Event 5 is being published simultaneously, today January 4 2010, in two media - the magazine Fake Plastic Issue 2 (available from Christopher Scott http://www.csgraphi.com) and here on YouTube.
Below is the full text from my essay in the magazine.
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End Everything.
I was asked to design a book cover by Princeton University Press in the late 90's for "After the End of Art" by Arthur Danto. My suggestion that we emphasize only two words in the title: END and ART was turned down, and the project became a nightmare of compromises from which I was unable to extricate myself. At the time this felt like just another rejection of design as an art form - and the idea that designers can contribute creatively to the quality of a product, rather than merely "interpreting" it according to someone else's definition of what is appropriate.
Of course designers can create anything they choose. And an audience can appreciate this on its own terms - not just for its ability to sell products or ideas though its sheer beauty and usefulness can also do that.
My new work is considered closer to art than design, but what it represents for me is keeping one simple idea alive - design is art.
The concept for my work is that there is new vocabulary at the intersection of improvised sound, text, and image. I have designed an instrument which combines extremely versatile software and one of the fastest laptop computers with several miniature electronic instruments, a speech to text headset, amplification, projection equipment and human creativity and intuition.
"They (my electronic instruments) become my friends. They have personalities, that only I see, because of my use of them. It's an act of discovery. I try to find out what's there and not to make it do what I want but to, you know, release what's there." David Tudors 1989 description of the creative energy he released in electro-acoustic music by letting go, is similar to the concept of Om in Hindu scriptures from the middle of the first millennium. Both of these ideas reflect my practice of welcoming the unknown.
Each time I strike a tone or sound on any of my three instruments, a midi signal from Max/MSP invokes a visual effect on text or video related to the intensity, volume or speed of the tone I am making. I am also using speech to text synthesis with a headset which allows me to improvise all three media - sound, image and text - simultaneously.
I'll be performing this work live in Barcelona on 12 - 13 March 2010 for Index Book. http://www.selectedeurope.com/
Robert Appleton
Credits: Robert Appleton Event 5. Performed and recorded at OCAD Graduate Studio, Toronto, Canada, on December 13 2009. Robert Appleton electronics, Catherine Ishino video.
Spoken text 1 RD Laing "Knots". Spoken texts 2 and 3 Robert Appleton. Video clips from movie trailer / self-portrait.
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