thank you, part two

Last week i had a second version of Give Me Something To Listen To and it was pretty special, I can tell you.




I had 19 people come through in a steady stream from 6pm. it was quite exhilerating and, again, i got to hear some amazing music and audio pieces - such a diverse stream. and some fantastic conversations about their significance to people, the relationship they had to their experience and what i heard.

OK Gallery is a great white cube space and I set it up with a supremely minimal setting - white chairs for the audience, stand lighting and two stools for me and my participants.

This performance was such an intense one for me because there are no low moments. All of them contain something amazing, shocking, interesting, emotional and intense. I can see a continuing thread of sensory overload in my work.

Some personal highlights included:
Two love songs - one written by one of the participants for her husband and the other a 'hype' song that got this woman through a couple of really tough break-ups. I was the only other person who had been given those songs (apart from the people in the relationship in question) and both became something other than those intensely meaningful songs in the process. I almost cried in both situations.

Kids! 
First time i have listened with children and it was amazing. Tillie danced like a maniac the whole time and we 'sang' the song together (Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious). She didn't need to 'hear' the song like some of the other adults and was completely at ease with enjoying the song. We danced like nobody's business.

Gaming.
I was given a song that was significant in the Swords and Sworcery game, which was an interesting musical piece, but more triggered more interesting discussion afterwards. I'm only a gamer in my imagination, so the song had little direct significance. But the rise of significant game tracks and what that means for people's perception of public space is an interesting one for me to think about.



Humour.
I heard George Carlin speak about the craft of developing humour, which had a lot of similarities with the craft of developing performances. And I also got to hear an hilarious song by Beck - Satan Gave me a Taco, which had me laughing for almost the whole 4 minutes.

Religion. Sohan gave me a sermon from the Bible! An audio book version, read by a woman in a way that made it sound like a science fiction novel. [insert bible-bashing joke here. ahem]. Given its role in shaping culture and the relationship to listening, it was a surprising, but poignant choice.
I was also given a song that sounded like the muezzin from islamic countries singing the call to prayer - it took me straight back to Dubai and the constant musical underpinning of the day there.

Politics. The night finished off with the song Zimbabwe by Bob Marley and a discussion about politics and freedom in that country - on a day in which social activists were convicted for inciting rebellion against the government by showing videos of the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings. It was an appropriate ending to an intense night.




Interestingly, only one person was disappointed that he had to sit there and wait whilst I got to listen and he had to bide his time. I quite like this controlled denial of sound. And an encouragement for that person to imagine instead.


UPDATE: More images coming soon, and a bit of a video. Some are already on the OK Gallery site.

audience are people too

i've been going to stand-up comedy gigs a bit more lately. mostly because bonnie 'fabulous' davies is really active in the perth stand-up scene and has been generous in inviting me to gigs.

last night i went to chuckles gong comedy, which is quite the hilarious audience-participatory deal. 

the comedy is only as good as its judges and last night i had the fortune of at least seeing the first half with some ruthless judges (i've now made it a mini-mission to be a judge next month, ahem).

anyway, in a post-gig discussion about comedy, i found myself up on my soap box about sexism and misogyny in comedy. i know, how unusual.

this came about, not just because i'm a sweary, ranty feminist. 

some of the jokes last night were appalling. so many men using degrading portrayals women as a vehicle to talk about their dicks! i mean, seriously. there are only so many times i can hear about a dick on stage - not even performance art is that bad. 

classics like:

if women were ruled by their vaginas, they'd be freaked out by children's heads;

ladies, if a guy opens the door, just suck their cock and save time;

when guys get caught checking out chicks.... (serious? never even been done before? wow)

and lots of whinging about being single (no shit, douchey mcdouche)

of course, because the audience was at least half full of blokes (friends with the mostly-male comedians), they get a few laughs. which is why they keep telling the damn things.

although 'know your audience' is excellent counsel for stand-up comedy, going for lowest common denominator is like shooting fish in a barrell. 

heard the one about 'just because you can masturbate on a public bus doesn't mean you should'?

just because you can be a sexist jerk and get some laughs doesn't mean you should. 

to be able to make a room full of people laugh at dick and fart jokes is not actually that hard. 

it takes skill, true wit and real intelligence to be able to hold court and make a stack of people all laugh at what is common humour.

c'mon, just be fucking hilarious.

(and this is where i get sanctimonious.. )

i also don't think a comedian's role is just to get a few giggles and a bit of an ego stroke. 

most comedians are observant, interested in what makes people tick and on some level believe that a humourous way to look at life is an opportunity to sometimes say something serious. 

i think they can raise the standards of what people find humourous (and by definition, then, not funny at all). they can make the kind of difference on an audience's perceptions than art can only dream of. 

i just wish they'd take that role and put it to good use.

and to women going to comedy nights, i reckon we should start heckling a little more. sick of hearing jokes about just sucking a guy's cock when he opens a door for you 'cos that's what he really wants? BORING!! GET OFF!

hey listen. this is important:

According to French historian and sociologist Emmanuel Todd:


“Economic takeoff usually occurs 60-70 years after 50 per cent of the population achieves literacy.

Moreover, the higher the average age of marriage for women, the faster literacy spreads.

The more time a woman has had to live alone and acquire knowledge, the stronger her desire and capacity to pass it on to her children.”

Or, in the words of a female MC: 

"You get richer by teachin' my bitches to read. geddit?"

If giving women an equal chance at education and knowledge isn't incentive enough on its own, maybe could we at least think about this economic incentive for bit? At least until the other reason sinks in?

from this article on the post-colonialism.

kony. rhymes with sony.

i've tried to stay out of it, because i feel like not adding to the debate will better separate me from those in the debate. but today, for some unknown reason, i felt the need to at least mention the kony2012 debàcle (said with the most frenchy accent you can muster).

only a few people know how much of an interest in african politics i have taken over the last five years. but i guess you guys all know too now.

back in 2007, living in a suburb of london that has a high population of the african diaspora, it was pointed out to me that i knew nothing about the rwandan genocide, something that killed almost a million people. that's shocking.

i borrowed a book from a friend and read the first-hand account of a young tutsi woman who hid in a hutu minister's bathroom for seven months as the rest of her countrymen and women were systematically killed and raped by hutus and tutsis alike. it was a fucking mess and it was heart wrenching.

and, as a white girl from the 'burbs of melbourne, it made me realise that i actually know fuck all about fuck all.

so i stepped up my focus on world politics. keeping a particular an eye on africa.


since then,  i have researched the disaster that is the stateless somalian war/famine/war and the ongoing battles of mogadishu and suicide blasts

i continue to read about the the sudanese civil war, south sudan's independence, the ongoing torture and corruption in khartoum and the genocide in darfur.

i'm keeping an eye on the withdrawl of shell from the niger delta, the big payout and watching the incitement of sectarian violence between christians in power and islamist rebels boko haram (let's keep the people occupied while we fleece them of their resources).

i did clicktivate for uganda to reverse its barbaric treatment (ie torture) of gay and lesbian ugandan adults and was fucking relieved that it seemed to have made a difference a couple of years ago (i'm not against the weight of taking action by clicking an email signature).

i'm very proud of senegal's recent committment to democracy. at all costs. their clear message to abdoulaye wade and his wacky dictator-esque consitutional changes have kept them at the forefront of political stability in africa, a continent that is still wrestling with post-colonialism.

i know the extent of AIDS/HIV infection and death rates in southern african (average of 15% adult populations across the region are infected with HIV. 15%!!) and am particularly aware of the difference between the access to treatment here and there.

i have a pretty good sense of african geography (well, i know the difference between countries in east and west, north and south and central and the congo) and i can even name capital cities in a fair few key african states.



i'm not saying all those things to show off, because really, it's not much*. but i really try to understand, i take the time to educate myself. and even then i know that i have no fucking idea what it's like.

which is my point.


unsurprisingly, i don't think i can say this about the stack of peeps sharing the Invisible Children garbage over the last couple of weeks.

i'm not even going to really talk about what's in the video, and the 'issue' behind the 'campaign'**. but i doubt that most people who shared that video have a clear idea how it fits into the context of uganda, african politics, their dictatorships, who the fuck the LRA actually are and where their danger lies (most recently seen in sudan ahead of south sudan's birth as a nation in 2011).

they have no fucking idea.
and even worse, they have no idea that they have no fucking idea.
oh, and the call to arms by a white guy about the dangers of a black guy in a country they'd never sought to enquire about before? i mean, really.




please. look up the word colonialism and then tell me what you really think about joseph kony.


we're all so fucking desperate to be part of something meaningful, without doing anything to actually be part of something meaningful.
how about educating ourselves for a start?

how about taking a little bit of time to cultivate some understanding? how about accepting that perhaps you know nothing about the world and that's as equal a crime as committing children to guns and genocide. ignorance is dangerous.


so you want to make a difference in african children's lives?
find out about them first, for scooby's sake.

a few links
i know that the heady high of participating in viral activism might have left you dregged on the couch. but in case you'd like to actually know and care, here are some of the things i have read.
which not all that much, even:


africa, general: 
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/ ***
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa
http://www.au.int/en/
http://www.africareview.com/


the kony debate: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/spotlight/konydebate/
uganda: http://www.aljazeera.com/category/country/uganda
sudan: http://www.aljazeera.com/category/country/sudan
somalia: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14094503



a few books:
what is the what by valentino achak 'dachi' deng (transliterated by david eggers) - sudanese civil war
left to tell by immaculee ilibagiza - rwandan genocide
the heart of darkness by joseph conrad  - the colonisation of africa in the 19th century


oh, and talk to africans. you know, about what's happening in their home countries. they are actually politically aware and quite like to talk about it.





*although it's pretty good for an australian white girl, so i've been told.
**UPDATE: this is what prosecution for using child soldiers looks like with due process.
*** i know, it's just wikipedia and al jazeera, but that's what i'm trying to highlight. it doesn't take a masters degree to get a bit of a jist of how it all fits together.

Give Me Something To Listen To (OK)

This is a gif of me and Gonzalo rocking out to Punjabi MC feat Jay-Z at the last performance of Give Me Something To Listen To at Kings ARI.

On Wednesday, I'll be doing another iteration of the work in Perth at OK Gallery. If you're west side, you should come on down.

deets
Wednesday 21st March
6pm - 9pm

OK Gallery
5.1 Forbes St Northbridge

And, as usual, if you can't make it, send a proxy.

OK Gallery
Facebook event
she sees red

old sounds new again

in the early hours of the morning, as i listened to someone else having a shower in my bathroom whilst i lay half-asleep, i became aware of not having heard that very particular sound in a while. and that it was a signifier of a changing state in my personal life.

i started thinking about other sounds that have been absent from my life for a while and realised that there are loads of really personal sounds like this - the sound of your own baby crying in your room, someone else snoring in your ear, the way your best friend laughs - that are the innocuous soundtrack to your life. but aren't anything that you'd want to carry around with you on your ipod.

until they're not there anymore.

there's something in this i think.

something about giving back those sounds to people who have lost them. maybe making a playlist of 'my husband of 25-years', 'the child i only knew for 2 weeks', 'my younger brother' or 'sundays with my great aunt'.
something.

four uh-oh four

eep!

due to some shenanigans and fights with my domain registrars, i've now got a stack of data on a server in melbourne, without a way to access it.

which means that, if you've been trying to reach me on my usual sheseesred.com email, i'm sorry, but it's not working. and it will be another couple of days before it's fixed.

i'm sorry.

if you need to get in touch, chuck me a comment and i'll get back to you.

oh, hai.

i'm brewing a couple of interesting projects in the background at the moment.

and i'm also stupidly happy this week.


here are some tunes to go with that









an apologies to my friends who may find my sappy grin nauseating.




(they censored the word chocha?!)

dear music media #2

dear music media (and marketing types),

do not bullshit me about your investment in music.

yours,

lauren

----


for years i've read fistfulayen and followed ian rogers' twitter account. mostly because marcus brown told me i should. marcus has good taste in these kinds of things.

this week in music
i recently had time to discover ian's newish thang - this week in music. and i watched a few excellent clips.
the one with erin potts from air traffic control, i really liked. it fed into my whole relationship between music and politics, sound and action in a way i hadn't thought about. an important service.

it also made me realise that, if this whole art thing fails, that i could definitely do what erin does. it's a fantastic role and something i would love to do for more underground bands - not the big names with the 'what's $50K to a motherfucker like me' kind of swag, but for bands with a little cash, a chunk of sway and you know, hearts.

appropriating musical culture for ethical political means.


but that's not really what this post is about.

actually, maybe it is. but about the complete opposite to that.

coke music


this is the footage of a discussion between ian, mark ronson and wendy clark from coke marketing at the midem conference.

i understand marketing a bit. i know the lingo and the drill. and i'm highly critical. my friends in that biz hate it when i get like that.


and i can tell you (and them) that this woman and her 'coke music is all about the music' bullshit is everything i hate about marketing, about multinational brands, about The Industry (FMCG, music and marketing industries included) and the bullshit of those worlds.

it is the arrogance about the façade of care and understanding that makes me see red. and it's not even a very good façade. puh-lease, my grandmother could convince me that she loved the process of making music better than this woman. and i might even believe her that coke are interested in the true and emotional reaction that music has on people.

bullshit. coke are interested in coralling consumers and leveraging emotional attachment for the purpose of selling drinks.  as they always have. **

i just had to check to make sure the midem wasn't actually a marketing conference. nope, it's apparently about 'connection to music'. yuh. sure.

so, for those who don't want to watch the vid, coke "commissioned mark ronson on an 'project' to investigate the sounds of the olympics for the london campaign.
they basically bought mark ronson's services to make a slightly-more-interesting coke jingle for advertising during the olympics. and they made a movie about it so that they could do a "transmedia schtick" and seem like it's part of a much wider process of culture and interest and art.

vomit.

mark ronson

and, whilst mark ronson is complicit in this, i love what he does. i mean, i'm glad that it's him who got to record the sound of arrows flying through the air. he's smart and open and skilled music/artist. 

i'm really interested in the technical aspects to this project too. really, i am. and i'm kind of jealous of his chance to record the grunts of darius knight and i think they way he composed them into beats was interesting. up until the point at which it is restricted by having to squish into a coke-identifying thang.

i know that musicians and artists don't always just do things for the betterment of society, on an altruistic basis. we're part of the commerce. i get that. but i'm always sad when amazing people limit their skills and squish them into a financial transaction for the sake of that financial transaction. especially when it's a naff transaction like a coke endorsement. uh.

the olympics


and, well, this is just a small thing, but the other thing that annoys me about this appropriation of musical amazingness for naff commercial naffery, is that the olympics are such an opportunity to really impregnate something interesting into the world for a couple of weeks. really use cultural difference and variety to its absolute maximum.

it's a real pity that this kind of sound project has to be supported by a fizzy drink company. that this isn't the kind of thing that is just obviously part of the olympics - a big festival/competition about the human body and its elite levels of amazingness.

**and for those who might think that i'm living in a quaint utopian ideal where we only trade on authenticity, i see your perception of naivete, and ask why the fuck coke bother with trying with the 'authentic' spin and using an artist as a vehicle for sales if it we're all such mature consumers that can trade in commerce evenly. pssht.

dear music media #1

this is just the beginning.

dear music media,

if a girl raps, she still a rapper.
not a rapstress.
not only is it a dumb word, but it's insulting.
go learn something.

yours,

lauren