INTERRUPTIONS #15. Cumulative Tails. 30.12.2013 (90′ 34”)
Courtesy of RadioWeb MACBA

Playlist [PDF]

Cumulative Tails is a pun upon the ‘cumulative tale’, where each part of a story relates to that which just preceded and followed it. This radio mix has been created using that process – a succession of audio tracks picked in conceptual relation only to that which was previously played. The mental connection could have been made by the title, lyric, melody, genre, atmosphere or something (usually) far more incongruous…

UbuWeb Link: http://www.ubu.com/sound/plu_cumulative.html

Cumulative Tails is a pun upon the ‘cumulative tale’, where each part of a story relates to that which just preceded and followed it. This radio mix has been created using that process – a succession of audio tracks picked in conceptual relation only to that which was previously played. The mental connection could have been made by the title, lyric, melody, genre, atmosphere or something (usually) far more incongruous…

Summary
While searching for material for my project Radio Boredcast (2012), I came across an episode of the KPFA radio show Ode to Gravity entitled ‘Segue Tech’. In the show the presenters choose each track they play in response to what the previous track reminds them of. ‘Segue Tech’ got me thinking about the creative process and how in my experience it’s rare that the idea arrives in advance, as an intact gift-wrapped and gleaming entity. More often, the “idea” is exposed through a series of connections made through the creative journey, as much emphasising the process as a particular destination or end product. Similarly as human beings, our knowledge and vocabulary first evolve through mimicry and then experimentation with varying of these repeated actions of mimicry. While discovering or just guessing a connection between something already known and something new or unknown we then go on to develop a vast ever-expanding web of cerebral connections, pinpointing all sorts of associations on a giant nonexistent map that may actually make no sense when looked at from a distance.

The word ‘Consequences’, has two definitions; it is the result of some previous action, and a game (aka ‘Exquisite Corpse’ by the Surrealists) in which a larger picture or narrative is created by way of assembling subject matter ‘blindly’ in relation to a small amount of information made visible before it as a continuation point. As a result, narrative/content can erratically or surprisingly, sometimes magically change over a short period of time or space, with every part still connected to what goes before or after it.

The subject of authenticity or the ‘original’ in relation to the ‘copy’ interests me as an artist working in the field of appropriation, collage and industrial folk culture. Nothing created as an object or product can be traced 100% to an origin –– everything is relative, literally – it has a mother and father. The identifying factors of an object are not central to it’s actual essence of being, and much like speed, dimensions, size, the terms are not fixed and are reliant upon the conditions of the person experiencing it, where they are and when, there is NO absolute, and this is reflected when very similar creative works occur at the same period by people who have no knowledge of each other’s works existence.

The game Consequences can be compared to the artistic process, whether that be the laying out of notes for a text, making a storyboard or the construction of a film narrative. Consequences is an index of possibilities and daydreams that in fact need no end outcome, it is all about the journey. When played as a ‘game’ it’s an entertaining way of finding out about one’s own memory, making visible the hidden patchwork quilt of an individual’s knowledge banks – hinting at how we make connections within ourselves and to each other all the time. We are able to visualise the scope for making tangents within the overall journey where every direction is permitted, and sometimes discover the limitations of our own hard circuitry (our memories). With internet search engines, forums and databases we are not limited to just our own recollection of a song or a text or a movie scene, we can search other peoples memory banks too through keyword searches – the whole of the internet is a massive thesaurus of unrealised new connections and potential creations.