When I invent rain: how much do you want to know about an artwork?

I love knowing how art (visual, musical, literary) is made. What the process was. How the materials were chosen or came about. What the guiding thoughts behind the aesthetic and so on.

But at the same time, I often resist knowing this and want to come to work on its (and my own) terms. Allow the work to tell me what it is.

Sometimes, the process, the means of performance, the “backstory” is an essential part of the work’s meaning, aesthetic or point of view and so of course I want to know the details.

However, I resist reading the little cards in an art museum until I’ve looked at the work and then I read them and reconsider my viewing experience in light of the information.

Certainly its useful for other creators to know and perhaps how a work was made but often the information gets in the way. Sometimes, it offers clues to the audience as to how to think of the work.

So what about this video that I’ve posted below.

I recorded some el cheapo broken student violin. I played a wonky zither (both plucking and bowing it.) Then I slowed down some of the violin sounds. And finally added alto recorder. Of course, I added some digital processing — some reverb and echo effects to make the audio sound good.

And then I found a text file on my computer which had a bunch of poetry material collaged together. I then further randomized the lines and edited them, moving some around, changing some, removing some others. And so I arrived at the poetic text.

I tried videoing me drawing with a thick pencil around some stones but it didn’t look very interesting, so instead I filmed the rocks in close-up, slowly. I slowed the video down even more and then combined the three elements: the music, the text and the video.

I found it the mix of sound, scrolling text (using a fake old typewriter font) and the visuals to be satisfying. Usually inscrutable and ambiguous.

I did think about what the experience of someone watching the text might be. The slow visuals and the non-developmental music, the ambiguous text. And I thought about what the experience might be if encountered online, which I know is different than say, experiencing the work in a gallery or cinema aka biosphere, as my South African granny would say.)

I think in this work, I’m interested in a slow yet rich experience for the viewer, one that asks questions while keeping the viewer engaged in its play of signs. What is happening? What is being said? How does it feel? What does this say about making art and art itself? How is this like or not like the world or my experience of the world? What do I notice? What thought, feelings, experience, tactility, does this work bring up for me?