Question: "How does the sentence “The medium is the message” by Marshall McLuhan applies to your practice? Comment on this quote in the context of your own work and in regards to this transcontinental collaboration, etc."
Jamilah:
There's immediacy in film and video. We watch content and it registers in our mind as some kind of organized structure. We may not be able to interpret it one way or another but the image is received.
I'm interested in disfluency. When things don't quite add up. It really starts with language and my problem with it. It’s more that we’re conditioned by language and shifting from the common cultural mode of communicating is difficult since most of us have been brought up in a society that favors the external language mode instead of self-contained interior being with your sensations.
In Butoh you are just going deeper. It’s anarchy. You’re just letting things go through you. Most dance and theater is almost always on a word like level. I’m going to become anger—now express it. In Butoh you have the ability to become something without acting it but embodying it in someway.
In general, most people are compelled to find meaning in things classified as performance or art. Our bodies are complex entities and for some reason we neglect our senses. “What does it mean?” I’ve heard in the background from viewers of dance performances, art exhibitions, etc. Spending time watching documentation of performances by the Butoh troupe, Sankai Juku, I realize it defies description—verbal language. As I watch the dancers shift in to and out of and through space, it’s as if my brain is just operating in the mode of image thought and sensory thought, not language thought at all. Zen masters often say that you can’t talk about certain experiences, it’s not ineffable its just too intimate, internal to be restated in anyway.
In regards to transcontinental collaboration--creating true affective experiences can be achieved if that's the goal of the collaborators.
Cornelius:
The medium has a big influence on the message which is transported but the medium needs a message to become important. In our case with transcontinental communication a perfect connection is important. Therefore we need great sound quality but also the quality of video is very important to avoid misunderstandings.
Question: "American sound artist Bill Fontana made several pieces in which he transfers sound from one location to another. How does this locational switch change our understanding of a the space(s) in question? What new aspects of a sonic environment might emerge? What happens to our perception of a location once it is stripped from its original sounds and these are replaced by sounds from another location?"
Jamilah:
It makes me think that space is embodied. To hear a sound that doesn't seem to fit the location would trigger memory--the process of remembering a familiar sound, seeing an image of that sound. It may turn into an affective memory if we give it time. We trace the sound to a place from our past and perhaps relive that memory or experience the moment a little bit deeper. The sonic environment can truly become something new.
Cornelius:
It is possible to give a space a different meaning. Normally sound is always linked to an image in a way that makes sense or seems to be logic. What you see is what you hear. It gets interesting if this relation stops. In our example (exchanging sounds from recorded places in Weimar and San Diego): For people who don't know either region, the transformed video could make sense. The difference has to be immense to start thinking, or you would have to know the regions and its sounds you are seeing. The switch of sounds can sharpen our awareness of listening.
Question: "How does an instrument through which sound is transmitted shape our expectation and the perception of it (loudspeaker, telephone, alarm-clock), in other words, what if the expectation is not met, what impact can this have on our perception?"
Jamilah:
The moment becomes uncanny.
Cornelius:
If the Sound from a device does not meet the listeners expectation, he first will be distracted. Then he will pay more attention to the content because he has to start thinking about what he is listening.