Defence
The seed of an idea that started this piece was Stuart James' sound installation at Spectrum Project Space's “The Car's That Ate Perth”. The idea of a sonically separate world-within-a-world interested me and I decided to work with that concept instead of my original plan to create an audio-visual work which used a lot of subliminal messages.
The idea that occurred to me was hearing the guitar inside its case. I like the idea of this separate sound-world, hearing a place we usually don't get to experience. In itself experiencing that is valuable. The fact that for myself and plenty of people around me at WAAPA these little sound-worlds are all around us all the time makes it more relevant. I feel that this piece reveals a microcosmic unfamiliarity within something familiar to the point of mundanity.
The idea of mundanity is another one that appeals to me. Being raised as a totally middle-class white male in a first-world country, I've become very aware of a tendency to romanticise perfectly ordinary things happening all the time in my life. I feel that my fascination with mundanity stems from a self-reflexive rejection of this romanticism. In works of music and art which contrast the humble and the dramatic, I find myself enjoying humility more often. So I didn't want this piece to be bombastic or totally removed from the everyday experience of the common human. Hence, the work utilises a cheap guitar, cheap guitar case and cheap practice amp, suspended by some rope and metal I found lying around (thanks to Skot McDonald).
Another notable feature of the invisible world inside the case that I added myself is the nails and sandpaper I put in, inspired by iron maiden torture devices. I also . This is where the piece begins to take on a darker tone. In a way the piece is about the sacred nature of a hiding place,the problems with shutting yourself off and the sense of curiosity and entitlement people get when they get a glimpse inside. This latter aspect is mainly inspired by the rising trend of Australian self-entitlement, but also by Tom Waits' “What's He Building In There”.
The guitar encloses itself in a case designed to keep it safe. But from the outset what keeps it safe is already full of peril. This is manifested in the sound aspect of the installation. The amp is set to a regular guitar tone and the volume is left at a level where it is just feeding back. So the default sound that this “protected” guitar makes is the monotonal wail of guitar feedback. I like that there is a human element to the sound. It is a despairing wail by default and an out of tune grunt when the interactive element of the work comes into play.
This element is now explained in pencil markings on the head of the case: 'WACK ME'. The misspelling here was actually a genuine typo, but I decided to keep it. It gives the air that the guitar's enclosure is knowingly self-destructive. The misspelling is curious: is it a goofy play on words, the “wack” referring to the act of hitting the guitar? Or is it genuine misspelling, revealing the act of trying to damage the guitar through its case as “wack”? I want to incite curiosity as to the character of the guitar inside the case.
As the installation started I found that a narrative emerged. The audience and the guitar itself were the characters. The sound of feedback by itself is uninteresting so I encouraged people to come by and kick, hit, scrape and generally thrash the guitar case. Some viewed this more as an opportunity to see what sounds they could create, while others viewed it more as a fun outlet to get frustration or energy out of their system. At any rate, these audience perspectives create a frightening metaphor. The need to violently lash out at this guitar which is trying to protect itself and remain invisible is fuelled by the curiosity to see what painful effects can be made on the sound or by the violent tendencies that some people apparently have all the time. It was actually quite interesting seeing which of the people I knew took the most delight in trying to damage guitar. The looks of glee on their faces became quite unsettling after a while.
In the end though, it was me perpetuating the violence. As the night went on the violence took its toll on the sound of the installation. The guitar went massively out of tune throughout the night, the monotonous open strings (tuned to standard initially to keep it within the realm of mundanity and familiarity) resonating every time the case was struck got lower and lower throughout the night, creating some interesting beating of pitches and richly dissonant chords.
My practice amp has a tendency to cut out abruptly when the volume changes and this happened increasingly as the installation reached its end. As soon as it happened I thought of William Basinski's “The Disintegration Loops”. There's something heartbreaking about this interruption of sustained sound. When even the passive buzzing and noise of the amp cuts out it's like losing a quality of the sound that you never tried hard enough to appreciate.
Eventually the guitar frame got tipped over and the case got curb-stomped and damaged. I felt that this was a good time to declare the work 'over'. I turned off the amp and the dead guitar, still in its case, lay upon the ground, its defence broken and its spirit crushed.
The idea that occurred to me was hearing the guitar inside its case. I like the idea of this separate sound-world, hearing a place we usually don't get to experience. In itself experiencing that is valuable. The fact that for myself and plenty of people around me at WAAPA these little sound-worlds are all around us all the time makes it more relevant. I feel that this piece reveals a microcosmic unfamiliarity within something familiar to the point of mundanity.
The idea of mundanity is another one that appeals to me. Being raised as a totally middle-class white male in a first-world country, I've become very aware of a tendency to romanticise perfectly ordinary things happening all the time in my life. I feel that my fascination with mundanity stems from a self-reflexive rejection of this romanticism. In works of music and art which contrast the humble and the dramatic, I find myself enjoying humility more often. So I didn't want this piece to be bombastic or totally removed from the everyday experience of the common human. Hence, the work utilises a cheap guitar, cheap guitar case and cheap practice amp, suspended by some rope and metal I found lying around (thanks to Skot McDonald).
Another notable feature of the invisible world inside the case that I added myself is the nails and sandpaper I put in, inspired by iron maiden torture devices. I also . This is where the piece begins to take on a darker tone. In a way the piece is about the sacred nature of a hiding place,the problems with shutting yourself off and the sense of curiosity and entitlement people get when they get a glimpse inside. This latter aspect is mainly inspired by the rising trend of Australian self-entitlement, but also by Tom Waits' “What's He Building In There”.
The guitar encloses itself in a case designed to keep it safe. But from the outset what keeps it safe is already full of peril. This is manifested in the sound aspect of the installation. The amp is set to a regular guitar tone and the volume is left at a level where it is just feeding back. So the default sound that this “protected” guitar makes is the monotonal wail of guitar feedback. I like that there is a human element to the sound. It is a despairing wail by default and an out of tune grunt when the interactive element of the work comes into play.
This element is now explained in pencil markings on the head of the case: 'WACK ME'. The misspelling here was actually a genuine typo, but I decided to keep it. It gives the air that the guitar's enclosure is knowingly self-destructive. The misspelling is curious: is it a goofy play on words, the “wack” referring to the act of hitting the guitar? Or is it genuine misspelling, revealing the act of trying to damage the guitar through its case as “wack”? I want to incite curiosity as to the character of the guitar inside the case.
As the installation started I found that a narrative emerged. The audience and the guitar itself were the characters. The sound of feedback by itself is uninteresting so I encouraged people to come by and kick, hit, scrape and generally thrash the guitar case. Some viewed this more as an opportunity to see what sounds they could create, while others viewed it more as a fun outlet to get frustration or energy out of their system. At any rate, these audience perspectives create a frightening metaphor. The need to violently lash out at this guitar which is trying to protect itself and remain invisible is fuelled by the curiosity to see what painful effects can be made on the sound or by the violent tendencies that some people apparently have all the time. It was actually quite interesting seeing which of the people I knew took the most delight in trying to damage guitar. The looks of glee on their faces became quite unsettling after a while.
In the end though, it was me perpetuating the violence. As the night went on the violence took its toll on the sound of the installation. The guitar went massively out of tune throughout the night, the monotonous open strings (tuned to standard initially to keep it within the realm of mundanity and familiarity) resonating every time the case was struck got lower and lower throughout the night, creating some interesting beating of pitches and richly dissonant chords.
My practice amp has a tendency to cut out abruptly when the volume changes and this happened increasingly as the installation reached its end. As soon as it happened I thought of William Basinski's “The Disintegration Loops”. There's something heartbreaking about this interruption of sustained sound. When even the passive buzzing and noise of the amp cuts out it's like losing a quality of the sound that you never tried hard enough to appreciate.
Eventually the guitar frame got tipped over and the case got curb-stomped and damaged. I felt that this was a good time to declare the work 'over'. I turned off the amp and the dead guitar, still in its case, lay upon the ground, its defence broken and its spirit crushed.