[Abstract for a paper, by Thomas Knox Arnold]
Discussing a selection of musicians and sound artists that produce music or sound art that is disturbing, often both disturbing to the listener and disturbing in various other ways.
Arguing an aesthetic, cultural, social and critical position from which to assert the importance of disturbance in music, sound art and art more broadly.
To illustrate multifaceted examples of disturbing music and art, I will discuss the context and practice of artists such as Francisco Lopez, Portal, Zweizz, Merzbow and Dave Phillips. Each of these artists not only have different practice and work, but they also position their work in, at times, radically different ways.
The works will be discussed by drawing on the writing of Theodor Adorno, Jacques Attali, David Hume, Wayne C. Booth, Roland Barthes, Guy Debord, Jacques Derrida, Michael Foucault and a selection of interviews with and papers by or about the artists I am discussing.
What reasons are there to make disturbing music or sound art? Do the artists believe there are specific functions for the work or do they see it as a cathartic process? What can be expected of the listeners? Can disturbing music or sound art affect change?
This paper seeks to define the ways in which disturbing music and sound art are a relevant and functional form of activism, which is only potentially hindered by its ability to limit itself to a small audience. This limitation is itself a factor of the function of disturbing music and sound art.
There is a long history of subversive and hidden activism and challenges to establishment. The art discussed is a current example of such practice.
Lopez sees his work as being different to most music, not just in how he makes his music and how it sounds, but also because of his expectations of the listeners. His focus is on “dedicated profound listening experience”. He also specifies that he works “with sound matter” as opposed to instruments, which he equates to a phenomenological/ontological, as opposed to epistemological, practice. He points out that this is different to most music, and even different to much experimental music.
Lopez does not regard his practice or music as activism in the usual sense it is regarded, as he is not making any kind of direct or political statement through his music. However, he concedes that there could be “an implicit, but very relevant form of activism” found in his performances and the way he controls his audience (via the use of blindfolds and the positioning of the listeners in relation to himself and the loud speakers). He sees this as an activism against the standard presentation of music, and the standard ways of listening to music.
Lopez specifies his lack of interest in communicating anything with his work. He does try to encourage listeners to construct their own experience when engaged with his music. He states that the focus of his work is the “incompletedness” of the creative process without, in his case, the listening experience. Lopez is shifting the construction of meaning directly to the audience. In this sense it is not that he communicates nothing, but that he has no wish to dictate his view to anyone, and allows each listener to experience and decode the music however they do.
Lopez believes that it is crucial to have both contrast and balance in his work, and it is in this context that he sees the need to include portions in his work that does not necessarily makes his listeners comfortable. He wishes to encourage a wide range of experiences for each listener with his work, and does not believe that music should be only pleasing, entertaining or soothing.
Lopez works “with the deep belief” that his practice can be accessed by anyone, and that it is not the sounds themselves that cause any accessibility problems, but what he terms the “engineering”, or compositional perspective of the artist. He constructs his work carefully, focusing on pace and the sonic materials he chooses. He does not believe that a loud blast from beginning to end would facilitate engagement with an audience or listener.
Lopez has high expectations of his listeners. He expects them to focus on the sound he is creating/engineering for them, and then inturn, through the sound, to focus on themselves. He expects people to listen “with profound dedication”, which is how he listens to the music he admires. Lopez does, or has adjusted his practice based on feedback from listeners so as to refine his construction of an immersive sonic experience for them.
For Lopez, the audience is as important as he is in the creation of his work. He focuses the listener’s attention onto the sounds he performs, and also hopes to focus them into themselves, via the use of blindfolds. He also removes himself from the performance by positioning himself in the midst of the listeners, with all the listeners facing away from him. He views the visual presence of a performer as a distraction and destructive to the “sonic experience”, and the experience he wishes to create.
Lopez believes that his practice is successful and that he is successfully able to not communicate any specific ideas or meaning, and in turn, cause his listeners to tap into themselves.
Dave Phillips does not regard his work as being radically different from that produced by other like artists, but does consider that there is a lot of art and music to which his sound and practice is very different. He considers his work and practice to be activism on a number of levels. For him, creating is a form of protest, of voicing opinions, a form of personal therapy, and a way of educating. He goes as far as to say that his work and practice is activism “that naturally carries with it some form of statement, standpoint [and] criticism” beyond his track titles.
Phillips can’t imagine the kind of work he creates and performs without an activist or political aspect or context. He feels that as an artist it is his responsibility to ask questions, with the goal of bringing improvements or change, to create awareness.
For Phillips, sound is a more profound form of communication than spoken or written language allows. He chooses to address with his work things that he questions, that confuse, sadden or upset him. These are not happy subjects and his work reflects his emotional response to the subjects he addresses. His physical performance is an important part when he does employ physical practice in a performance.
Phillips is comfortable with the idea that his work can be “challenging” and “disturbing”, and chooses to view these ideas as positive attributes that “can be channelled into some constructive pondering of the recipient”. This is, in fact, the aim of his work. He sees disturbance as “necessary to instigate something positive or constructive”. This said, it is not his intention to make people feel uncomfortable, even though he recognises that the subjects he addresses are ones that can have that affect. He hopes and trusts that people can perceive and consider the ideas beyond what makes them uncomfortable.
For Phillips, the accessibility of his work is totally bound by the subjectivity of each member of his audience. He expects each member of an audience to be engaging with what they perceive acoustically and visually, all from their own context, and anything that opens up for them during a performance. He wishes for audiences to engage with his work with the “fullest attention”, without any distractions, at high volume and with low or no light (other than that generated by his performance).
Phillips says he creates/communicates regardless of an audience, but feels that his particular creations/communications would be useless without an audience, and he would probably “have sought out other channels”. However, he explains that his work is personal and intimate, and function without an audience. He considers himself “fortunate to have people listening/paying attention”.
In live performances, Phillips is much more likely to consider his audience. Works he creates at home can be quite different. The driving force could then be aimed at a specific audience, or even for one person. Live, he considers his work to be “more crude and direct”, whilst his home recordings “tend to be much more subtle, varied [and] elaborate”, and as such, broader in the ways they can be interpreted. He is interested to know of reactions to his work and considers things he learns in his creative process.
He considers his works and practice to be successful, based on audience feedback he receives.
Grist does not see his music as being specifically different as it draws from a broad range of styles of music and from sounds that can often be recognised by listeners. He recognises that it is different in the sense that combines a lot of genres of music and is, as a result, “not really any of them”.
Grist does not regard his work as activism in a traditional sense, but concedes that he makes “the antithesis of bite-sized pop musick [sic]”. He says he deliberately makes music “that goes against the grain of popularity”. He sees his work and practice as “challenging the notions of ‘artist’ and ‘art’, of ‘creator’ and ‘created’, and of ownership”. He also hopes that his work may inspire others to do something similar for themselves. He states that anyone with the gear or hardware that he has can do what he is doing.
Grist does not view his work as at all challenging, confronting or disturbing. He equates his work as being more “like watching a sunset or the tides coming in”. Any aspects of his work that could be perceived as disturbing he views as being “in the context of a dream, or a movie, or some sort of environment”. He doesn’t intend such content to shock, scare or confront, but instead uses such sounds to attempt to engage with a listener.
Grist is interested in engaging with listeners with “transportation, immersement, hypnosis, a sense of ritual, otherness”. He does try to push things, and feels that his performances need to be loud enough to “feel”, better than it can be heard, or quiet enough that you can hear the audience breathing, listening. He is of the impression that the kinds of people that may actually be “disturbed” by his music would not actually be there to hear it, or would noy stay around and engage with it.
For Grist, during a performance his audience is ideally focused on the sound and that they are subjectively exploring it within themselves, or “in the subjective realms of their own consciousness conjured up by the visually-empty soundscapes around them”. He goes on to explain that he sees much popular music as something that distracts people and engages them in a flippant superficial way, and that he chooses to make work through which listeners “can explore their own abysses”.
Grist has little interest in his audience, although he expresses that he can be touched and inspired when he feels that someone else is “getting it”. In cases where he feels that people are ambivalent or dislike what he is doing, he does not care and is unaffected.
Grist doesn’t necessarily feel that his practice is especially successful. He thinks that he probably does affect an audience in the ways he intends, but that this isn’t much of an achievement as he feels that they are already open to such experience. He doesn’t believe that his work is capable of reaching people for whom his form of affect would be a new experience.
In the sense that Grist hopes to inspire others to experiment and invent their own form of practice, he likes to think that he might inspire some, but he has no evidence to support this.
Grist does concede that perhaps he is misjudging some peoples ability to engage with his work, and feels that perhaps the music he creates is enough like the sound from a horror film (or some other similar accessible art form) that a broader audience could “get” what he is doing. He feels that where a performance or work “fails”, that it is perhaps not him that has failed as an artist, but the audience that has failed as listeners.
Grist says that his intentions are best carried by the “length, breadth and volume” of his work. He says that his work wouldn’t have the same effect if it is too quiet or loud, to predictable or to much like something a listener has heard before, in fact, he goes as far as to say that such attributes would constitute a failure.
Botborg only really exists in its performance; it is a live, improvised and real-time creation. Captured in any way, it becomes other than its actual context. This is similar to the practice of some other artists. Despite the specific aesthetic content of Botborg, Musgrove does not consider that the work is “particularly radical”.
Musgrove sees no explicit activism in the work of Botborg. Despite there being no explicit ideas being communicated by Botborg, it does seek to trigger “sensory overload and ecstasy”, “construction of new pathways… new modes of experience”. Botborg exists for “the pure joy of simply being alive”.
Musgrove makes no deliberate attempt to communicate via Botborg. He is interested in creating “experience”. He makes Botborg work “because it amuses him to do so” and because he likes and enjoys the work. It is somewhat cathartic for him. He does hope his work can “take people outside their comfort zone”, presenting them with something new and enriching which they can engage with outside their existing set of tastes.
Musgrove thinks that an audience, due to the perceived link between the audio and video, can more easily receive Botborg’s work. Sonically, Musgrove describes Botborg’s output as “screaming electronic chaos”, and yet the fact that Botborg’s practice makes the signal of their noise music visually obvious provides something an audience can feel as if they are comprehending.
Musgrove states that he will never perform in front of the screen or screens onto which Botborg projects the visual representation of their performance. The audiences attention, in Musgrove’s mind, should be focused visually onto the screen, and they should be listening to the sound (in fact, it should be loud enough that they can not avoid the sound). Whilst Musgrove understands that some people may be interested in what is going on and wish to try to watch him perform, he feels that this is perhaps a sign that the performance is not engulfing enough. As the audio and video produced by Botborg “is of singular importance” to Musgrove, this is understandable.
For Musgrove, the audience has very little effect on the work of Botborg. He tries to produce work that he likes, and in the context of Botborg, the audience has its eyes and ears assaulted with the output, with the intention that it is all too much to take in. He appreciates constructive criticism, although he doesn’t place much importance on it in respect to the work. He gives the example of feedback from an audience member who had hated the performance and had explained in detail why. The members of Botborg felt that their performance had been completely successful based on this feedback.
Musgrove states that he does not “like to play shit in public”, and has had times where he’s played what he felt was superbly to complete indifference, and had “total shit” met rapturously. As a result, he is “pretty suspect of ‘audiences’”.
Musgrove feels that the practice and work of Botborg is very successful. He feels that Botborg’s performances do engulf the audience, does trigger “sensory overload and ecstasy”, and that their intents gets across to the audience. He sees Botborg as employing “some of the most basic tools of ritual”, namely, volume, flashing lights and duration. He feels that Botborg taps into “something very primal” and he’s not sure that people are aware of this on a conscious level during a performance.
Musgrove says that Botborg should be as loud as possible, and should be as immersive as possible, stating that IMAX cinemas would be an ideal performance site, if they had 3 times the PA they have now. Botborg’s performances need to be “as totally consuming as possible”, and should be only lit by the video projection that Botborg produces.
Lucas Darklord does not consider his work and practice as being radically different from other forms of art or music. He draws all his work from existing media or existing ideas. Although, he concedes that he does “strive to feature aspects that aren’t so common in music”.
Darklord considers that both his work and practice are a form of activism, although he adds that it is not his “intent to be an activist”. He considers that any work produced that the artist recognises as being difficult for a listener to engage with is a form of activism, and that this applies regardless of the actual intent of the artist. He clarifies that he does intend “some activism or social/political comment” with his work, but that he does not expect any such embedded messages or content to easily reach the audience.
Darklord produces the work he does because he “likes it”, and states that his “practice is mainly cathartic”. He has no concern for what people make of his work, but they they make or think something is of importance. He states that “of course we are communicating something”, but that he has absolutely no expectation of what any listener would receive.
Darklord believes that the disturbing aspects of his work can force a listener “into a more active state”. Even if the action they take is to disengage or stop listening. He believes that any disturbance or discomfort created by his music is temporary and “completely unreal”. He concedes that it could be possible to permanently disturb someone via his music or sound, but thinks that unlikely and specifies that this is not his intent. His “intent is to provoke and stimulate thought via disturbance and discomfort.” He also adds that the disturbance and discomfort is completely subjective, and that for him it is broadly “beautiful and stimulating”.
Darklord is unsure of what aspects of his practice would make his work more or less accessible. He considers that his prolific production of works, and that almost all of his works are freely downloadable perhaps makes it physically more accessible, but remains dubious about the accessibility of his “sounds’. He states that one of his most downloaded works appears to be downloaded because of its title, and the works that he considers most would regard as nicer or more listenable remain with far lower download numbers. Darklord specifies that he does not produce work with accessibility in mind and is not “interested in what makes us more or less accessible”.
During a performance, Darklord would like the audience to focus solely on the sound being produced, but he does choose to present a visual distraction to the audience, namely, he dresses up in costume and often paints his face. He explains that this is specifically a distraction intended to divert the attention of some listeners from what he actually hopes they would focus on. Simply, Darklord is not interested in forcing any specific engagement with his work and hopes that listeners will make what they will of it. He prefers to perform in low or no light.
Darklord does not consider that his physical performance is of importance; although he has little interest in preventing those that just wish to watch. In fact, an important part of his practice is to distract some from his sound and music with his physical appearance. He intends this as a social comment on peoples reliance on some senses other than listening, and he also considers his physical appearance to be “a physical or visual representation of” his work.
Darklord does not believe that the audience has an affect on his creative process or performance. He states that he takes negative feedback as a compliment, and he considers himself a far better judge of his success or otherwise in a performance or work. He regards an audience as “a potentially unavoidable aspect of releasing” or performing works.
Darklord says that his main goal is to make listeners think, anything; and that as such, his works are broadly successful. If a work or performance failed to produce any thought at all, that would be a success in its self, even though such affect is not his intent.
* All the artists are expecting listeners to be affected by some kind of internal processing as a result of engaging with the artists work. The artists all articulate this in different ways, but it appears that there is expected to be some form of non-cochlear processing, that is hearing and thinking beyond the sound – a conceptual affect beyond the apparent sound or music, in the listeners as a result of the artists intent or expectation.
Lopez and Grist want listeners to explore themselves through the sound, Phillips wants listeners to think about specific issues, and Botborg and Darklord (to some degree) want to engulf and overwhelm listeners and trigger new experience or thought.
* All are expecting something to be communicated to their listeners, even if they are not interested in communicating anything specific, and even if reading or constructing meaning in the communication is wholly on the listeners side.
* Of the artists interviewed to date, all of them except for Dave Phillips don’t wish for audiences to focus upon their physical performance (although Darklord does expect some to do so), instead preferring or intending that the focus should be on the sound or music (and video in the case of Botborg) that they produce. For Phillips all of his performance can be equally important.
I believe that three of the five artists that I am still hoping/expecting to receive interviews from have physical performance aspects that they would consider to be of importance.
* All the artists hope to provoke or cause some kind of change or reflection in their listeners.
* All hopes or expect that those listening are doing so with a high degree of focus and attention.
The artists that I am focusing on for my research all make sound art, noise music, experimental music or whatever you or they want to call it. They have broadly been selected due to their performance practice, that the sound they make is at time disturbing, and that they perform and present their work in different ways.
On top of the main set of artists that I have interviewed and am writing about, I will be giving examples of other artists that also, usually in a non-musical fashion, fit the bill.
At this time I am giving examples of authors (Mark Leyner – specifically Et Tu, Babe; and Harmony Korine – A Crackup At The Race Riots), television (South Park, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and Jam), radio (Stalking The Nightmare), music (Gorgoroth, Buttress O’Kneel) and some artists that don’t usually work with sound (Gregor Schneider, Jimmy Durham and Bill Henson), each of whom produce or present work in some fashion that either disturbs conventions attached to the media they work with, or disturb those that encounter of engage with the work.
And remember, by disturbance, I am not referring to a wholly negative affect. I am working of a definition of disturbance as, “interference with the continuance of any action or process. Mental discomposure or excitement.”1
That is, disturbance as a catalyst to change, a shift in perspective, in thought, in understanding… whatever.
None of these artists are necessarily particularly original and an innovator, or, actually, I should say that they haven’t been selected as examples of trailblazers or people doing especially radical things. They have been chosen as examples of artists that have played with there medium, or create works that can disturb those that engage with them.
Mark Leyner is an author and has written a number of books that are something like pop culture infused stream of consciousness stuff. His book Et Tu, Babe is written (as much of his work is) as an autobiography of Leyner as the world’s most successful artist, in fact, the world’s most successful, influential and desired artist. Whilst there is a narrative that flows throughout the book, there are numerous tangents and asides. There are dramatic shifts in style and information delivery. Everything and anything is satired. At the time that I first read the book, and even though I had read some books that were similar in some technical sense, I had never read anything like it.
Harmony Korine, probably most well known for the film Gummo, right? But he also wrote a book called A Crackup At The Race Riots. In some sense, the book is similar to Gummo. It is a collection of pieces and ideas, with no running narrative. It contains no content that stretches over a page or two, and features lists, plot outlines, brief scenes, descriptions of locations, letters to and from celebrities, and numerous other things. Not only is much of the content disturbing or bizarre, but the whole package is. It is almost wholly free of direction, other than it is free. It is just all the things Korine wanted to publish in the book.
South Park remains a huge inspiration. It is probably the greatest single producer of disturbance on television. Nothing is sacred, or more sacred than anything else. I suppose the main thing I like is that South Park regularly goes so far, so if a subject in an episode is racism, the content goes so far that many racists would be likely to distance themselves from the apparent opinions presented by however many characters in the episode.
Monty Python I like for its absurdity, and its (often still timely) social criticism. Perhaps South Park and Monty Python are similar in some regards. Especially the Python tradition of ending pieces without a traditional comedy punch line or ending.
Jam, created by comedian Chris Morris, I also like for its absurdity. But also for its presentation, filmed and captured on devices of various quality. And it is the first example of television that I encountered that really plays with all its content. The sound and playback speeds are often manipulated, everything shaped into a disturbing and absurd… jam.
The radio program Stalking The Nightmare has proven to be a huge influence. It is very hard to describe. It is still broadcast really late on alternate Thursday nights (so late it’s actually on Friday) on Sydney radio station, 2MBS. Listen if you can. The program can be comprised of anything or everything, and is all presented by the laconic Terry Brown. For me, Stalking The Nightmare disturbed my view of what radio was, of what radio could be.
In fact, all these artists disturbed my views or ideas of what their various mediums could do.
The Black Metal band Gorgoroth is an interesting example of disturbance. The Black Metal style is, generally, intentionally disturbing, both in sound and presentation. My primary interest is in their presentation. Despite many of their contemporary bands ceasing to wear “corpse paint”, Gorgoroth chose to continue to. They make a big deal of their “satanic” beliefs, even though in closer interviews, they reveal that they do not believe in satan. Their stage show features sheep heads, animal blood, a number of naked crucified people with sacks over their heads. The band seems to go to great lengths to put off a large proportion of their potential audience.
Buttress O’Kneel disturbs via her strong social commentary, and her systematic disregard (not abuse) of copyright. Sample happy, mashup Queen, Buttress has to be one of the most activist artists there is. Her wake is a mass of provocative disturbance. Further, she has further aspects of disturbance present in her
Gregor Schneider’s 2007 work, Bondi Beach, 21 Beach Cells, was a wonderful piece of disturbance on what is probably Australia’s most iconic beach. At the time, refugees attempting to flee wars, conflict and whatnot in their own countries (mainly caused by the war on terror) were being handled by the then Australian government’s “pacific solution”, that is, locking these people up on small pacific islands. Schneider’s response was to erect cages on Bondi Beach, for beach goers to enter. Most of Schneider’s work involves the use or recreation of abandoned domestic spaces, which are often disturbing.
Jimmy Durham’s 2004 Still Life with Stone and Car, exhibited in front of the Sydney Opera House for the Biennale of Sydney with a nice disturbing work. Both out of place in its physical location, and physical existence, and the stone had a nice face, painted on it seemingly as the stone itself had directed. But, Durham had two other works in the Biennale, one that caught you of guard whilst on the stairs in the Museum of Contemporary Art (a large wooden box filled with what appeared to be a large assortment of perhaps used or discarded things), and the other was in the Royal Botanic Gardens. The works in the Royal Botanic Gardens that year were obviously surprising most of the visitors, but Durham’s piece seemed to be especially disturbing to numerous people. A length of red pvc piping that rose or reared up 90 beside a footbridge. The piece had a different name in each of the Biennale’s description of the work, and yet another name on the sign near the work. Perhaps that was an error, but it certainly suited the work.
Bill Henson’s photography is probably powerful and sometimes disturbing enough to warrant mention in it’s own right, but the recent “controversy”2 over his use of young, naked models in some images is far more appropriate to discuss. The disturbance and the ramifications caused by the attack on Henson’s work are very interesting. Things have changed, and not for the best in my view.
And finally, I almost forgot, the artist Guillermo “Habacuc” Vargas, also known as “the dog-starving artist” and similar such names. It is claimed that in 2007 he took a dog from the streets in Central America, and starved it to death in a gallery as art. Firstly, that claim seems fairly unlikely to me, or is at least a great over simplification of what happened, and offers no context. Secondly, whilst the work seems like a fine example of disturbing art (the work reportedly featured the tied up emaciated street dog with no food or water, the words in Spanish “You Are What You Read” made out of dog biscuits on the wall, an incense burner with pieces of burning crack cocaine and an anthem playing backwards on a record player), the controversy the work caused, even amongst people familiar with contemporary art, was very interesting.
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