[-empyre-] boundaries, or not

[Glenn Bach <gbach@csulb.edu>]

John,

I share your grief with regard to academic boundaries in art modes.  My 
program here at Cal State Long Beach has a strong division not only 
between disciplines (painting, ceramics, printmaking) but also within 
disciplines (traditional painting/drawing from observation vs. 
experimental practices).  Fortunately for me I've had open-minded 
faculty who have supported my efforts at folding sound into my work and 
creative process.

Even now, as I'm returning to finish my MFA, I see some resistance to 
some of my work that lacks a strong visual structure, like my soundwalks 
or scores.  So, for this context, I'm flipping it around, starting from 
the visual and working my way back.  I see my involvement in the various 
discussion list communities (microsound, lowercase, phonography) as a 
separate realm that I hope to incorporate, or at least inform, my visual 
art-making.

At the very least, microsound's lack of distinct boundaries, its 
relationship to quantum and string/membrane physics, and subsequent 
parallels in nothingness and impermanence, present a wealth of 
inspiration and metaphor with which to bring to the visual.  As such, I 
don't see myself as a microsound composer, but rather as an artist who 
incorporates microsonic elements and concepts into a multi-stranded 
practice.


G.


> This is a concept which is very important to me...when I went to art 
> school in the mid-late '80s (at least in the program I was in), although 
> it was a wonderfully eye-opening experience for me as a whole, the 
> boundaries were very much fixed. If you entered the program as a painter 
> like I did, your supported options for alternative modes of expression 
> were basically the other plastic arts, and even those sometimes were 
> "streichlich verboten": my attempt to merely smudge the boundaries by 
> writing and drawing a graphic novel was met with almost universal 
> derision, except for two open-minded instructors. God forbid I want to 
> do something with sound...it would have been "Well, go do a presence 
> track for the film department" or "Change your major to music, then."
>
> It wasn't until much later that I finally realized it was "ok" for me to 
> pursue sound as an artistic medium, even though I had an interest in it 
> from early childhood. It took meeting two other artists who weren't 
> afraid of it -- Scott Kane, who I worked with in the duo Wireshock, and 
> Jim Schoenecker, who runs Topscore records [ http://www.topscoreusa.com 
> ] -- that made me realize sound was a viable mode of expression, and 
> could (and *should*) be combined with my other artistic interests.
>
> It's very interesting (and comforting) for me to see, now that I'm once 
> again investigating graduate schools, that the academic art world 
> appears much more open to blurring boundaries--leaps and bounds beyond 
> what I experienced long ago as an undergraduate.