101 reasons to stay online…
For Art POP 2009, Michelle Lacombe and Sheena Hoszko, two dynamic Montréalers with a plethora of interesting relationships with the visual arts (as coordinators, outreach workers, educators, conceptual artists in their own rights and much more) came together to do a visually incredible, conceptually witty, poignant and wise piece for the first time as a collaborative pair.
Entitled 101 Song Scores, this interview with them about their project and process speaks enough for itself that my introduction can hererby be sent straight to the guillotines like so many other overly flowerly representations that the Jacques Louis Davids’ of the past have spout forth.
But! Just to highlight that as part of this years’ Atelier Portes Ouvertes, this fascinating duo will be giving an artist talk at Agence Topo at 2 p.m. this Sunday the 18th. More info to follow.
1. Could you explain a little about this project?
Sheena: 101 Song Scores is a project that stems from the 2009 Art Pop call for submissions, which really got us thinking about our art practices in relation to music. We decided to base our proposal on lyrics, and pull scores/text-based performance directions from songs.
The results of this ended up taking two specific forms: The first was a series of images or “ads” that list the score, song title, year, and length of the song (we did not include the band name to avoid any immediate associations with genres).
Pop Montréal graciously gave us access to the festival design files, so the scores themselves look like Pop content, despite the vague/oblique text. These scores were placed within the Art Pop and Pop Montreal websites/publications, in spaces usually reserved for advertising. We then began working with Agence TOPO, a Montreal-based new media artist-run-centre, and together created an amazing online database of all the 101 Song Scores content from our scrappy (but effective) google docs spreadsheet.
2. How did it come to light?
Michelle: Having followed each others’ practices since university, we had an interest in working together but lacked a context. Art Pop, an initiative we both wanted to submit work to, provided that context. Over yucca fries and beer we brainstormed areas in which music and art overlapped. We wanted to work within the content of the festival but in an indirect or conceptual fashion. Performance scores, text-based instructions developed through experimental music compositions but quickly adopted by visual artists, were selected as the starting point of our project.
Engaging with song lyrics as instructions seemed like a simple proposal to work with, but one that could shift away from the music towards larger issues such as the subjective interpretation of meaning, collective memory, and the role of music in social action/identity. There was also a playful “can-you-guess-that-song” element to the work that we felt would suit the diverse public of the festival.
3. Have you worked collaboratively before? What has the process been like?
Sheena: We’ve worked together on art-related coordination before, but this is our first time collaborating on a work. It went really well, especially for a process-based project that required many fast and on-the-fly decisions - always the ultimate test! I think it solidified the fact that certain elements of our practices - mainly the conceptual framing of our individual performance and intervention work, which often deals with the body, language, and emotion - overlap in ways that make collaboration quite seamless.
4. What are some of the thematics you are touching on the most with 101 song scores?
Michelle: The project is primarily about the subjective way in which we engage with “popular” western music. It is only through experience that we develop a relationship both individually and collectively with music, its lyrics and its meaning. Think of the way music often creates a brief intimate moment of connection to something also simultaneously being proposed to countless other anonymous listeners. The project however also became about how those experiences are mediated by language, action and time.
5. What do you think poses challenges for participants? I mean specifically around issues of engagement. If you could discuss this decision to make the website durational and what it represents for you that would be great.
Sheena: As we don’t have tons of experience in web-based work, we agreed keeping the site simple would be key. One thing we kept going back to was ensuring the site would highlight the, “I want all the info, and I want it all now” culture of the web. Thus the database was setup in a way that would provide access to only one score at a time, and each score would stay visible for the entire duration of the song. At the beginning the song title, artist, album, and year appears, and that info fades out about 10 seconds later. Besides that moment of contextual framing, there is no way to find more info, skip ahead, refresh, or see the database content as a whole.
Thus it sets up a decision making process for the viewer: to choose if they are going to engage, wait for the next score, or move to another site altogether. Some people have let us know that they access the work by keeping 101 Song Scores open in another tab and continuously checking back.
This is an unexpected but really interesting way of negotiating the idea of duration, as the project then exists in relation to all the other content being viewed at that moment. So the project asks if the audience will to give over their time in a way that is generally avoided online, and accept a certain lack of interactivity. I find this poignant if in relation to the minutes and hours spent tirelessly checking email, viewing status updates, searching for torrents online, etc.
6. Is this your first web-based project? What considerations did you have when constructing concepts and aesthetics within this site specific space and time?
Michelle: Yes this is the first web-based project for both of us. Sheena however, has integrated social media sites (myspace, email, etc) into previous projects.
The durational quality of the internet was something we wanted the web page to consider as it was the only space of the numerous sites 101 Song Scores occupied offering the possibility to play with time. Up until that point, the duration of the scores was proposed but never imposed. Because of the possibility of linking action to duration in a direct way, it was decided that the web page would host our database in its entirety (over 170 scores).
To keep with the conceptual concerns of the work, we wanted the database to be accessed only one action at a time, requiring that the visitor wait the time it takes to experience the proposed action before seeing the next one. To highlight this, the design was chosen to make the time-lapse or duration of each score a prominent element of the site. It was also a sort of shout out to the culture of webtime such as “death clocks”.
It was a logistical challenge to create a web space that required waiting, (ie. no refresh possibilities, no scrolling forward, no opening numerous pages to access more scores) as it goes against what the internet strives to be (interactive, immediate, controlled, etc.) We worked with Vincent Archambault who found a way to program a database of actions that are continually counting down, whether there is a public present or not.
Similar to how one might experience a video installation, the viewer comes in at a specific time but has no control (aside from waiting) as to what content they are accessing. If someone else comes in, they see the same thing and are also faced with the choice to wait and see the content or leave. Although this element of the project can be overlooked, it is to us the most successful and exciting part of the work.
7. What are the plans for the website once Pop Montréal is over?
Michelle: The project will be presented as part of Agence Topo’s open studio on Sunday, October 18th at 2 p.m. There we will be giving an artist talk and discussing 101 Song Scores. Vincent, the programmer, will also be present to answer the more technical questions.
Although the web page will remain online forever, a very generous act on the part of Agence Topo, we have yet to decided if we will continue to promote it or further develop the databases’ content. We are giving ourselves the time to get some distance and get back to our respective practices before making any final decisions.
8. What next?
Sheena: I would suggest to anyone reading this to try out creating some song scores of their own, be it by listening to their music collection, via youtube, via the radio. The whole process has really changed how I engage with lyrics, and has setup an ongoing space where I reflect on what actions I focus on, and why.
