"Masked Ball" Jocelyn Pook-Flood

This afternoon against my better judgement I took a stroll down to MoMA simply because I haven't been there in quite some time. I despise going on the weekends because it is crowded and there are always bratty kids running around and tons of Eurotrash tourists practicing their own art which they are quite adept at, getting in the way and being rude. It never ceases to amaze me how terrible it is on the weekends and how rude people are, standing in front of you, talking on the phone, taking pictures with huge Hubble Space Telescope-like lenses and flashes...

But this afternoon it was different, all the above was there but I was presently surprised at the performance art in the main space, a work by Marina Abramovic. Marina is widely known as one of the founders of the genre and some of her past expositions involved her putting herself into a coma and Rhythm 0, from Wikipedia:

Abramović had placed upon a table 72 objects that people were allowed to use (a sign informed them) in any way that they chose. Some of these were objects that could give pleasure, while others could be wielded to inflict pain, or to harm her. Among them were scissors, a knife, a whip, and, most notoriously, a gun and a single bullet. For six hours the artist allowed the audience members to manipulate her body and actions. “The experience I learned was that…if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed.” ... “I felt really violated: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the public. Everyone ran away, escaping an actual confrontation.

This time around she is sitting at a table staring, she is there from the time the museum opens until closing and she remains basically motionless the entire time. Anyone can sit down and stare back at her if they chose so. When one gets up to leave she lowers her head until the next person assumes the seat and she looks up, the blinking of her eyes the only movement.

While all this is going on there is music in the background, I am not sure if it is Jocelyn Pook but the eeriness of the sounds and the circumstances reminds me of one of her most popular songs which was used in a popular film released years ago. I won't mention the film, in doing so I would change your opinion of what you are reading here and the work described above. Nonetheless the scene in that film is just as creepy and unsettling as what I witnessed today, I couldn't imagine how strange it would be to be there when the museum was basically empty, but I plan to find out this week early in the morning on a weekday.

As for this song Miss Pook took a fragment of an Orthodox Liturgy and played it backwards, then added Romanian chants over it on another track. The feeling derived from it is unique to say the least. It is walking into a pitch black room and hearing a noise, its someone dressed up as Hitler with a clown mask on watering the lawn or a baby talking with a man's voice. You don't know what it is exactly but something just doesn't make sense. Musicians have been doing this for years, check out Arvo Part or Stockhausen, arranging music in a way totally foreign to our ears, especially for Americans.

That is the reason why Indian or Asian music is so strange, it runs on a different meter, tonal scale and tempo. Whether it is Blues, Rock, Soul, Reggae...whatever they all fit into a very small spectrum of music, music we have heard since birth. Like Abramovic's performance today, Pooks work steps outside the realm of the everyday, out of the banal and into a world most people are not familiar with. Whether you think it is over intellectual bullshit or the Mona Lisa and Symphony No. 5 of the modern world you can't argue that it hits something somewhere and some place you have never been touched.

Often I take flak from people in regards to my musical tastes and knowledge because in appearance I stick to a limited catalogue of genres and schools. They say that I should open up my experiences and dive into others, meaning: I should listen to the music they like. Then when I ask them about Pook or Stockhausen they give me that look like the dog does when it catches you and your other half in between the sheets. Come back and explain to me the Spatialization and Electroacoustic theories of music and maybe I'll start giving Pink a little more time on my iPod, though probably not because she is shit.