On inner ear / reversible reversals (2021)
In fall of 2021, collaborator Timothy Cleary attached a microphone to my hand as I painted live; he live-sampled and created a sound piece with the sounds of my mark-making (mutually influencing each otherβs choices). I usually work with a sense of sound when I am alone in my studio and Timothy has a very visual process for making sound art. We outsourced these processes to each other.
I was thinking about an essay by Marianna Keisalo whose abstract talked about the use of βreversible reversalsβ in comedic timing: the reframing of perspective that makes something suddenly pop with humor:
βGenerally speaking, ritual reversals mean switching to the opposite of what is considered βthe normal orderβ. Such reversals can occur, for example, in terms of social hierarchies in rites of passage, in action in carnival, or in the framing of action as ritual or performance. For comedic figures such as clowns and tricksters, reversals are part of their semiotic technique. By βreversible reversalsβ I refer to the characteristic ambiguity of comedic performance and the ability of comedic figures to play with, combine, or shift between opposite traits, actions, and perspectives. In this sense, comedy can be said to constitute a series of reversals. Jokes can also be reversible in the way their outcomes are indeterminate: they may have a number of interpretations and effects but none are guaranteedβ¦Looking at comedic performance as reversible reversals is a way to show how humor can be efficacious and meaningful both in spite and because of its characteristic ambiguity.β
I distinguish what Timothy and I were working with from the notion of the kind of βaction-paintingβ I see all the time on tik-tok or in live venues to EDM music. Our project isnβt about the spectacle, though its result, I guess, was something of a spectacle. I was more interested in whether or not it was possible to play with the above semiotics of performance across abstract media. I often find myself laughing when I listen to great jazz musicians play. They tell musical βjokes,β reframing bits of old standards in new contexts. I am curious about the kernels of joke-ness in the reframing of what are called βabstractβ gestures. I am wondering if a painting can be funny. And whether a live painting can develop a vocabulary of inside jokes with a live sound-piece.
