?

granger — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 02:44:17 +0000

Time is not even a recognizable process as I seem to acquired such a multitude of tasks that they exceed the perceivable engagements of my socio-somatic existence; somewhere amidst the activities that engulf me my life transpires. Within the bedlem I seem to have effectively lost track of most of the known methods for orienting myself in quotidian affairs so that I feel a bit unstable. It’s somewhat comical because that was my ultimate intention in coming to graduate school, to put myself into a situation that would challenge me thoroughly while simultaneously removing the majority of places,persons, and practices that constitute my safety net; mission accomplished. I am not stable amidst this restructuring, but I seem to be sufficiently oriented, so I can’t be far from stability.
Now, I have not–for some time–thought of myself as religious until recent weeks. In my studies I have had my apathy confronted repeatedly, and I have had to truly consider where it comes from and why it exists. I have arrived at the conclusion–not one that I crafted–that religion is any device that allows a human being to disengage the chaos of the conemplation of unresolvable existential crises in life. I am a religious person. My religion is not so much a thing with a name as a plasticine method informed by what can easily be refered to as taoism. I am not a taoist, and I am not apathetic, it just sems that way. I willingly accept–and in ways craft–my inability to assume an overt agenda, or the disposition that I should be the supreme governonr of my body and its engaged systems. Thus, in my current academic setting I am finding my ‘religion’ pitted against a system that posits its rupture so I must either re-constitute my religion or re-form it. While my initial response is a sliver of panic the ultimate outcome of this challenge is that I have reached a point wherein the methods that I use to interact with Earth life are insufficient, which is necessairly the predicate of change, specifically change that reveals a vaster finitude. The thing about tstructures is that they only exists for as long as we remain within the realm that constitutes the structure, thereby any measure of ‘growth’ necessarily calls for deconstrution/reification in order for the structure to continue in its applicability. Alas, while I piddle about this life-matirx migraine that I have created I am engaged in the very thing I need most. Perhaps my smile is in my navigation.

Soon…

granger — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 18:32:24 +0000

On October 15th a show of my drawings will start at Ai Ai Gasa in Brooklyn. I will have more info soon.

On October 19th I will be perfroming the second half of Years Later Starfish Meeting Room: How to Meet One’s Self. in Brooklyn at The Event Center.

And on and on…

granger — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 17:24:04 +0000

My contributions to this blog have been less than regular of late.

I recently moved into a studio apartment hwere I live by myself; the kitchen is clean, and so is the bathroom. they will stay this way.

My last performance as interesting to say the least. I have discussed it with a few people of late so I think I have an adequate perspective on it.
This was the performance:I had a sneaker. Inside of the sneaker was an ipod shuffle that was playing my latest composition, Not my Brilliance., and a stereo contact mic. The ipod was connected to a set of headphones, and the mics went to a PA. I had a small sign that gave the title of the performance and asked audience member to use the headphones. I was drawing on the sneakers. Most people did not realize that I was performing, many people performed while I performed, and music was played through the PA while I performed. While all of this was difficult for the normatized conception of artist/performer that resides somewhere within me, it was at the same time quite enjoyable. My performances have gradually transformed from a situation where I present a supposedly captive audience with an emobdied artifact/ideology, to situations where I am making equal demands on both myseld and the audience to access the performance. By access I mean that the performances I have created of late do not neccesarily contain any agency tha allows them to becomes spectacle, or even rise to the din of their setting; I have essentially located myself/myperformance within a quiet ontology. The performance becomes challenging for me because I ahve to deal with the fact that no one realizes that it’s going on, and people are even sitting on/standing on portions of it.
Today I spoke with Nelson Hallonquist about this notion of a quiet ontology and he pointed out one common aspect of performance that has always disturbed me: the congratulatory audience. As Mr. hallonquist so deftly pointed out, a quiet ontology provides agency against congratulatory practices, which is a relief, and in some sense a goal.
I will be performing the second half of this work next month, however this time–after Shimpei Takeda–I will add a live feed of the illustration to a big-screen television. I am not entirely sure how this will affect the perceptibility of my performance, but I look forward to it.

Selling beer is a job that I have.

Holler at your boy.

Performance on Thursday night:

granger — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 04:07:56 +0000

What you will read below–after this paragraph–is the logistical
information for a
performance that I will be taking part in Thursday night. I will be
performing a new work titled, (I don’t know how to set italics in
gmail) Years Later Starfish Meeting Room: How to Meet One’s Self. This
is what my performance will be: a singular solo that is simultaneously
private and public. I will provide my latest composition–(the italics
issue again) Not My Brilliance–for individuted private listening, and
I will present a pre-parametered improvisation for an audience of
unregulated proportions. The interface of the two performances will
provide a visual event. There are three other performers presenting on
the same night. I hope to see you there.

thur september 28, 2006
8 – 11pm

free drinks from the FREE BAR
free shopping at the FREE BOUTIQUE

The Event Center
257 Nostrand at Lafayette

G train to Bedford/Nostrand
Nostrand/Lafayette exit

these people:
Felicia Ballos
Biba Bell
Laurie Berg and Amanda Stevenson
Jonah Boaker
Megan Byrne
Errin Delperdang
eagleager
Nancy Garcia
Chase Granoff
David Hurwith
koosil-ja
Isabel Lewis
Melanie Maar
Hedia Maron
Zachary Moldof
Rebecca for Serrell
Larissa Velez
Treva Wurmfield
and some others……..

the second set will be comprised of the representatives of the above people.

admission: contribution to the FREE BOUTIQUE/FREE BAR
such as: dvds, trophies, paintings, books, clothes, lipstick,
absinthe, water, soda pop, wine, whiskey

Art that sacrifices the artist’s life:

granger — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 05:14:00 +0000

I would just like to point out that Ray Johnson’s suicide was performance art.