Betsey Biggs: Noise to the Process

Deep Listening Retreat 2007

2007-08-15T14:09:54-04:00

It's now been a little over a week since I returned from this year's Deep Listening Retreat, and I am so glad I went. There's something about getting away from the computer and the phone, and really spending time concentrating on listening, living life more slowly, and paying attention, that helps to invigorate my life.

The retreat happens once each year, and is taught by Pauline Oliveros, Ione, and Heloise Gold. It's often held in off-the-grid New Mexico, but this year it happened to be in upstate New York at the Lifebridge Sanctuary.

For the first time, I started to hear sounds in my dreams - a wonderful, high wind chime is one I remember. And of course starting and finishing my day doing Tai Chi was amazing. I have definitely been trying to keep up the listening practice since I've been back. Last Wednesday's thunderstorm (the Brooklyn tornado) made for some extraordinary listening - loud thundercracks and varying rain speeds. I was about to say I'm sorry I didn't record it, but -- not really. I'm just glad I had the chance to listen.

This listening practice will have an effect on my dissertation chapter about listening, I'm sure. And it is helping as I prepare my piece for the Conflux Festival.

Park Bench Cinema

2007-05-11T14:09:59-04:00

It's been a long week of cranking out project proposals, artist statements, and the like. All stuff I'm really excited about (especially the LMCC workspace program) but lots of work.

I did want to mention, however, a project that I'm planning on doing for Conflux Festival, or just on my own. I'd hoped to do it for the Red Hook BWAC open studios weekend (June 9-10), but don't think I'll be able to finish one in time. Anyhow, here it is: Park Bench Cinema.

The widespread use of personal stereos has created an army of listeners navigating the city in reverie, enjoying a synaesthetic relationship between what they see and the music they hear. Such sonic mediation to the body’s experience might be thought of as a form of cinema. But such sonic mediations need not be restricted to the commercial providers of music. Sound artists might wish to take advantage of the nonchalance with which the public now synthesizes disparate sonic and visual sources into a complete, and very individual, filmic experience. And I have just the ticket.

A ticket, that is, to the Park Bench Cinema. Who wants to sit inside a movie theater on a sunny September afternoon? Why not bring the cinematic experience outside? The Park Bench Cinema consists of a series of downloadable mp3s meant to work with the ambient sonic and visual environment to create an intense filmic experience in very specific public New York City locations. There will be showtimes, naturally, where people will be expected to gather and then listen at a particular time. Of course, the on-demand crowd may desire to create their own showtimes; that’s okay too, though these ‘films’ are best experienced in groups.

This community aspect will be accentuated by a website to foster discussion of experiences, to perhaps organize further showtimes without the participation of the creator, and even to promote the creation of more Park Bench cinematic experiences by other creators.

Everything Will Be Taken Away #5

2007-05-07T20:16:31-04:00

It's almost gone. I can't even bear to post a picture.

I suppose it HAS been a week. And the henna artist was right that it would definitely be gone by the 13th. Yesterday I expressed surprise that no one was mentioning the fact that I had words written on my forehead, and a friend told me that they could easily be mistaken for a nasty rash. (Thanks, Judd). Today it's not even clear enough to be that.

I miss it. And now I wish it had stayed on longer. And I can't help but feel that the whole community aspect of this project could have been stronger. I would have liked to have felt like part of a community of people walking around with "Everything Will Be Taken Away" on their forehead. I would have liked talking to other people, at least online, about their experiences. The only reason I can think of for not including this aspect of things is to preserve a truly independent view of the message and the experience in each person.

Still: where are my peeps??

The Tristan Project

2007-05-06T11:03:15-04:00

Wow.

Yesterday, I spent five and a half hours at Avery Fisher Hall experiencing the Tristan Project, Bill Viola's rendering of Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde, with a live unstaged performance. The first act was incredible; not just in terms of how the video interacted with the music, but the spatialization of sound created by placing singers and soloists throughout the balconies. The sailor's chorus was shouting Land Ho about two feet from my right ear, and the trombones weren't far off either!

The second act was a bit weaker, and I had some real issues with the video; I suppose that Viola (who has been a huge inspiration for me) is a victim of his own success, because the video that isn't spectacular in the way we are led to expect immediately looks terrible. I'm not sure if five hours of full-on Viola hi-def video would be like too much dessert, but in my opinion juxtaposing the lower-res video didn't work at all.

But none of that matters. Because the third and final act, and the Liebestod in particular, put me into a rapture that I have not often experienced in live performances. The L.A. Philharmonic and singers (Christine Brewer as Isolde, Christian Franz (I think) as Tristan) were terrific, and the second half of the final act was transformative: as Tristan is dying and memories of his childhood and Isolde rush around him, we see Isolde walk through fire, then collapse head first into a hallucinatory pool; finally, we see Tristan's body gradually pulled up off his pallet gracefully in an upwards-flowing torrent as the "love-death motif" sung by Isolde and the orchestra floats ever-upwards.

Obviously, images of water and fire are nothing new for Bill Viola. His work has always seemed to represent the mystical questions of death (aside from all of the sadness, there's always that feeling that the whole thing is so weird, that someone can just disappear, where do they go to? etc). And Wagner's grandiosity of emotion has always been a bit much for me. In the Tristan Project, these two extremes are married; the abstraction in the video is a perfect match for the intense emotionalism of the opera.

It is the most expensive ticket I have ever purchased, but it was a cheap price to pay for a transcendent experience.

Everything Will Be Taken Away #4

2007-05-06T10:45:41-04:00

All things must pass. And this includes the reminder that everything will be taken away.

Today, for the first time, I noticed that I am fading. I noticed it even more after I took a shower. The "every" of everything is starting to be quite faint, and the whole thing is looking rather pale. To be honest, I was a little disappointed after the henna itself, which was quite dark, peeled off and left the simple red-brown stain. The whole thing reminds me a little bit of having an intense spiritual experience, and then feeling that resonance gradually leave you till in the end you wonder if you dreamed the whole thing up and you cling on to the memories of the experience that nonetheless seem to melt in your heart. Even if the whole experience was telling you not to cling. That's when you know you've lost it.

This was not actually my experience with the Everything #10 project, but it certainly reminded me of experiences like that that I've had. Perhaps the hardest part of this experience will be letting go joyfully of the tattoo.

At the same time, I definitely need it to be off by next weekend. (Yes, reality, in the form of a christening, intrudes!)

Everything Will Be Taken Away #3

2007-05-06T10:23:32-04:00

It's now the seventh day that I've had this message on my forehead, and I haven't posted nearly enough about it. There are a few assorted points I'd like to make about it. I guess I'll make them as separate posts since they are different enough in meaning. I'll start with the thing that bothers me the most.

Institutional Respectability!

It's amazing to me, that when people ask what that is on my forehead and I tell them it's an art project, their fears are only mitigated after I show them the Time Out article or tell them it's a piece by Adrian Piper or that it's being done under the auspices of Creative Time. Almost to the extent that I want to leave all that out (and I would do so, except that I feel a little weird taking credit... after all it wasn't my idea. And it's also important to the piece (I think) that there are a hundred or so people walking around having this experience). Still, the respectability afforded by institutional sponsorship annoys me a little bit. Would the project be any less interesting if it was being done by an unknown artist, without links to a well-known arts organization, and without press?

Sam Solomon Plays "Happy Idiot": Sunday, 5/6 in Boston

2007-05-03T18:42:09-04:00

Solo percussionist Sam Solomon will perform my piece "Happy Idiot" along with pieces by Marcos Balter, Judd Greenstein, Andrew Lee, and David Little. All pieces are world premieres for Sam's amazing Setup #1 project.

Sunday, May 6, 2007, 5pm
Seully Hall, Boston Conservatory
Directions: http://bostonconservatory.edu/about/directions.html
Free!

Happy Idiot was written for Sam Solomon last year. I wanted to create a musical space, a set of possibilities for Sam to play with at his own temporal pleasure, while lurching between happy idiocy and mystery, as our own lives often do. The piece is composed of musical modules, which might be thought of as narratives or memories; Sam's job is to create his own fragmented narrative by jumping amidst the notes.

Everything Will Be Taken Away #2

2007-05-03T18:30:09-04:00

I've had many thoughts about this piece over the last couple of days, but haven't had a chance till now to write them down. I will say that in general, I have found it very liberating, especially at first. It felt very much like the first time I shaved off almost all of my hair. Maybe it's just the act of daring myself to do something.

My awareness of the message -- really, of the whole situation -- was much more intense when the henna itself was still on my forehead (before it cracked off and left the stain). Because then it was much darker. I had a piece (Fragments and Rumors) performed by the Flux Quartet, Emily Eagen, Wonjung Kim and Abby Fischer at Princeton Tuesday night, and after the concert about two dozen people came up to me to say "I really enjoyed your piece... what's that tattooed on your forehead?"

Meanwhile, not one person in New York City had indicated that they noticed anything out of the ordinary. Anonymity and all that, I suppose.

Anyhow, it's interesting to see how people react -- whether they perceive the phrase as being somewhat zen or extremely nihilistic. Personally, I find it kind of liberating, actually. (Although I'm not sure if I would if really faced with ALL of it being taken away in the next, say, hour). It reminds me a bit of the death of my good friend Cassie, who drowned. I always imagined that after fighting very hard to stay alive, she had a moment when she just gracefully accepted what was happening with a openness to what would come next. I suppose I do equate the message "Everything Will Be Taken Away" with death, although in fact everything is always being taken away from us (and given back in equal measure). Very few of the cells in my current physical body were present twenty years ago, as I understand it.

Finally, about the henna. On Tuesday night I drove through a driving rainstorm from Princeton to Brooklyn, and when I arrived, without thinking, I flaked all of the henna off. Only then did I realize that I'd never taken a photo of me with it dark. And now it looked so light! You could barely read it! I felt disappointed in some way. And of course, that's symbolic too. I feel every day I am a little less cognisant of its presence. maybe I just need to look in the mirror more often. (Physically and metaphorically.)

Everything Will Be Taken Away #1

2007-05-01T13:15:59-04:00

For the next ten days or so, I will be participating in Adrian Piper's performance piece, "Everything #10." Earlier today I had the phrase EVERYTHING WILL BE TAKEN AWAY written in henna on my forehead in capital letters. I was a bit nervous. And I only want it to last for several days, not for weeks. And it turns out that the "away" slants upwards a little bit. But still, it's been an interesting experience.

Even just getting it done was interesting. I felt like I was making a commitment, no matter how temporary. Also it was quite an intimate experience to have the henna artist so close, face to face. I'm rarely that close to another human being unless it's someone I know quite well.

An important thing to know about the tattoo is that it is written backwards. It can only be read in the reflection of a mirror (or, of course, store window, puddle, etc). And so, really, this piece is not public in the sense that it will mean anything to those who see me. It really only has meaning for me as I look at my reflection. And, because this is New York, I've hardly been given an odd glance by other pedestrians, cashiers, or anyone else. But more on that later.

I was asked by a filmmaker when getting tattooed what the phrase meant to me. Initially my thought was "the present moment." But I think it's more than that and hope to clarify that idea some in the coming days. Perhaps it has more to do with concentrating on what's important. Or, perhaps, not letting the trivial things get me down. After all, life is but a dream. And everything will be taken away. Sooner or later.

The Return

2007-05-01T13:09:42-04:00

I have been meaning to post for months, and it's begun to seem overwhelming. I've had something like fifteen events in the last six months, several new pieces of music, several new pieces of art, and a very busy teaching schedule. There was so much I wanted to post about... art I saw... ideas I had... new sounds I heard. Really too much. Literally. To dig up all the old notes and type them up would take weeks. And so instead I've decided to simply start afresh, tabula rasa. And why today? Well, really two reasons.

One of them being my participation in a public art project by Adrian Piper called "Everything #10" which requires me to have the message EVERYTHING WILL BE TAKEN AWAY tattooed in henna on my forehead. Backwards, so that I can only read the message in the mirror. And I am supposed to blog about it for the next week or so while it is still visible. More on this project funded by Creative Time later.

I was also shamed into it when an old friend emailed me to say "dude, every morning i check your blog, and for two years now - nothing's new!" It's an exaggeration. But still.

So. Here I am.

Hi!