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Rolling
stones gets me no satisfaction.
Rolling stones gets me no satisfaction. Rolling
stones gets me no satisfaction. Rolling
stones gets me no satisfaction. Rolling
stones gets me no satisfaction. Rolling
stones gets me no satisfaction....
In Greek mythology King Sisyphus was
made to roll a huge boulder up a steep hill. Before he
could reach the top however, the massive stone would
always roll back down, forcing him to begin again.
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try
again. Fail again. Fail better. (1)
The Sisyphean task is both performative
and performance-like. Performative in that it
'does-something-in-the-world' (2),
and performance-like in that it is an action available
as spectacle or audition. What is the sound of one rock
('n') rolling?
Repetition refers to the action of
producing something over again. Repetition, although not
a necessity of my practice, is however a re-occurring
theme. Recording, re-staging, re-mediating and
re-presenting a performed act. Whether this be
mechanical (the end being connected to the beginning) or
procedural (through re-enactment), it is nonetheless a
re-petition, an appeal again for consideration – to
heed-the-deed, again and again.
Is repetition opposed to
measurable or determinate change?
Repetition is relocation. It is an
event with substance and form. A particular form of
repetition is to give a text or a work another locale.
What does 'the same' mean in a new environment?
Is repetition opposed to
measurable or determinate change?
Repetition, as a strategy, is not the
multiplication of the same, or the orthodox fidelity to
an event, but the marking of difference. A re-occurring
theme of my practice is repetition.
Is repetition opposed to
measurable or determinate change?
Repetition is subjectivity.
Subjectivity is the constant re-iteration through
embodied performance. According to Judith Butler,
performativity is an on- going and never-ending process
grounded in the "compulsion to repeat" (3).
Is repetition opposed to
measurable or determinate change?
Repetition promises a climax but
continually disappoints. In an environment where the
linear striving towards a goal obfuscates the re-current
nature of a boom-slum-boom socio-political system, the
refusal to culminate, the wallowing in process rather
than product gratification, tends to irritate, chafe and
inflame.
Is repetition opposed to
measurable or determinate change?
Repetition when seen/heard as a
non-productive supplement engages with the absurd, and
as such with the possibility of comedic intervention as
an oppositional gesture. Doing, saying, hearing
something over-and-over again is a mainstay of comedy,
"I heard that! Pardon?" (4)
Is repetition opposed to
measurable or determinate change?
Repetition ensures that each utterance
is a new utterance, coloured, if only a teeny-weeny,
teensy-weensy, itsy-bitsy, little-bitty amount, by
'now-ness.' Subjecting the humdrum to a cyclical
procedure aesthetizes the most low-key and subtle of
deeds. And, in a foldback double-gesture, repetition
makes quotidian of the most fantastical. Just as a
belch, recorded and looped, becomes a rhythmic beat,
causing heads to bob, hands to clap, fingers to snap and
feet to tap. So too, the most miraculous Siren song
heard time-after- time, becomes banal.
Is repetition opposed to
measurable or determinate change?
Repetition dovetails with
'everydayness', re-routing the routine. The everyday is
that which has become exceedingly familiar and
unexceptional as a result of repeated exposure. The
'infra-ordinary' is just that because it's constant
regurgitation rebuffs significance. (5)
A re-occurring theme of my practice is repetition.
Is repetition opposed to
measurable or determinate change?
Repetition, when used as an actual
methodology or conceptual trope generates new forms. It
is a constraint that channels, condensing into a
critique of 'everydayness', going hand-in-hand with a
disregard for the monumental and momentous. An endless
tautology that is limited by time, whilst continuously
re-enacted in time. A re-occurring theme of my practice
is repetition.
Is repetition opposed to
measurable or determinate change?
Repetition is an auto-appropriator.
Continuously cross-examining itself as it does and
re-does, whether in actuality or via a technological
re-staging. Central to my practice is the opposition of
the particular and the general, what becomes of the
singular when it is re-articulated? These 'infra-deeds'
strive to develop a grammar of everyday practices as an
exploration of the sonic.
Is repetition opposed to
measurable or determinate change?
Repetition's rotator motion, acts
dialectically, both like a centrifugal governor reducing
changes and maintaining control; and as a loop gain,
adding instability, disturbance and noise. It is
elliptic, providing wobble to the positive/negative
feedback of the self-regulating system that is reflexive
praxis. And, a re-occurring theme of my practice is
repetition.
Is repetition opposed to
measurable or determinate change?
Repetition and 'everydayness' collude
not as a strategy, but as a tactic of resistance, an
anti- or infra-disciplinary practice, evading the
satisfaction of the beginning-middle-end, the
commodification of outcome, the notable, the atypical,
the re-markable.(6)
The quoting of the quotidian might exasperate, but
"[o]ne must imagine Sisyphus happy".
(7)
There was an old man named Michael
Finnegan,
He kicked up an awful din-egan,
Because they said he could not sing-egan,
Poor old Michael Finnegan, begin again. (8)
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where no other claim is indicated.