Me and Kate did a keynote yesterday about creative methods - its the fourth talk on methods I've done in 6 weeks. We were talking about our Fishing as Wisdom project, I decided to explain Carlos who is in the image above. His origins lie in my artistic belief that during the 1970's technology, in the modernist sense of progression, was still full of the potential for good. Cine cameras were used to record a baby's first steps or a wedding, the idea of video surveillance was a Science Fiction fan's dream. Carlos and his tripod are from the 1970's; apart from his ears that were purchased from the Scarborough based company Harmony Supplies who sell equipment for Chinese medicine and were the only company I could find who supply a left and a right ear to practice acupuncture on. The head has a tea towel soaked in plaster of Paris inside to try and simulate the density of a human brain/head/mind. The ears have some plastic tube used in home brew connected inside which is sealed at one end and contains a specific amount of air designed to give back pressure similar to a human ear drum. Binaural recording uses the two channels of a stereo sound recorder to capture the sound as close to the point where a human would hear it. When played back through headphones it gives a sense of the space of sound. It is a bit like surround-sound in your head - you can judge space and movement. I used Binaural sound as a homage to one of my favorite artists Janet Cardiff but also because it's a way of recording that pays attention to space.
When fishing I noticed that one ear attunes to the outside, to the noise of the water and nature, and the other attunes to what people are saying or to conversation. The sounds come from different sources; the space is open on one side and intimate on the other. The head bought from Ebay has the name Carlos written on the back; it is his brand name. Carlos was a recording device and he also became the symbol for art in the project. I struggled to explain this in the talk: I intended to show the film with its Binaural sound but the equipment was working on a single channel. The sound cut off due to a technical issue half way through the clip. It didn't seem to matter. Carlos and Binaural sound are probably best left in the margins, they were never meant to take centre ground.
In my RD2 progression meeting we had a long discussion about how to make arts practice and writing work together. I said lots of it is none linguistic but this isn't a good enough answer in the context of a PhD, it doesn't move us forward. My description of Carlos is not like Deleuze talking us through Francis Bacon's painting, it is not on the same plane of immanence. However hard we try it will not fold in. I'm happy with that as I think that failure is something that carries its own momentum. I don't think practice can always align well with words. Words can struggle towards meaning and practice can maintain itself in a place of whimsy on the edge of meaning; they are chalk and cheese or chalky cheese. In a way, Carlos is art like Francis Bacon's paintings are art - Carlos points to more than he is, more than he can ever be; he is art and in a way he is change and movement. Carlos fails in reality as art, as device, as recording machine. He fails to ask the questions that need to be asked, he is a silent witness who does not bear witness as I had intended. It is impossible to articulate what Carlos does, that is why he can still represent art an intentional object with no intention. He lives in a cupboard in my studio - the cupboard is called Mick, it is named after a cupboard in my Grandad's garage which was called Mick - he would name his cupboards to help us find things.
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