Going through some old emails I came across this release from
Squoodge Records, a double single sided 7" from artist
Christine Sun Kim. I'm always looking for these documents where the art world and seven inches collide to produce an artifact that's even MORE awesome because it's literally art. You can't hang it on the wall, but now I can convince my family and accountant that these are 'investments' and I am a big shot, high art collector in the eyes of my business associates, not a weirdo, smelly 'record collector'.
Actually this single is especially interesting because Christine can't hear (in the traditional way) the tracks she's creating. Based on this interview and video (below) she jacks up feedback and bass sounds to an absurd level, (the cones on these car speakers are jumping around 3:11) and captures some of that here in this loop series. I love the idea that a hearing person probably couldn't even be in that space with her while this recording was created, yet she's completely immune to this noise. The way this completely fails to translate her experience and create something entirely new at the same time. But it's not enough just to listen to the record, to get the full experience it takes a couple of record players and some specialized speaker placement to be able to reenact the piece in the intended way. As a listener you're forced to help create the work and be involved in the process. This is a commitment... obviously there's some magic there that I'm glad I don't even have to try to explain the experience. This one is better left to someone who actually goes the lengths to put this together. It's great there is an Austrian non commercial label run by music fans willing to press this. A little proof the entire world isn't run by huge emotionless corporations hell bent of making money over everything else.
Squoodge says:
Each box includes 2 one-sided 7" singles with stamped labels and a handwriten insert with information how to spin this special vinyl. Design by Christine Sun Kim, silkscreen work by Wolfgang Müller. All boxes are handsigned. Limited to 333 copies only.
Tracklist Record 1: Panning Fanning
Tracklist Record 2: Loop 1, Loop 2, Loop 3, Loop 4, Loop 5, Loop 6, Loop 7, Loop 8,, Loop 9, Loop 10, Loop 11, Loop 12
The New York-based
Christine Sun Kim explored in their works the physical and visual manifestations of sound, and the modes of action of the language. The deaf artist who communicates primarily through ASL (American Sign Language), accomplishes this investigation under her own conditions, perspectives and rules. Christine Sun Kim developed the Vinyl Project "Fanning - panning" together with Wolfgang Müller during her stay in Berlin on the occasion of the exhibition "Gesture Sign Art - Deaf Culture - Hearing Culture" (18.11.2012 - 13.01.2013) in the Kunstraum Kreuzberg for
Squoodge Records.
Excerpts from the interview with Christine Sun Kim conducted in April 2012 in New York from An Paenhuysen:
When I first started in the world of sound and sound art, most of the sound that was accessible and affecting to me was in lower frequencies. That´s what I could physically feel in my body, I could fell the bass. Now I am actually starting to widen my range. A lot of my work is looking at sound in general, as how it is related to behaviours, how it accesses a currency, how some of it I have a hard time physically feeling, like the high frequencies. I can use technologies in order to kind of stretch out sound, to bring it closer to myself. I can actually manipulate sounds trough technologies and make them more accessible to me.
I do want to share an experience that I had. I am very fascinated with this idea that sounds affects the body in a sort of delayed time frame. One night I was working in my studio. I was playing with the sounds of feedback. It is my favorite sound. It is so fierce. I can feel in my body. I was really playing with the microphone connected to the speakers. Just letting the feedback go and really feeling it for three hours. I started to feel it even more in my body, sort of sensing it. I got home. I just could not sleep. I was tossing and turning, I felt really paranoid. For a whole week I could not even go back to my studio. I could not even bear it. I released that I don’t have a warning system. People who can hear have a warning system, they have something that lets them know that is painful and you stop. I am missing that system; there is nothing here. So I have gone totally overboard. I was experiencing a different dimension of sound that came with a different time frame. With the warning system, people normally don´t have the chance to experience it.
(Text & Interview from Gesture Sign Art Deaf Culture / Hearing Culture Eds. Wolfgang Müller & An Paenhuysen)
Get this from
Squoodge Records, import only...
