2003-06-08

 
Four Views of Collaborative Art.

While viewing a documentary about the science fiction author William Gibson, "No Maps For These Territories" (recommended), I had an idea for collaborative artistry. This could probably work with poetry or musical composition... What would occur is for one artist to write half of a poem, with very loose lines. They then would pass the lines to a comrade artist. The comrade would then treat the text as every-other line of the final poem and by this method would fill in the converse lines, forging a collaborative half-poem in a supplemental voice, spliced in like a zipper. Then, the comrade poet would extendthe poem, but reversing the role, and instead would construct the latter half of the poem by writing a new loose framework. The text would finally be returned to the original poet, who would then splice conclusionary lines into the frame of the second half of the poem. The poem would, in its construction, be a mirror image of collaboration. It is curious to wonder if a style or intent of the poem would thus be pivoted across the median. There would likely be vectors of voice pointing in multiple directions, but for the uninformed the poem would coalesce into a complete whole work.

A similar experiment could be done with collaborative music (one composer builds half of a loose piece, the second layers on top of the piece and then continues the piece onward symmetrically, and then the extension is filled in by the original artist).

Another experiment of collaborative music composition that I once envisioned (inspired by John Scofield's interpretation of the hippy-funk band, Deep Banana Blackout, "bump") would involve interpretations or remixes. A musician or band would compose a piece to their satisfaction, then give it to a musical peer of theirs who would then reinterpret, remix, or cover the piece. Then, the remix would be fed back to the original band who would reinterpret, remix, or cover the altered piece. To fill in the balance, this would be done a separate second time with reversed roles, and a 6-song 12" ep (for instance) could be released with each project on one side. This has been done to a similar extent with the band Cerberus Shoal, as they are releasing a series of ep's that collaborate with musicians such as Alan Bishop of Sun City Girls, and Magic Carpathians. I have not seen this sort of project enacted anywhere else; please direct me if you know of any.

One final permutation of this collaborative zipper art form would be something any person could do. I have in the past attempted to make a mix compilation with my friend Jonathan Forgang. In this experiment, we intended to make a mix tape by adding a song each, piece by piece. Jonathan would tape the first song and then he would hand me the tape and I would listen to the song and search for the perfect compliment song to add to the tape. We would then keep passing the tape back and forth until it was completed. There would be a logical flow from song to song, but it would be a collaborative effort, and the direction of artistry would zig-zag throughout. With hope, the two visions might merge into one to produce a common or hybid effect. Jonathan and I never completed this project (in fact, Jonathan, you owe me a blank tape!) and if anyone desires to carry out such a project with me, I would be eager to do this.
posted by MM 2:14 AM