Jack Centro

A polar opposite to my first idea, I am drawn to this one for its more lighthearted nature. I don’t know why but sometimes I really want to move away from the doom and despair of the contemporary art world and my own personal work. I guess it would be nice to present something that is fun and engaging.

1. This idea stems from a previous Idea I had for an installation last year, although I still plan on attempting the one I devised in year one, for the purpose of time that will continue to remain in my head. Having aways been fond of family trees and genealogy, I would like to create an aural family tree in the form of cassettes. Each cassette attributed to a single member of my family, displayed on a wall in the style of a large family tree. The audience will be invited to take any cassette they like and listen to it with headphones on. Each cassette will contain my family member discussing a number of questions I have proposed to them. I also like the idea of letting each relative add something to the tape-ie there favourite songs (probably played through there phone?). Living in the modern age, I feel we should make more an effort to preserve snippets of our lives for future relatives long after we have gone. With the emergence of DNA testing and genealogy interest, we should be documenting our own lives in a personal way, not just hoping our great-great-great grandkids stumble across our instagram accounts. Obviously this is a rather personal piece and don’t expect the audience to take much away sonically, for the voices are for me and my family. Instead the installation, I hope, will underline the need to voice everyone. Everyone has a voice and a life, and it seems sad that most of us will eventually become washed away with time. Okay so that also got very depressing again, this is not my intention–this should be a celebration of life and the many people that surround us, using cassettes and headphones will make the piece intimate.
2. For family members that have passed away, these tapes will be shorter, but I would like to try and find old video recordings or something which I can re-record onto the tape. This may not be possible.

For the upcoming installation/assessment I have a number of potential ideas floating around my head. I know that I would like to experiment with physical objects, primarily turntables for that is where most of my interest lies. I would also like to expand my artistic output and use a more hands on, DIY approach rather than being locked into a DAW, or attempting to create a spatial piece.

1. IDEA ONE- Continuing with my interest in Auto-Destructive art, I have devised a hands on installation, controlled by the audience. Essentially, I want to re-evaluate the phrase; ‘separating the art from the artist’, instead asking ‘should we separate the art from the artist?’ For many of my favourite musical artists and some of the most loved by the general populace, have in fact committed horrendous crimes–many related to physical, mental and sexual abuse. Which I find weird considering almost all of these artists still receive airplay, still put out music and are revered to a godly status. However, in the real world these people would be shunned by society or in prison, yet many exist outside the ‘real world’. The installation I’m proposing would consist of a simple x2 turntable setup (on a table) with a mixer in the middle, and two stereo speakers at roughly headlight on either side. Either on the floor on a table next to the setup is a record box filled with records from the highly questionable artists. The audience will then be invited to chose any record they like and play it on either turntable. One turntable will play the record perfectly the other a custom designed tone arm and needle that in-fact scratches the record. I do like the idea of having an almost ‘choose your weapon’ table, maybe a number of custom tone arms that destroy the record in different ways–left to be chosen by the audience. I like the idea of having details about each artists criminality described on the back of each record sleeve, hopefully giving the audience a deeper insight into the artist. Forcing them to decide whether ‘they want and should separate the art from the artist’ by choosing which turntable to play said record on.

Here is a list of some of the artists I have in mind;

• Michael Jackson
• Jimmy Page
• R Kelly
• James Levine
• Miles Davis
• Morrissey
• James Brown
• Mark Kozelek
• Chris Brown

Let it all out

My proposal for the Gallery 46 exhibition is a subtle spatial piece located within the small downstairs toilet. I am particular drawn to this space for it is small and compact, and being a toilet (I’m presuming), will be used one at a time. Thus offering the ‘user’ a more personal and potentially striking listening session compared to the larger rooms where multiple audience members will be–they can shut the door, stand up, sit down, the cubical seems an odd choice but I like the idea of seclusion. The plan is to utilise the power and size of the Raspberry PI4 computer, which can be tucked underneath the toilet or taped to the wall in the bottom corner of the room. Connected to the PI4 will be an amplifier and from this two small speakers. I did originally consider four speakers but I feel the wires will get in the way and being a toilet there is a duty of care for health and safety. Two speakers in the corner of the rooms will then emit two looping track stems with a lengthy interval between playback. I would like an interval so not everyone will experience the piece, only a few will hear it. The piece itself will be focused on vocals and speech, whispers and breaths and un-natural sounding vocal experiments, recorded by myself and flatmates, used to create a hypnotic/barely audible piece. My intention is to make the user/listener question if they really heard anything at all.

LOCATION: Downstairs Toilet

EQUIPMENT:

• Raspberry PI4
• x2 Small Speaker Drivers-varying in size
• Mini Amp with Outputs
• X2 speaker cable