notesdontmatter

Johannes Sistermanns:


I really tried to ‘resonate’ with Johannes Sistermanns, but after the promising audio examples that were played early on in his presentation, I felt he degenerated into what seemed a never ending defensive intellectual blurb, more concerned with silencing nay sayers toward his creative freedom than producing worthwhile art. I use the term ‘worthwhile’ in a vain attempt to remain neutral in matters of a subjective nature.

Now I’m all for creative freedom, and if some one wants to construct a bizarre street scene from cling wrap, old car engines and other items, throw a few piezo devices around and turn peculiar resonances into audio, I think they should. My real issue with Johannes is that he appears to believe he is above constructive criticism.
Like = resonate? Dislike = doesn’t resonate? Pleeaassee!

To make matters worse, he expressed strong unsubstantiated opinions about other practitioners in his self indulgent niche. According to Johannes, anyone who creates a sound installation as a work of art is not creating a pure sound installation if they chose to use loud speakers to project unrelated sound into the space. I’m no expert on the high art of sound installations myself, but I don’t believe for a second that there is some rule book out there which states what qualifies and what doesn’t. Besides, even if there were, all rules would be periodically broken in the name of creative freedom anyway. Coincidentally, we had a sound installation artist by the name of Robin Minard give a talk at EMU earlier this year. I found Robin’s approach and work on display during the Adelaide Festival 2006 inspiring to say the least. If Johannes is to be taken seriously, then Robin is apparently working under the wrong title, just because he subjects his spaces to third party audio. Whatever.

What gets to me about this attitude is that the people that perpetrate it are actually using some sort of security blanket of projected arts community politeness, so they don’t have to put themselves completely out there for public scrutiny. Come on Johannes, if something is really worth doing, it’s worth copping the initial backlash that the artist may receive. I’ve spent many a day at band recording sessions being told that my last take sucked and I can do better. I didn’t always agree at first, but when I asked the question why, I usually got feedback that helped me to improve in the long run. If artists stop accepting constructive criticism altogether, how is art going to evolve?

To summarise, I cant say whether I LIKED or DISLIKED Johannes’ work with his clingwrap installations as there were no audio examples to be heard. I guess I’ll just have to take his word that it was a worthwhile pursuit.


Opinions are everywhere, mine is just one (and it’s really not that scary).


Reference:

Johannes Sistermanns. ‘Sound Plastic’. Lecture presented at EMU Space, Schulz Building, 5th Floor, Adelaide University. Thursday 2nd November 06.