Wellington Composer, Rhian Sheehan

Straight up, this is a little ridiculous.

 (Their family is nuts...seriously though they're all musically on crack.)

Here's some music for ya'll to study to. Get those Curate and Critique's done!

In first year at Elam I took NZ Music as a General Ed and it was a BRILLIANT paper.

Our musical history from rock n roll to pop, through to our contemporary composers-just to name a few- is really interesting!

Tracks like Nusquam (the second from the top), are a massive influence on my making. As a musician listening to instrumental music, with a narrative within the composition of the instruments is an incredible learning experience. As a theatre geek and film fanatic, music is the addition of another dimension. As an art maker, it's an inspiration source and a place where emotion is evoked from the subconscious. I enjoy the narrative within these pieces and the use of different instruments to create bodies.

Performance is something I have heavily studied this year and with that came the notion of using voice as a medium. I haven't worked it out fully but it's always been something in the back of my mind and I continue to read about performance, about music within performance, about voice and body within a contemporary art context.
At talk week, as I ended the performance with an acapella piece called 'Cheerleader' by the artist St. Vincent (Annie Clark), people from the other side of the studio and even outside came over to my performance space. I was so interested in this. How the voice carries and calls. What does it evoke in people that they gravitate towards a voice. Is it nostalgia? Is it curiosity?
Does the voice, a singing voice, have a sort of power, for lack of a better word.

I became interested in protest songs; the songs of men and women across the Middle East, which this year has been filled with protest and riot. Our own little courntry too, whose University protests I attended. Both very different but the use of voice, as a collective this time, is key.

Sheehan's music however uses little to no voice, but he's an incredible composer. The instruments sing for themselves.

Rashid Johnson makes 'Things to Put Things On'

Rashid Johnson's practice is based around domestics and the everyday, as well as ideas of Escapism. Incorporated into work surrounded by dialogue of afrofuturism and "afroscism", Johnson creates a work of, things to put things on. Tables, desks, shelves, etc.

SUPER cool work, and a super cool guy.

Andy had actually been talking to me about building shelves to put 'things' on.
Like a collectors exhibition.

Rammellzee

BATTLE STATION, 2011

I Know Girls (Body Love) - Mary Lambert

If there's a song you gotta listen to, it's this one.^
I say this because I appreciate what Lambert is talking about, obviously, being a girl etc.
But it's true, the morphing of the female in this world is strange and it links closely, I think, with technological growth and how we, as women, as young adults, as people, relate to ourselves. Both outside and inside the computer or our phones or whatever.

Listen to more below.
It's spoken word, but Lambert is also an incredible singer. Featuring in the song "Same Love", a few posts below. 

Mariele Neudecker

Mariele Neudecker talks about her work, 'Heaven the Sky'.

Awesome piece! They're like little fish tanks with water all the way to the top, with fiberglass, spray painted mountains. Watch what she does next though that takes it to the next level of coooool.

What she speaks about also, in terms of viewership and perception, and painting too!

'Bird in Hand' Ellen Gallagher

It strikes a chord because it reminds me of drawings I do. I feel like there's no substitute for the original of this, I want to see more but the pictures never do it justice.

This brings back the question of narrative, and how it can be done in [my]work... cos I think i've avoided it for a while.

picture from: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gallagher-bird-in-hand-t12450

FORWARD

Have you read the YouTube comments lately
"Man that's gay"
Gets dropped on the daily
We've become so numb to what we're sayin'
Our culture founded from oppression
Yeah, we don't have acceptance for 'em
Call each other faggots
Behind the keys of a message board
A word routed in hate
Yet our genre still ignores it
Gay is synonymous with the lesser
It's the same hate that's caused wars from religion
Gender and skin color
Complexion of your pigment
The same fight that lead people to walk-outs and sit-ins
It's human rights for everybody
There is no difference