jason sloan's Nomination | Baker Artist Awards

jason sloan

VOTE FOR
jason sloan

The 5 artists who receive the most amount of votes win Peoples Choice.
Click here to vote for jason.

WATCH
jason sloan

Add to your private list of artists you wish to keep track of. Click here to include jason on your "watch" list

FAVORITE
jason sloan

Share your favorite artists with the public. Click here to add jason to your list of 21 favorite artists.

MORE ABOUT
jason sloan

Click here for details about jason including bio information, resume, and more.

SOCIAL [net.work music]

About this Project

Drawing influence from both contemporary DJ culture and the Fluxus musicial traditions of artists like Ben Vautier and John Cage, SOCIAL [net.work music] is a new improvised network sound project and performance which utilizes the MySpace Music social network as its core sound library.

Recently, I’ve been interested in the the aural connections created through the MySpace Music social network. By navigating the “Friends Space” link section on each member’s page, reminiscent of web 1.0 webrings, the user can access an interconnected network of each artists influences, friends and label mates, allowing them to discover new artists and different genres of music. Most of the pages feature a jukebox with samples of the musicians work which automatically begin to play once the page has finished loading.

The SOCIAL [net.work music] project and performance begins on my own MySpace Music page. I select at random an artist from my “Friends Space” list and allow the page to load. Once the music begins to play, i select a friend link from that artist’s list and open the page in a new tab. This permits the music to layer over top of the previous track. The process continues until, eventually from the inability to handle the incoming data load, the browser crashes, bringing the composition to an end.

Each performance yields a spontaneous and unique, layered score without the use of sample preparation, sophisticated hardware or software. All of the resulting audio produced in each performance is unedited and live in the moment. These works can be created and performed anywhere at anytime with simply a web browser and internet connection. I sculpt the layered audio on my end with a hacked kaoss pad, to add my own color to the sonic collage.

SOCIAL [net.work music] was performed and broadcast live on the internet from 8-9pm June 25, 2009. Following the performance I transcribed a written “score” for each of the four movements that were created.

Categories

Visual Arts
Performing Arts
Sound Arts
New Forms

Keywords

sound art Fluxus appropriation electronic music

LIVE on StillStream Radio 6/27/09

FIELDS 2.0

About this Project

ABOUT FIELDS 2.0:

The FIELD series explores the visual and aural metamorphous of landscape in three different fields. Each work is titled with the longitude and latitude coordinates which generated the photographs and ultimately its accompanying soundtrack.

I’ve always been drawn to open remote spaces since I was very young. Growing up in the country I would lay in a huge field near my parents house looking towards the sky watching airplanes fly overhead. I’d imagine myself on board, not caring where they were going. At the time, it was the only thing that allowed me an opportunity to escape feeling trapped in the middle of nowhere. This became a very sacred space and a refuge. After moving away for college, I found myself attracted to another field that ironically, was directly across from the residence hall I was living in. I began to have paranormal experiences while living there and through further investigation pin pointed them to the field. This really peaked my interest in the paranormal sciences, which had always been there but was dormant for while. A few years later, I came across some photos of Stonehenge in Wiltshire England, and became very curious about the huge field across from the henge and the numerous burial mounds located there. Many of these mounds have now been flattened by ploughing over the years but some impressive barrow cemeteries can still be seen there. When I visited these barrows for the first time last summer, I was immediately taken by the scale. After spending sometime in this FIELD, I began to think how the landscape of this space has changed over the years, but yet certain elements both visible and invisible remain constant. After this trip, it became pretty clear to me that these three fields have played a rather large roll in my life. It was at that point I decided to create a series work which explored the visual, sonic and spiritual properties of these spaces and their evolutions.

The process for the FIELDS series begins by visiting the site and spending some time there to familiarize or re.familiarize myself with the location. I then use a Marantz portable solid state recorder with a couple high end stereo microphones and recorded about 2 hours of audio from different locations within the field. I also took as many photographs as I could to create a visual record of the location during the time I was there. For the field across from my former residence hall where I had many paranormal experiences, I conducted two separate recording sessions. The first was for a few hours during the day and the second was in the evening. For the recordings at night, I conducted a three hour EVP session from 11pm until 2am. After parsing through all the data, I use a variety of software applications, both pre written and custom, that allow me to extract or convert the images into audio. This concept is interesting to me because many cultures believe photographs capture a part of our soul or the energy of a space. So maybe this is one method of extracting the energy, literally or conceptually. During the recording where I conducted an EVP session, I did capture some rather interesting, unexplained audio, I did not hear at the time. For this FIELD work, I’ve embedded the recording into the final work as looping subliminal audio that only the subconscious may hear.

The photographs which were used to generate the audio for each of the three works, are presented in three individual back lit light boxes. The unique appearance of these images was the result of the extraction process. Each image can be read almost as a score.

The audio generated from each image is presented in the gallery on an analogue cassette. The decision to use cassettes seemed like the only logical choice in attempting to re.create this “constant evolution.” An analogue recording is more malleable because of it’s susceptibility to change. Each time the cassette is played, re.wound or fast forwarded, the actual tape is stretched, altering its content slightly. because each transcription device used to playback the content is different, the alteration that occurs is unique for each individual listener. This process is not true with optical or digital recordings. therefore, the deterioration which occurs, eventually makes each listening experience very unique. just as any experience in a shared space yields a different response to every visitor.

jason.sloan
august 2008