Jason Sweeney is seeking admissions and submissions from a willing public: recorded and/or written stories, sounds, noise, anecdotes, nightmares and confessionals about failed attempts at living a life online.
Part One of the Faceless Music project is entitled: Alone & Lonely. It is about building an anti-social networking environment, devoid of faces, emptied of visual stimulation.
Some questions to consider:
When living a life on the internet, what kind of connections, good or bad or indifferent, do you make? Do you make real friends or imaginary ones? Do you make love online? Is there flesh contact or constant ether? Did you think you knew someone, only to find out a) they didn't exist in the first place or b) were constantly telling lies? Do you feel more connected or more isolated when socialising on the inter-web?
This material will then be gathered as a kind of sonic library to be developed in 2009 into an audio-museum installation, performance work and cd/dvd release.
All material will remain anonymous.
HOW TO SUBMIT:
Email your recordings (mp3), video links, texts, music/sound/songs or any media fragments to:
OR
Become a group member and post to this faceless facebook page:
++++++
Initial research, composition and project work to be made as part of an Inter-arts Office Self-Initiated Residency at CIA Studios, Perth WA, Australia (November 2008 - January 2009). http://www.ciastudios.com.au
This project is being assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Presented by Unreasonable Adults.
Project space > http://www.faceless-music.net
Well then
A mobile degustation across Glebe and Newtown has left me stuffed and buggered. Fortunately I was wearing an excellent hat for most of the journey, the power of hats is not to be underestimated.
By christ you should have seen us
Breaking news: Gemma is shutting down Gempires.
Gemma used to exist for me as the alphabet rearranged and the vague memory of a woman sitting behind a desk on a panel at TINA. I sat in that audience and heard her speak and thought "Blog? What is blog?".
I found Gempires about a year later just when my life got smashed with a hammer and as I read Gemma's words I thought I could do that and so I did. At first it was an involuntary exhalation, a daily reminder to keep breathing and then it changed and I used this space to make a map of my existence as proof, for myself, that I was real.
People started reading my blog, I don't know how, I suspect that the link on Gempires was the cause of it. My soy cheese tastes of vinegar, this is not related to Gempires. This blog used to be the result of things but now sometimes it is the cause. It is the reason that Gemma suggested we meet for a drink when she came to visit Sydney last year, it is the reason Gemma now exists for me as a whole and wondrous human. It is the reason I had phone sex with a man I'd never met, had no less than five separate strangers write to me and tell me that I should kill myself. It is the reason I met the excellent Superman, I have eaten my very own packet of Dale Biscuits, performed social experiments on myself, been stalked, had enormous fallings out with people and been recognised by strangers in the street. Once a woman had a blog that seemed almost entirely devoted to slagging off both Gemma and myself. To say that these results are unexpected would be an enormous understatement.
Gemma did warn me, she told me how my freedom in this space would shrink. She told me how people would overreact when I write about them, how people would assume the worst. She was right, my freedom here is diminished, Artboy saw to that, then Elliot, then almost everyone I know found their way here some way or another even Superman has misunderstood my meaning but here I am typing into white void with my hair wrapped in a towel and a cigarette burning in the ashtray, just like at the beginning. Right now this blog is not my reason to breathe but I need it still, could not manage without these unedited spontaneous words and for that Gemma I thank you.
Gemma used to exist for me as the alphabet rearranged and the vague memory of a woman sitting behind a desk on a panel at TINA. I sat in that audience and heard her speak and thought "Blog? What is blog?".
I found Gempires about a year later just when my life got smashed with a hammer and as I read Gemma's words I thought I could do that and so I did. At first it was an involuntary exhalation, a daily reminder to keep breathing and then it changed and I used this space to make a map of my existence as proof, for myself, that I was real.
People started reading my blog, I don't know how, I suspect that the link on Gempires was the cause of it. My soy cheese tastes of vinegar, this is not related to Gempires. This blog used to be the result of things but now sometimes it is the cause. It is the reason that Gemma suggested we meet for a drink when she came to visit Sydney last year, it is the reason Gemma now exists for me as a whole and wondrous human. It is the reason I had phone sex with a man I'd never met, had no less than five separate strangers write to me and tell me that I should kill myself. It is the reason I met the excellent Superman, I have eaten my very own packet of Dale Biscuits, performed social experiments on myself, been stalked, had enormous fallings out with people and been recognised by strangers in the street. Once a woman had a blog that seemed almost entirely devoted to slagging off both Gemma and myself. To say that these results are unexpected would be an enormous understatement.
Gemma did warn me, she told me how my freedom in this space would shrink. She told me how people would overreact when I write about them, how people would assume the worst. She was right, my freedom here is diminished, Artboy saw to that, then Elliot, then almost everyone I know found their way here some way or another even Superman has misunderstood my meaning but here I am typing into white void with my hair wrapped in a towel and a cigarette burning in the ashtray, just like at the beginning. Right now this blog is not my reason to breathe but I need it still, could not manage without these unedited spontaneous words and for that Gemma I thank you.
Not Quite Art
Series 2 of Not Quite Art airs on Aunty tonight at 10pm. I recommend wearing a t-shirt and smoking a cigar to enhance your television viewing experience, encourage depth of thought and provide an attractive smoke screen between you and the world.
Here is a piece Marcus wrote in relation to this episode.
Here is a piece Marcus wrote in relation to this episode.
Everybody must wear hats
There should be more words in here but I'm summoning sleep and similes in equal measure. Yesterday I slid down a plastic tube and I could have sworn I had more words in here. Bath salts, pterodactyl, fruit toast, one of these things is not like the others. It is best before sleep to smoke as many cigarettes as possible, this I solemnly swear.
If it was only about reclaiming space then I would wear my fighter jet pilot's helmet and walk in circles but its not about that. What I want tastes less like toothpaste. If there was water I would drink it. I'm not meandering around thoughts, these words are unconnected to anything except sounds. I'm wondering who decided that cities should have an absence of night, they keep it at bay with electric lights on tall posts as though we couldn't find our own way, as though periodic modern miracles erected on high will keep us safe from each other. I want to talk to strangers and link arms in our common journeys homeward bound. These words are unconnected to thoughts or all those minutes tied one after the other while I dressed and worked and bent forwards with a bowl for the cat.
If it was only about reclaiming space then I would wear my fighter jet pilot's helmet and walk in circles but its not about that. What I want tastes less like toothpaste. If there was water I would drink it. I'm not meandering around thoughts, these words are unconnected to anything except sounds. I'm wondering who decided that cities should have an absence of night, they keep it at bay with electric lights on tall posts as though we couldn't find our own way, as though periodic modern miracles erected on high will keep us safe from each other. I want to talk to strangers and link arms in our common journeys homeward bound. These words are unconnected to thoughts or all those minutes tied one after the other while I dressed and worked and bent forwards with a bowl for the cat.
Like hot coffee down the front of my shirt
I wanted to prop him up against cushions and make pot after pot of tea or make him run down the street while I chased him with a tranquilizer dart, instead I sat in The Townie drinking and talking watching the information slide over him like sandpaper.
I kept quoting poetry and telling endless boring anecdotes about solving word puzzles waiting for him to flinch or stand and suddenly turn over tables and throw glasses like bullets but he sat like a statue while the information slid over him like sandpaper.
I kept quoting poetry and telling endless boring anecdotes about solving word puzzles waiting for him to flinch or stand and suddenly turn over tables and throw glasses like bullets but he sat like a statue while the information slid over him like sandpaper.
A Nice Cup of Tea
By George Orwell
Evening Standard, 12 January 1946.
If you look up 'tea' in the first cookery book that comes to hand you will probably find that it is unmentioned; or at most you will find a few lines of sketchy instructions which give no ruling on several of the most important points.
This is curious, not only because tea is one of the main stays of civilization in this country, as well as in Eire, Australia and New Zealand, but because the best manner of making it is the subject of violent disputes.
When I look through my own recipe for the perfect cup of tea, I find no fewer than eleven outstanding points. On perhaps two of them there would be pretty general agreement, but at least four others are acutely controversial. Here are my own eleven rules, every one of which I regard as golden:
- First of all, one should use Indian or Ceylonese tea. China tea has virtues which are not to be despised nowadays — it is economical, and one can drink it without milk — but there is not much stimulation in it. One does not feel wiser, braver or more optimistic after drinking it. Anyone who has used that comforting phrase 'a nice cup of tea' invariably means Indian tea.
- Secondly, tea should be made in small quantities — that is, in a teapot. Tea out of an urn is always tasteless, while army tea, made in a cauldron, tastes of grease and whitewash. The teapot should be made of china or earthenware. Silver or Britanniaware teapots produce inferior tea and enamel pots are worse; though curiously enough a pewter teapot (a rarity nowadays) is not so bad.
- Thirdly, the pot should be warmed beforehand. This is better done by placing it on the hob than by the usual method of swilling it out with hot water.
- Fourthly, the tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right. In a time of rationing, this is not an idea that can be realized on every day of the week, but I maintain that one strong cup of tea is better than twenty weak ones. All true tea lovers not only like their tea strong, but like it a little stronger with each year that passes — a fact which is recognized in the extra ration issued to old-age pensioners.
- Fifthly, the tea should be put straight into the pot. No strainers, muslin bags or other devices to imprison the tea. In some countries teapots are fitted with little dangling baskets under the spout to catch the stray leaves, which are supposed to be harmful. Actually one can swallow tea-leaves in considerable quantities without ill effect, and if the tea is not loose in the pot it never infuses properly.
- Sixthly, one should take the teapot to the kettle and not the other way about. The water should be actually boiling at the moment of impact, which means that one should keep it on the flame while one pours. Some people add that one should only use water that has been freshly brought to the boil, but I have never noticed that it makes any difference.
- Seventhly, after making the tea, one should stir it, or better, give the pot a good shake, afterwards allowing the leaves to settle.
- Eighthly, one should drink out of a good breakfast cup — that is, the cylindrical type of cup, not the flat, shallow type. The breakfast cup holds more, and with the other kind one's tea is always half cold before one has well started on it.
- Ninthly, one should pour the cream off the milk before using it for tea. Milk that is too creamy always gives tea a sickly taste.
- Tenthly, one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some fairly strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument is unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.
- Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tealover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.
Some people would answer that they don't like tea in itself, that they only drink it in order to be warmed and stimulated, and they need sugar to take the taste away. To those misguided people I would say: Try drinking tea without sugar for, say, a fortnight and it is very unlikely that you will ever want to ruin your tea by sweetening it again.
These are not the only controversial points to arise in connexion with tea drinking, but they are sufficient to show how subtilized the whole business has become. There is also the mysterious social etiquette surrounding the teapot (why is it considered vulgar to drink out of your saucer, for instance?) and much might be written about the subsidiary uses of tealeaves, such as telling fortunes, predicting the arrival of visitors, feeding rabbits, healing burns and sweeping the carpet. It is worth paying attention to such details as warming the pot and using water that is really boiling, so as to make quite sure of wringing out of one's ration the twenty good, strong cups of that two ounces, properly handled, ought to represent.
Dale for a day
Today I decided to be Dale for a day, overall I found it to be exceedingly boring, there was far too much typing involved for my liking. One highlight was sitting in a massage chair in a shopping centre after sweaty exertions on a treadmill listening to The Who's Magic Bus on repeat. I then walked around in stripy socks thinking about taking a bird onto a submarine, like I said, its exceedingly boring being Dale for a day. Tomorrow I shall try and be someone else, someone shorter.
Try the next room Mr Jones
I'm waiting for something, a change, a crash, a sudden urge to remove my teeth but nothing is happening, not even the smell of my shampoo. There is a blankness to this time, an inability to think further forward than an hour and I'm wondering if this is a facsimile of suburban bliss with my television and broccoli and an absence of intrusion.
I'll turn in my sleep tonight, you can remember how I washed the dishes. I'll turn in my sleep tonight, sliding knee and hip before shoulder. I won't remember the pattern of my breathing.
I'll turn in my sleep tonight, you can remember how I washed the dishes. I'll turn in my sleep tonight, sliding knee and hip before shoulder. I won't remember the pattern of my breathing.
Science
Chemical accountability never seems to account for it. I could walk you through the process, sign, signifier, chemical release.
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