Relaxed Conversation

emmaramsay.tumblr.com

[relaxedconversation]

Ways to Receive

in a letter

on the radio 

from a website

from a tumblr

from your ear

from someones mouth

from a movie

in a book

sometimes it just grabs you

you buy a record

you find a tape

you borrow it

you make it

it finds you

through a television show

through a live television show

amongst the city

in the shop

inside a car

walking past a church

in the pub

at a school hall

at a function

its someones wedding

over breakfast

in a cave

near a tree

amplified from a concert

its in the background

on the tracks

near the photocopier

you hum along

now its in your head

between your ears

between your pants

your favourite song

always is there

received from you

to have again 

to pass it on 

once more

[relaxedconversation]

Originally published Issue 016, November 2010 of The Blackmail

Text: Emma Ramsay Images: Damo Suzuki

In the early 1970s a young Damo Suzuki was taken from his busking gig on a street corner in Munich, and asked to play with a band later that evening in a local venue called the Blow Up club. The band name was Can. Soon after this fateful night, they were to record their second record in a giant castle in Cologne and Damo was their new frontman. They jammed and jammed for hours which then became months, and resulted in a series of seriously incredible improvisations that would be cut up and mastered to become their highly influential krautrock album; Tago Mago.

This free form approach to music making is still alive today in the expansive music network of Damo Suzuki. Krauty-flourishes of rhythm, repetition and trance like states are still present in Damo’s contemporary performances – these days, he sees the live music moment itself as the most vital.

Emma Ramsay: There was a period in your life after your time with Can where you were not musically active. Were you being creative in other ways during this time?

Damo Suzuki: Was not creative on art… but, creative on family life as everyone else do.

ER: You were quite ill before this re-emergence into the music fold. Did you gain a refreshed outlook how music could function in your life again?

DS: I found different perspective in music that time than before. I was awaken from long bad dream, music was no more music… life itself was music.

ER: How did that experience change what you considered to be vital in your life creatively?

DS: It has energy and give others energy, too and should be if you experienced in that terrible situation. You’re much more strong, you live not twice or more often…

ER: How you think music feeds into our need for collective participation in society?

DS: Music is communication at its birth… signal as smoke on the hill to other hill, our early family communicated with other folks on hill opposite. Communication is positive energy avoid violence. So, it’s no matter of me, when same minded person (sound carriers) comes and create time and space of the moment, then something happens. Because, there are open minded and free situation there before music starts and when it start it get more heat… and between sound carriers amazing chemistry.

ER: There can be differences between studio composing and the kind of instant composing that occurs at your shows. Why does it make more sense for you to perform music, to push that potential alchemy between sounds and gesture in live setting?

DS: Look, all around you… there are bad energies controlling this system. This system is bad energy. With this kind of music form you cannot be rich… that I find good and already possible keep away from this money and violence orientated world.

First one became king and made a kingdom, then found a money system to put people in different class. Many people are slaves of this system. Because they need answer to protect themselves and comparing with the other. Everyone got own worth live, then, why they have to compare to others or follow endless trend? People was made to be free. Free from material world. You don’t need any words, it’s an invisible bunch of energies we’re making and this happens only in live performance, we can create this only with an audience.

ER: The idea of many smaller creative acts weighing against larger injustices in the world is an idea that resonates very strongly with me as an artist. You started your Never-Ending Tour in 2002 when the US began bombing Iraq. Are there bigger scale events on your mind right now as you set out on this current leg of touring?

DS: Yes, this is still and stay as point of creating good energy. They threw bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and killed some ten thousands of civil people in the moment 65 years ago. They still don’t learn even they never even excused and continuing bombing and never stop killing people. Once I wrote in my newsletter US talk too much about freedom, if you have enough money you never talk about, if you have enough sex you don’t talk about it, you know what I mean? Violence is ugliest thing in human society and this is the power of evil.

ER: What sustains you and your foundations when you lead such a nomadic lifestyle?

DS: I don’t need the answer, all thing is processing… my home is where I have good time not geographical thing. I don’t like to have many things around me that I’m not able to move. I have good life, travelling, meeting nice people, creating time and space of the moment, share this energy to other people, I can see smiles on their faces, then they gave me good motivation. Hey, what more do I need?..and I have to say I’m happy to be Damo Suzuki.

ER: Speaking to members of Holy Soul (Sydney) and Chateau Laut (Berlin) about their experiences playing alongside you they talk with such a buzz of positivity! There is so much respect and love there. Does it ever become too much, each show having no preconceived ideas, a new collaboration every show?

DS: There are many things to do, get positive energy everywhere against this system. It’s never ending…

ER: Do you ever do acoustic collaborations out in nature? Sydney has some cool beach caves!

DS: I’ve done that a few times but, the place is not the point. To perform in the middle of a bad system and create good energy is very necessary, especially at this moment.

This is my mission and yours!!!!!!!!!!!!

The new live album Damo Suzuki and the Holy Soul is available on Repressed Records. It was recorded live at the Corner Hotel. The album launch is set for November 21, 2010 at the Excelsior Hotel, Sydney with special guests Naked On the Vague.

[relaxedconversation]

A response to

I MADE BLOOD BETTER – MAD NANNA

Negative Guest List

1. DECK SONG

That change in key / everything opens up – mirrors the feeling of when you come out of a vision,

:be so sure of what you are viewing & suddenly – something comes into focus & your vision

                        completely changes

                        content of what you saw was not there at all

2. COURT BENT

(recorded off the radio?)

starts – all radio sound, feedback

-chords---instant nostalgia

            (usually expect to hear something like this at the end of an album)

-‘sense’ of wrapping things things up a forwarded conclusive feeling / as a second song on the album?

            feedback is so intense…tension happy go lucky feeling with an undercurrent of something unbearable

3. YOU CAN”T EXPECT IT

‘classic mad manna’

humour

animal

pushing it  audience / listener speak to listen

buoyant but just barely being held down to be released straight up to an emerging surface again

4. MY TWO KIDS

who is that man?

how did you meet?

what was that street?

-home/past lives (family) and extension

Up beat 4/4 look bit is it 3/4 I think it creates tension

You  give over it’s logic

mad nanna are a courageous and provocative band           

end

5. SIDE B

I MADE BLOOD BETTER

We flip the record over (~)

This is my favourite track

Gently eases us back in

That vocal about the trousers

Highest note where it trails up and close to the mic it

has a nice pop to it

Bar of 5 back on track it trails off             threatens to get lost

vocals - bring it back

            seems                                                 free                         spontaneous

“perfectly right”

            *closest you come to the mic and it trails right up ….

              lulled us – in / typo

Tape fades out

                    back into – abruptly ends

6. IF I DON”T SLEEP TONIGHT

If I don’t sleep tonight

The real test

How do you deal with being so minimal with people talk & drink & yahoo around you

            Incredible confidence –

Whilst singing about how

                                                            ‘you don’t mind’…

                                    if you don’t sleep tonight

                                    you sound senile

when you love someone everything slows down,

you feel as though even something essential like sleep. you don’t even need that anymore

CONVERSATION

some conversation and banter to rest the ear upon

stepping into a family conversation at Christmas

kitchen table / lounge

we listen in from exactly in between

7. I HIT A WALL

a feel good hit

I like the swagger to it

It’s a tease

The 11 o’clock number…warms you up for the finale 

Hold ya doona high...up under the covers as the songs ends

8. JUST BEFORE THE SUN HITS DOWN

 a marching beat

a continuation not a closing/resolution

On the porch the guitar sounds like a banjo the last hurrah

what if the sun stopped – song could keep going

                                                now that would be the perfect sound track

‘YEWW..’

end

             B SIDE for I HIT A WALL 7inch Quemada Records

 [from a previous conversation / idea for video]

I imagine you standing there on a pile of deep coloured soil

A landscape shot you take up a third of the height of the shot, and you are to the far left about an eight inwards from the frame and you are looking down into the ground playing guitar that isn’t plugged in and the sky is overcast the whole floor is dark rich soil

And pretty soon soil falls from the sky on top of you at a gentle pace as if falling from a tip up truck but it is out of shot high above you so it rolls out in it’s own organic soft rolls of clumps

Continues until it covers you almost completely

end

Image credit M.Zulicki

Thanks to Mad Nanna

[relaxedconversation]

HENGE BEAT Interview with JAMES VINCI of Total Control

All Images by Zephyr Pavey

Be alarmed. At this very moment, the imagery and ideas of late 70s synth punk are being reworked in the suburbs of Melbourne. Total Control, whose debut LP Henge Beat is to be released this month, are bringing a unique kind of gravity back to live music, quietly redirecting people’s imaginations of what punk can be in this strange retroactive century. As a pre-release copy of Henge Beat spins in my computer, nods to the legacy of Moog pioneers and German discotheques of EBM past emerge. Rising over the shoulders of the more danceable acts post-punk left behind, forging forward and bruising you on the way through are Total Control. Enter drummer James Vinci to talk us through this hot mess of sounds and ideas. Emma Ramsay: How are feeling leading up to the release of Henge Beat this month? James Vinci: I am feeling good. I will be relieved when it is out. I am not expecting it to set anyone’s world on fire but I will feel – I think we will all feel – a sense of accomplishment, and pat each other’s tushies. ER: What are you trying to evoke with that title? Is it thematically important to the songs? JV: It is not at all thematically important but I can’t divulge too much, and I don’t think a UV Race-style manifesto is appropriate. It’s a personal thing, innit? ER: Tell us about the early stages of the band. JV: We probably are in the early stages of the band now. Up until the second half of last year, we had only ever practiced three times in the preceding two or three years – one of which was the recording session of our first 7inch. In that period of inactivity, Daniel and Mikey did a few demos that came out as the second 7inch. Somewhere along the way there was a possibility of maybe playing some more shows, but around then Mikey and Dan had a lot of other stuff on so Total Control wasn’t really an ongoing concern for a long time. But then UV Race were doing an American tour, Mikey was going to play keyboard for them and I think Zephyr was going to America anyway, so one of them suggested that we play also. ER: Do you consider Total Control to be your music project or is it more of an autonomous music grouping these days? JV: ‘Your’ as in me? Well, I am probably more invested in the band in less important, less creative ways than my band mates. I think Total Control can just operate on a Daniel and Mikey basis, but all of us put our own indelible mark on the music and, I think, Total Control is best when it is all of us. It has evolved to the point where it is Zephyr, Mikey, James, Daniel and Al. ER: One thing that strikes people about Total Control is the contrast between the live shows and your records. Have the 7inch releases in the lead up to your album allowed you to accentuate or expand on subtleties that exist in your sound or make up as a band? JV: The 7inchs are just experiments, I guess, or rough ideas – adventures we want to go on. Everything is quite free, but I can’t say they are made with the express desire to expand on ideas in particular. I think, given the way new songs are sounding, we are going to have to, you know, address that whole thing about the difference between recorded and live. ER: As a band you have an uncanny sense of rhythm and shared energy on stage; it’s super impressive and blows people away. What is it that activates that synergy between you all when you are performing? JV: Thanks. I guess we just work well together. I seriously had given up on the idea of being in a band that I felt red hot about or even liked. But I really like playing in this band; it just feels good.

ER: People have thrown the term ‘synth punk’ at you to describe your sound, but I feel there is something a little more conversational going on within your songs, compared to music from that era. Is that something you are aware of in your music: an exploration of that dynamic between guitars and electronics, or the tension and interlocking patterns of the drums and vocals, but using quite a classic punk format? JV: Synth punk was definitely the intent of the band but I don’t think the original idea that spawned the band necessarily needs to be strictly adhered to. If someone came up with a song that was good but wasn’t “synth punk”, then it would be a bit silly to not play it because it wasn’t synth punk. I guess synth punk means something very specific but, at the same time, kind of means nothing at all. Like, obviously a synth punk band has to have a synthesiser to qualify as a synth punk band. Oh dear, there is no point going on – it’s not like we would have any objections to being called a synth punk band, but as you say it’s probably not totally accurate. I guess we are a punk band, but what is a punk band? Public Enemy are a punk band, yeah? I digress. I know that I personally was against the idea of having a really varied body of work because that can kind of come across as corny. But I don’t feel so much that way anymore, especially considering Mikey’s sense of melody. I think it helps to give the music cohesion. When we do play, I’ve had a lot of trouble with drum machines – either they get unplugged or just stop working mid-song, they don’t sound loud enough through the PA or there is no PA. These problems have forced us to reinterpret the songs slightly. To me, this is a definite barrier that will stop us from ever being a true synth band. ER: Why do you always play that Swell Maps song when you play live? JV: Simple – to fill out the set! We’ve tried a few other covers but we always seem to come back to that one. ER: I remember you once mentioning that working with 8-tracks leaves room for interesting mistakes and unplanned overlaps. Was there a lot of experimenting happening before locking down time to record the album as a band? JV: That is more applicable to stuff that I make at home on the 4-track with drum machines. Some of those I send off to Mikey, who makes a song around the beat, which so far has had some pretty good results. One of the songs on the album was made that way. There wasn’t a great deal of forethought put into the recording, all the band stuff we just did in one day. Just knowing how much we needed to record in that day was a little nerve-wracking. I did think about recording a lot and had some ideas of things I wanted to do over my drums, some of which worked, some of which didn’t. But the band is very experiment-friendly I think, which is a good thing. ER: Who mixed and mastered the album? They’ve really made the music sparkle. JV: Mikey Young. I don’t mean to piss in his pocket but he has vision in spades. Going back to the last question, he arranged whatever experimentations were captured in the studio and added some more, and the end result is – yes – a very good sounding album indeed. ER: ‘Carpet Rash’ is one of your longer songs. The tone of it is a little different to most of the other tracks. I think it offers something dense to hold onto on the brutal island of rhythm and energy the other songs create live. It also ends up being the throbbing core of the album. Tell us about the writing of that song. JV: The length of the song is quite confrontational. Like most of the songs, it was given life as an electronic demo on Mikey’s computer. When we first started practicing it, I remember trying to replicate the austerity of the demo version by putting a cymbal on the snare and playing quite stripped back. Fortunately though it didn’t really work out as I am not a very machine-like drummer and it went against the heavy emotion of the song. It took a while for it to come together as I guess most songs do, but when you are playing the song it’s obviously a different experience to a person watching it who could be bored out of their brain by the length of the song. I played that song to Deni who sings in the Perth band Mental Powers and for him it was a low point of the album as it had too much of a “Fitzroy swagger”. Oh and also, there was a funny review in the local street press in Melbourne that said it sounded like it crawled out of Brandon Flowers’ (from The Killers) jock strap. ER: What aesthetic, era or artists are you drawing from with the typography and design for Total Control? What elements of the music are you trying to uphold with the visual impact of the sleeve art? It’s very distinct. JV: Honestly, I’m not trying to uphold anything. If anything, the band has provided a convenient outlet for me to explore a certain aesthetic that I have slowly and lazily cultivated over the last few years. It’s probably a composite of all the things that I like put together, filtered through me. I think the methodology is kind of similar to what happens when I make stuff for the band on 4-track. Yeah, I am definitely NOT an accomplished graphic designer. I guess I am inspired by a lot of things. I am really into typography. In fact, that is pretty much all I like. Karl Nawrot is someone that has a lot of impressive work and he doesn’t consider himself to be a type designer, [it's] just something that he dabbles in. I think some of the type he has made in the last few years is very impressive and a lot of people, I think, are inspired by it whether they know it or not. ER: What would people be surprised to find in your record collection? JV: I don’t think there is anything surprising. I don’t really know any Stooges or Velvet Underground songs. ER: Describe your current staple winter jacket. JV: Two jumpers and a blue and red ski jacket that is starting to get really grubby, and the zip fell off the other day. ER: How were you received in the USA last year? Is this when the record opportunity came up with Iron Lung Records? JV: It went really well. I think we were all shocked by how well it went; we weren’t, like, swimming in accolades or anything, but just playing felt so good. At least it did for me anyway, but people seemed pretty into it which I am sure helps. It was a good time. One of the high points was watching Point Break in New York City with Marcus from the UV Race and then walking to get some food. On the way back to where we were staying I noticed Marcus wasn’t beside me anymore, so I looked back and saw him talking to a guy that looked familiar and it turned out to be Keanu Reeves. Iron Lung released the second Total Control 7inch in 2009 and they also did an Eddy Current Suppression Ring 7inch around the same time. I think they were probably always interested in doing a Total Control album. When I say ‘always,’ I mean after they did the Total Control 7inch – not that they were born with the knowledge that, some day, some how, they would release an album by a band called Total Control. Iron Lung (the band) have toured Australia twice and Jensen from Iron Lung has been here with another band. I think he also came to Australia for his honeymoon last year. I think most of us would have had contact with them before Total Control existed. ER: How did you invitation to play All Tomorrows Parties Festival in the UK come about? JV: Someone from Les Savvy Fav or their label got ahold of some of our music, and they asked us to play.

ER: What are your most pressing plans for Total Control this year? JV: We are recording some songs for a record this weekend, possibly making a video clip, releasing a 12″ of a recently uncovered band from Perth from the early 80s called Division 4 and then playing more shows in America and Europe at the end of the year. Hopefully we will make it through that and record more songs. ER: The band name. That Motels song is so heart-achy…. JV: Yeah, it’s a Mikey and Daniel thing. I am more partial to ‘Situations’ by Yazoo or ‘I.O.U.’ by Freeez. ER: Any final words? JV: Zephyr our bass player is exhibiting some of his photos in Sydney, 12th -14th August at China Heights gallery in Surry Hills. Melbourne’s Total Control released their Henge Beat LP in July 2011 on Seattle based label Iron Lung Records.

This article was first published online at TheBlackmail.com.au in July 2011

[relaxedconversation]

CONVERSATION with JESSE HOGAN

Floor Talks #2 

oil on canvas, plexiglass 

  Conversation # 2 with Jesse Hogan / In Person / 1: 25mins

It is cold outside. We are in the gallery.

  PART I

Emma Ramsay: So Jesse, we’re going to have a conversation…we are going to have chat about your work that is installed here at 55 (Sydenham Rd)…but I want to start with the work that references the Guy Benfield work. Floor Talks #2.

Jesse Hogan: Floor Talks #2

ER: I recognise the artwork straight away. It had a massive impact on me because (at the time) I had never seen work like it at in Artspace before, or really anywhere. I only expected to see work like that in an artists run space, with a younger artists that…

JH: Established expectations…a lot of established artists can dull their work down into something that is quite quantifiable…rather than having multi activities going on in the one piece…

ER: Yeah…multi activities…using things that seem like ‘finished products’ and other things that are straight out of the studio and placed in the art space…being more than just props for the durational work. It made all the art in there seem like ‘working objects’ that have been moved into the space…and they will continue their life when they are moved back into the studio. 

JH: It was interesting for me to see what was actually made during the install, and what was pre made in the studio and just bumped in. It creates a tension of why he decided to include certain things.

ER: I think that’s why it had such an impact on me because there was that dynamic between objects that were so sloppy…and other formally constructed fixtures.

JH: Was he there when you saw the work working the clay wheel? How different was it from what you see in this documentation…without him or the clay wheel?

ER: No I just saw what seemed to be the remnants of a performance…with this kind of over the top backdrop becoming the artwork itself. To walk in and see this image of one my favourite art shows…in the form of a painting, I thought…Jess couldn’t have painted this from memory…it would have been a lot more minimal I guess…there is something instantly uncanny about this painting.

JH: My friend Lucy Phelan asked if the work was actually composed, ‘Did you just put things there and make the picture’. It’s meant to be an image of a real event, it’s not meant to be fantasy but I can see how documentation of art converted into painting can become fantasy…

ER: There is real conflict again between the formal shapes in the image and soft clay and paper mache heads…strange paintings that have been intuitively placed around the space…it makes for a surreal image…

JH: Bric-a-brac…a kind of collaged feel…

ER: Why did you choose this image to reproduce…of this particular Floor Talk?

JH: This particular Guy Benfield work epitomizes to me the ideal studio practice…the ideal result of the contemporary artist making works in video, painting, sculpture being serious and formal but also ridiculous. It seems like it really epitomized everything about my own practice. I want to be this free to work across all these forms and not be concerned wether they ‘go together’ in an installation setting or gallery setting. When I make a painting of an installation event…it’s sort of reducing installation back to a traditional painting…so it can be viewed on 2D terms and maybe avoid the questionable factors of ‘this doesn’t go with that’. On the surface of a painting, there is no ‘this no this doesn’t go with that’, it’s all one level…one dimension…it’s joined. It’s a way to justify what I’m doing but to also oddly put into my own art history. I see the people in these paintings as my contemporaries, but maybe one step away from being colleagues. They aren’t so far way that they are mythical figures in art history. They are closer to our kind of art making situation.

ER: There was something inspiring about this work when I saw it. I was blown away and it shifted my very raw COFA art theory kind of idea of what contemporary Australian art could be…

JH: This guy doesn’t care weather this is going to sell or not…it’s pure production…pure trial and error with materials; which I think practice should be. The second consideration should be; I’ve found material I can use and create a commercially viable product out of it. First consideration is just how you deal with matter in general.

PART II

Emma Ramsay: I can see why people would think why it is a ‘made up’ composition. The space and shadows, and colour palette are quite psychedelic …

Jesse Hogan: I suppose if I presented the photographs of these floor talks, people would take them as a fact. Painting them creates questions for the audience… is this fact? Is this an actual happening or is it made up? Where was this happening? Its one step removed from documentation.

ER: Placing them into the perspex framing, archives the images and create an authorship of history on your behalf. From the original image to the painting, you have changed the framing slightly and omitted certain elements…

JH: Yeah completely. I guess initially because of the anonymous artist thing, it got me thinking about who actually owns these images. Who do you think owns these images?

ER: Did you take the initial photographs picture yourself?

JH: The Guy Benfield image is from the Artspace archives…

ER: The other documentation of Floor Talks #1 and #3 are more of a snapshot…the Benfield one is more formal. I guess I see this work as starting with the initial image taking…and the framing has continued until this moment in time in the gallery…

JH: We experience so much art through the documentation of work. I was looking at what happens if that mode we are experiencing the art though, becomes an artwork itself in form of a painting. It’s still at that experimental stage…

ER: If adds more layers of meaning…

JH: Does it only have more meaning to me? These moments are chosen because they mean something to me. In general terms perhaps it won’t mean much at all!

ER: Well you have given that moment meaning. The formal elements of the paintings, compositionally…relationships between the figures in each painting, and across the all three paintings are creating meaning for the audience…

JH: Yeah I hadn’t actually thought about the seriality of the images, the duplication of the figures until I had literally sketched them out on the canvas. The all have a similar dynamic taking place…

ER: The shadows in them too…

JH: The shadows make it. When you are replicating photography, you are really just reproducing light. The camera exposes light onto the film, so all you are painting is light and shadow.

[relaxedconversation]

Floor Talks #3

oil on canvas, plexiglass 

PART III

Emma Ramsay: Floor Talks #3. There are so many squares! It’s overkill! Paintings, photos, plinths, double doors and then there are softer shapes of wrapping materials and drop sheets on the floor and trolleys with masses of plastic that looks like growths…

JH: I always like to take into account the uncanniness of the installation materials that were in the space at the time...I like the hallucinogenic quality of plastic...it just does things that are so strange.

[relaxedconversation]

NICK BRIGGS AND JESSE HOGAN

Non-Tertiary Injunctions 1 & 2, Floor V’s Ceiling

Packing crates, Phillips (Yellow) 60cm Fluorescent Tubes, Plexiglass, Electrical cable

PART IIII

Emma Ramsay: What about these shiny black voids...these black rectangle lakes in the middle of the gallery space…tell us about these platforms on the ground?

Jesse Hogan: They’re a relief from the gallery in general. If you need to get away from the white walls and cramped spaces surrounded by too much thinking…it really is the negative injunction of the space. Suddenly you are looking at black…

ER: Reflective black space.

JH: The whole gallery is reflected in them…

ER: The fluoro lights are reflected also.

JH: They make relevant, the floor, as a usable space, and uses the ceiling. The gallery has an amazing geometric layout of lighting so the work takes the architecture of the space into consideration. They serve as a dialogue platform between Nick and I…you could imagine both of us sitting there cross legged…having a dual of ideas.

ER: Two platforms…two artists…

JH: The original idea was to have a conversation in each platform…we were going to critique each others work. Like the same reason we realised we didn’t need to have any sculptural forms on top of them (the platforms)…the reflection of the space itself would become the sculptural element upon the perspex platforms. We thought too much noise and conversation with is going to clutter someone’s experience of the show. The platforms also act a good barrier between our work…it reflects both our works…and acts as a separation of ideas.

[relaxedconversation]

PART VI

Installing Approaches and Guy Benfield

Emma Ramsay: You mentioned that for the show you had last year at Black and Blue…that you were halfway through installing and then you thought, ‘Wait I’m stopping here…’ with half installed objects with tools and debris everywhere. You seem to have installed things in more pristine way this time around. Why did you decide to change your installation approach?

Jesse Hogan:  It’s funny because it happened to us again. Half way through setting this up we saw the tape and ladders and tools and wrapping… materials strewn everywhere. You couldn’t have planned a better installation than that. All of those elements came into play and they all had their purpose too. But in this case we wanted to see all out ideas through (this time) to the end and remove that excess. Once we placed everything in their measured spot, we decided that maybe next time maybe we aren’t going to let that illusion exist; that of the end product.

ER: I tend to appreciate shows that allow that little glimmer of process to shine through…

JH: I think that’s why the Guy Benfield work is the apex of that idea. Everything you love in a finished piece...but everything is going on…in the open…

ER: That installation was a real habitat. YES! I love that word. It was like he just transferred his art making habitat into Artspace in the form of a show.

JH: He really has taken it over. Sometimes the space can constrict you...

ER: There is also something to be said for artists can relay and align their work with the architecture of a gallery with the audience in mind and therefore making maximum impact…

JH: Well with the Benfield works there is no ‘Oh…I’m going to be nice…’ Its more like ‘I’m going to do what I want with it.’ It’s unapologetic. Then there is another problem if the work comes off as obnoxious.

ER: I don’t think the work is obnoxious because there is an investment in every object and gesture in that show. A lot of it in fact seems quite circumstantial and adds to the hazard of ‘over the top-ness’, of excess, as expression…

JH: There is a bit of self-mockery in there as well.

ER: Yeah the sense of humour lightens the heaviness of the ego in the work...the idea of him working away on that clay week with what ends up looking like a giant turd/kebab is pretty funny…

Guy Benfield in his own words here.

This is the show we are talking about that occurred at Artspace in 2007, with image that was used for Floor Talks #2.

[relaxedconversation]

Floor Talks #1

oil on canvas, plexiglass 

PART V

Jesse Hogan: Teppei Kaneuji. He had all hundreds of found objects all connected by wires like hoses, tubes, sticky tape…so beautifully laid out in terns of colour and form…but it was really slapstick as well. Buckets, bits of plastic…it was almost as if anything goes but then you realise they things have been so carefully selected. By no means was this selection conservative…there was this visionary freedom about it. This image is just one of the tables at the end of the exhibition. That one was the ‘classical’ object table. Other tables these furry rugs and all kinds of materials. It was all actually set up for the blind. The idea was that you move around the tables blindfolded handling each item. You had to clean your hands with wet wipes and remove your jewellery, and wear a blindfold. What your eyes tell you is good and what your hands tell you is a good are two completely different things. The cheap piece of found plastic compared to the bronze statue…I guess it highlights the difference in sensory value and monetary value.

ER: It raises everyday objects and trash to decorative or archival value.

JH: I remember my wife translated for me...that there were these older ladies feeling the bronze statue and were saying how much energy was coming off the object. But they knew it was a Rodin from the gallery’s collection. So it’s funny to think about pre-judgement of the objects and a genuine interaction. For me the plastic sphere from the ‘reject shop’ had just as much energy emanating from it as the Rodin sculpture.

That was some relaxed conversation. UHU: THE DOUBLE BIND, JESSE HOGAN / NICK BRIGGS was exhibited at 55 Sydenham Rd in May 2011. Jesse Hogan works on an artist spreadsheet with Nick Briggs named WEIRD/HEAVY.  More work can be found here.

All images belong to JESSE HOGAN.

Thanks to Jesse Hogan, Nick Briggs and 55 Sydenham Rd

[relaxedconversation]

Conversation #1 with Pat Telfer / In Person / 4: 25mins

Rainy and wet evening in Sydney. Conversation occurred outside TONE nightclub during a ciggie break at DOME HOME 2 featuring Bitch Prefect and Hit the Jackpot

Emma Ramsay: So you have that channel of videos where you have all those clips you have made for Bitch Prefect and other bands...they all have this quality of home movies with a fake celebrity/expose feel…combined with tourist footage. Collectively they paint this really great impression of how you operate within the bands that you are in… 

Pat Telfer: It’s more about the friends than the bands really. I had friends taking photos…like Luke Byrne was a big influence. He’d take photos of us always partying. He always said how great our house was to take photos in. So I started thinking that was a good way to do that (taking videos of people and the house). I can’t be bothered with photography because it takes too long.

ER: Who’s Luke Byrne?

PT: He’s just a photographer friend. He lives in Sydney now. But he used to live in Adelaide. He takes really great photos...so you know, he sold me the computer that I do it all on…and showed me how to do it…use the programs and stuff.

ER: So it came from and idea of wanting to document what was happening at the time…           

PT: Well yeah…he’d be snapping away...taking photos when we would go out. I guess I started doing that too. Taking videos with my phone. It was really instant. We would write a song one night…and we’d record the clip in the same night...just in the house. And it would be on the internet by the end of the same night. I really like that really instant...you know…lets just do it! You just put it together…

ER: Maybe that’s what I like so much about the quality of the videos…

PT: That they’re NOT high quality…

ER: Ha ha yeah…no…there IS a nice instant-ness to them. There is a considered way of editing going on, like you are curating the footage. You haven’t just loaded non-stop live footage up there...

PT: I’d collect footage for a couple of weeks. Sometimes we’d do it with the song or a clip in mind. But usually I’d just get footage over a couple weeks, from different stuff that I just decided to shoot, save it up and put it together quite randomly I guess.

ER: Where does most of the tourist footage come from?

PT: Oh…I went to Rottnest Island with my girlfriend and took a lot of footage there. Around Adelaide. My favourite footage is in the Orange Tree video? We went to the Botanical Gardens. We just went up there and I was just filmin‘em. (Peak Twins).

ER: I think it’s my favourite too.

PT: I think it works the best for some reason I dunno.

ER: It sits with the song so well.

PT:  Yeah.

ER: You haven’t been making many videos recently?

PT: My phones broken! I dropped it. And then I sweated on it in Newcastle and now the light doesn’t even work. And plus I can’t use my You Tube (channel) anymore cause you have to have Google membership or something…

ER: They’ve changed that since you started making the videos…

PT: Yeah so I can’t log in to my thing anymore…but I’ll figure it out.

ER: Once your phone is fixed will you make more vids or…?

PT: Yeah BIG TIME. I really like doin’em. It’s a good thing to do for an afternoon. It’s better than sitting watching videos all day that other people have made.

ER: Thanks for chattn to me about your videos. That was some relaxed conversation.

PT: That’s alright a pleasure.

Pat Telfer's You Tube channel can be found here. Pat Telfer is a member of Bitch Prefect and Dud Pills.