History is but a Sullen Memorabilia

This is the first post where I reflect on the finished sound piece. I sat in the composition studio and listened to the whole thing while writing down my thoughts along the way. I wrote about my frustrations towards time, I felt I was rushing myself to a conclusion when I should have savoured the process more. I wrote a lot about feeling lonely, after seeing my peers presenting their work. I felt I’m truly working on my own pace and path. This is a particularly messy blogpost but this nature is perhaps in retrospect very important.

But then on the piece, I wrote some mixing notes, on re amping some on the tracks, especially the newer collages I made during the editing process. I mentioned adding silences between sections, I think it is brilliant, instead of attempting to piece everything into a single smooth composition, I made the cutting points very clear. This made it very cinematic in a way, it gives space, in a gentle manner, instead of being forceful and patronising.

I also think the piece is now very self-conscious. It dived really deep into my mind and I can tell you precisely what everything is and how the whole thing comes together. Ultimately nothing I say outside the piece matters. Which means I’ve said everything I wanted to say and the work now stands alone. I have projected all my thoughts into it and actualised them into sound. Everything I am writing is just for school, I don’t actually need them to help explain myself.

While I have divided the project into two parts, I can now tell you what they are separately and what they represented. The first part, the residency, is immediate and responsive; it is to make the process the outcome, to be present and honest. To perform, to relate to the space and have awareness on the surroundings. Then, to have a sense of rawness, which constituted style and aesthetics, but more importantly inform the listener how should they listen and what’s being presented. To showcase a sense of space, prompting a way to listen, and ask for a response, on how the listener would like to engage.

The second part is the aftermath, it is reflective; To break the stagnation and habits of a musician/composer/theatre maker/or whatever context I seemed to have situated in. And then, to use that to disrupt the ‘normal’ that I have created, to be reflexive and tell a bigger story. To question memory, history, customs and traditions and how they intersect.

I feel like this while process is very non-linear and messy. This is really not good for school work as I come to realise. Very difficult to explain in detail how it relates to each “learning outcome”. But I think there is no way I can at this point make this blog understandable, and also I think it is okay to be messy, it’s good to be messy during the creative process. Maybe the presentation could the place where I state everything clearly, I guess that’s why the blogs and the presentation is two different things.

The more I am finishing the project, the more I feel words are loosing its meaning. The are no more space for these supporting text to co-exist with the work. The work are coming independent, it has embodied my thoughts and it will be over the top if I were to elaborate. I am glad that it turns out this way, but it is making it very hard to do school work.

There are only poetic sentiments left unexplored and written out. So perhaps I should go into that.

The piece now is called ‘History is but a Sullen Memorabilia’. It is exactly as I mention, that after time passes and thoughts and emotions settles, history becomes an object. It gains physicality like sand gathering at the bottom of a lake and becomes dense. It looses vagueness and condense into one solid stone. Time washes off the colours while the rest melt together to become brown (which consists of red, yellow and blue, the three prime colour). I can’t tell you exactly how I got here, but along the way everything affected the outcome, and now all we see is the memorabilia which concluded every single tiny grain of thought and feelings. Memorabilia doesn’t always reflect the trip in the most direct manner, it’s an access point, a portal, to a time where things mattered and had significance.

History is but a sullen memorabilia, it’s nothing more than the way we remembered it. Through artefacts we store away stories, through materiality of the objects we tell ourselves the memories are true and real. It is also a description of the art-making process. Everything is anchored by the product, and through remembering the product we access a buried part of ourselves that once were true and real and even scary sometimes.

I think I am starting to get the piece now. This time I have been trying to make sense of why I made each and every creative decision, but it has never been clear to me. I am merely circulating the whole way through. That’s why it could be complete bullshit, this blog. But now I think I am a bit closer to myself. The work is a mirror, of a certain me. I was heartbroken and very hurt, and I was lost. In a lot of ways I still am, but I feel closer with myself now. I can see that this exploration into my heritage constitutes a bigger theme that I am trying to venture into. I can see myself continuing on the theme on memory/history and create a full solo exhibition. This feels like a starting point of something bigger, much bigger, even though the sound piece feels like a lot of work already. I am astonished by the development of the project, I am expanding it so much that it feels I am getting ahead of myself, I am a bit scared, but intrigued by how far can I go before I fell.

Throughout the three years of time here writing blogs, my writing has been criticised as personal and too much of a diary. I agree, but I think it just reflects who I am, and I should stick with it. Some tutors like it, some really don’t like it. I feel like I should care more since I wanted a first when I graduate in a few months, but I have developed into myself so much that I can’t stop now. And I really think my ‘style’ has grown into something that is integral to my process, this seemingly endless ranting, is so helpful to me while working. My dyslexia also doesn’t help, but it really helps me pull myself together and go a step further into the creative process.

Anyway, The piece is now done. How am I going to be present it will be next, and how will I take it further in the next term is next. I am very proud of myself, I really think with the editing I am now more honest than ever within my own work, and I am becoming more gentle and open as a person.