Process Piece

Process

     The most interesting part of this project, I think, was the limitation of audio with no visual or visual with no audio. I really love the way sound can change an atmosphere, and is very ethereal in nature, so the question became what process can I best capture with sound?  Making sound in general, no matter what that sound is, is a kind of creation; making conversation is a creation, breaking a bowl is creation in the way making fire is creation - you can't destroy matter, only manipulate it into new forms. Speaking is the conversion of energy to audible vibration. Just recording people talking felt a bit like a cop out. A sound disappears unless it's used to spark something new; taking part in noise making that doesn't require me to change any action or thought process wouldn't require the kind of critical thinking and decision making that Barney outlines in his Arts Education and Literacies essay. I decided to record myself learning how to play a song on the guitar. It gave me the excuse to spend time doing something I love and call it homework, and also shifted the value of creation not to the end product but the process getting there. In this case, the times I messed up became more important, especially when editing the audio, than when the song ran smoothly. When Jan Yager created her crack vial necklaces, the value of the product didn't lie in its materials or aesthetic qualities, but in the truths that she told with them, and the recontextualizing of the objects she found. If anything, the assignment she gave herself was the most important part of the creation process. 

     I recorded me playing for approximately 2 hours, with a break for errands (I can't remember what they were not), after which I edited the whole project down to two minutes. This revealed what parts of the song-learning process required the most thought, and which sections needed the most time to explain. The opening sequence of me tuning and choosing a song to play take nearly 1/4 of the audio time, for example, when in reality it took 1/7200 of total practice time. Finding different youtube tutorials also takes up time in the audio because they mark a distinctive step in the process, and because the variety it added to the recording suited the medium well. I also included a short bit where I'm interrupted by a well-meaning home teacher, since the unexpected, I think, becomes part of the process as well, especially when creating.

     I think the purpose of the Barney reading, and probably this exercise as well, was to stress the importance of the creative process in learning. When using art/creation as a form of evaluation, the process and thought behind a piece becomes more important than the end product. By recording a process instead of creating a completed work, you're deconstructing the product itself.