Melting ears (on Cory Arcangel's two works)

The one I liked was this:


while the one that goes further is this:


Both are fragments of works by Cory Arcangel.
The difference between them is significant. The first one is a joke - it is a repetition, a trick played on the idea of reproduction or universality.
The other one too. But the other one moves towards something else. It provides us with the doubt as to what it should be like. I don't know Schoenberg's op. 11, 3. I might have heard it, but I'm not sure how it sounds. Yet it certainly doesn't sound like these cats. Or does it? What is it about Schoenberg that makes him sound like Schoenberg? And why do we need him to sound like Schoenberg? (Why do we call artists people who interpret in the most faithful way? And no, this is not a rhetorical question. What is it about repetition that still makes it move us aesthetically? And no, any form of the answer "the difference within the repetition" will not satisfy me as long as I keep putting the same piece on my mp3 player and enjoy it beause it is the same, and still appreciate its freshness, not its "difference".) The thing, here, is not just about the cats, it isn't the old elephant-making-oil-paintings trick. It is rather about other possibilities of listening, of paying attention, of defining what you hear. Can we hear the Schoenberg in the original cat videos? Can we hear Bach in the original music versions? The Bach composition, in that sense, says too much - it states a clear correspondence between the original YouTube videos and Bach's work. The second says less: it says "it is out there, but it's hard to say where exactly, and why exactly we would stop there". (And does it while being damn funny). And that's when our ears melt and reconsolidate, they become other ears, and other, and other. We are forced to listen to what might be there, and not what we think is there.
So why do I like the first video more? Maybe because I still enjoy what is there a lot.
Or because I'm not a fan of Schoeberg.

Cairns Artful-e: Issue 08

A Collation of Opportunities Sent Almost Every Weekfrom the good folks at Cairns Regional Council: Cultural Services & Facilities BranchCairns Festival HQ and Community Partnerships Team

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EDITION EIGHT: Summertime, Revival, Tradition...Electronic Alert for a Growing List of Creative People in and around Cairns(593 of you,

Artful-e: Issue 07

A Collation of Opportunities Sent Almost Every Weekfrom the good folks at Cairns Regional Council: Cultural Services & Facilities BranchCairns Festival HQ and Community Partnerships Team


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EDITION SEVEN: Crawling & Reinventing the Fiftieth FestivalElectronic Alert for a Growing List of Creative People

Artful-e: Issue 06

A Collation of Opportunities Sent Almost Every Weekfrom the good folks at Cairns Regional Council: Cultural Services & Facilities BranchCairns Festival HQ and Community Partnerships Unit

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EDITION SIX: Reinventing the WorldElectronic Alert for a Growing List of Creative People in and around Cairns(556 of you,

Artful-e: Issue 05

A Collation of Opportunities Sent Almost Every Weekfrom the good folks at Cairns Festival HQ and Community Partnerships UnitCairns Regional Council: Cultural Services & Facilities Branch  ******************************************************************************************** EDITION FIVE: DAY OF THANKSGIVINGof an Electronic Alert for a Growing List of Creative People in and around Cairns(514

Artful-e: Issue 04

A Collation of Opportunities Sent Almost Every Week
from the good folks at Cairns Festival HQ and Community Partnerships UnitCairns Regional Council: Cultural Services & Facilities Branch

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EDITION FOUR
of an Electronic Alert for a Growing List of Creative People in and around Cairns(445 of you, and

What you like is to look

What you like is to look.
You like to suck it up in your gaze, you like to smear your innocent mind with the flesh of sight.
What you like is to become dependent. To let go of the constructions and make them make you.
This is the universe of the aesthetic. It is where you can always find a haven. Where you can let go of your constrained negotiations with what surrounds you, and be indulged, and be spoiled, and be challenged just safely enough to get back home.
What you like is when necessity becomes an ice-cream cone. Be it vanilla-flavored or razor-edged.
What you like is the place which is a place but requires no consequences. Of you.
Where the fish sing gentle songs and have human heads and human breasts, so you can see this is not real, and you can join the part of it that is real enough to be like you.
And you can be like you. Only less conspicuous. Or less conspicuously limited to what you believe you are.
What you like is to look, to admire, to appreciate, what you like is to jump in, when you were keeping yourself outside for some absurd reason. What you like is to overcome the feeling of absurdity through the feeling of empathy. You like to believe the thing there brings you closer to the thing here. And when you're back - well, when you are back, you leave.

(The video features work by Harrisson and Wood)