THE WHITE CUBE REMIX -- ARTIST STATEMENT

Sackjo22 & Gurdonark

OUR CONCEPT

We started with a conceptual conversation about the architectural concept of the "white cube" and what emerged is a study in the transformative power of light as expressed via interpersonal connection as manifest in collaborative music.


"The White Cube" is a traditional architectural construct that implies through the use of simple lines, white walls, specific placement of entry ways, lights, etc. a neutral environment is created that supports the optimal conditions for the encounter between the perceiver and the work being perceived in the gallery space. Architect Rolf Gerstlauer, who is assisting with curation of this RAM Gallery anniversary exhibition, suggests the time has come to explode "the white cube" -- to expand the concept of the neutral viewing space to a space that encourages relationship and connection to the larger world, the world outside the pristine space of the gallery or museum.


One way in which "the white cube" can be opened is through the use of light which can completely alter the gallery experience. As Professor Gerstlauer suggests, the quality of the light itself can be a medium of "...transition, transmitting, transformation, transmutation and transcendence." Traditionally, light in the gallery setting is used to enhance the art on display. Here, the atmosphere and mood created by the light are integral to the experience of the space. "Light is the matter that has the power to explode the space -- or have it implode on itself."

Light also comes into "the white cube" through other mediums that foster a shift in awareness and perspective, so that the energy within the space vibrates with possibility.

The concept of "light" is a central theme in much of Sackjo22's work. She reflects and explores the meaning of "light" in broad strokes: light as inspiration, divinity, and vitality. Light is the spark of recognition, the illumination of understanding, the clarity one experiences when one feels connection. The theme of "light" is central to The White Cube Remix project.

The intention of The White Cube Remix project is to facilitate the explosion of the white cube by using sound and relationship as manifest in the collaborative efforts of a musical community as a means of expanding the gallery experience. It is a soundtrack to the exploration of what it means to be bound by our constructs, how to liberate ourselves from our preconceptions and fixed ideas, how to redefine a space -- literally and figuratively -- that hosts an experience.


OUR METHODOLOGY


SackJo22 and Gurdonark worked together as the coordinators of this ambitious work to engage the musical community of ccmixter.org in creating a sonic installation that would both reflect the light of connection and facilitate the explosion of the "white cube" by bringing an international community into the gallery space.

The foundation of the sonic installation is source material created by SackJo22 and Gurdonark. SackJo22 wrote and recorded The White Cube poem. Gurdonark wrote an ambient musical composition he calls Winter Lights in honor of December in Norway. He also provided a set of sound samples of other music suitable for a soundtrack to an art exhibit. We posted our source samples on ccmixter.org and then invited the mixters of that international musical community to create music using our samples.

In keeping with the spirit of ccmixter.org, each mixter was encouraged to use the samples as so inspired, transforming the sound and tone of the music as she or he pleased. Each song would be licensed with a Creative Commons license so that it could be freely shared, and each song would be released for free download. Thus, The White Cube Remix, as with all things mixter-esque, would be liberated from the "white cube" of permissions and restrictions.

The White Cube Remix songs were prepared in less than thirty days. They run the gamut of musical styles and ideas. They were created by mixters in numerous countries, in diverse genres, without sharply defined guidelines. The enthusiastic response of the international ccmixter.org community to this project is a beautiful example of the light of connection, as the artists share their musical interpretation of the various concepts explored in this project.

We hope that our sound of light will be a transforming element in the RAM Gallery space that will help explode "the white cube" by bringing into the space the vitality of the international community of ccMixter.org which connects over space and time to create music in a virtual environment that encourages a culture of open sharing, respect and relationship. And while we offer in this artist statement no definitive conclusions, and no casual certainties, we do offer a thought, however -- perhaps one part of creating a new construct is to leave behind the old notions of what is "the done thing' -- and instead, and quite simply, it is a good thing to share.

MORE ABOUT ccMixter.org

The term "collective" often is loosely applied to any aggregation of creative people. "Collectives" are bound up in their own 'white cubes", narrow definitions of time and space and dialectic. The musicians of ccmixter.org are not a collective in any didactic sense. Yet their shared goal of sharing music causes them to sample one another's work and to share their work with listeners, podcasters, film-makers and other creative people around the world. In the world of CCmixter.org, the artists use one another's sound samples to create entirely new works. Unlike the group-think and committee-laden approach of old-style collaboration, the mixters freely liberate and transform each other's music into new songs and new sounds. Through use of Creative Commons licenses, they create and share works without being bound by the old ropes of copyright permissions and artistic veto.

CCmixter is a a community music remixing site featuring remixes and samples licensed under Creative Commons CCmixter remixes and samples are used in films, podcasts, video games and on mp3 players around the world. licenses. Music on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons license. Listeners are free to download and sample from music on this site and share the results with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Some songs might have certain restrictions, depending on their specific licenses. Each submission is marked clearly with the license that applies to it.

ABOUT GURDONARK

www.gurdonark.com

Robert Nunnally creates electronic music under the performing name Gurdonark. Gurdonark grew up in Gurdon, a small town in Arkansas, a state in the southern United States of America. He now lives with his wife in Allen, in the state of Texas, in the USA . He works as a commercial litigation attorney. He believes in freeware, shareware, compassion and hope.

Through his musical releases, he advocates for a 'sharing culture'. Creative expression is liberally licensed to listeners, media creators and fellow musicians and artists, to permit more liberal use of the material than traditional copyright strictures ordinarily allow. He describes his music as “weirdbient”, a blend of “ambient” and “weird”. His music alternates between Winter light and the dark of Summer. His pieces are by design background music to soundtrack daydreams. His work is frequently used to soundtrack art video and “viral video” by video-makers around the world. Over one hundred and fifty such short films have been made with Gurdonark soundtracks. Gurdonark, with Verian Thomas, co-own the netlabel Negative Sound Institute [http://www.negativesoundinstitute.com]. He actively supports the Creative Commons. He has published poetry and licensed photos for use in websites.


Audio Releases:

Gurdonark is active in the CCmixter.org community, through which he has released over 100 Creative Commons tracks for free download. Gurdonark has also released the following Creative Commons extended play releases: Tallgrass Canticle (Negative Sound Institute); A Texas Christmas Holiday with Zikweb Travel (Negative Sound Institute); Eerie Exchange Prairie Park (Internet Archive); Seven Virtues (Jamendo). Gurdonark is one half of the post-rock Thomas Nunnally Ensemble.

Gurdonark tracks appear in many compilations, which include the following albums:
In Vitro's Phantastico Dogma [Kreislauf netlabel].;

From a Darkened Pool [Darkwinter netlabel]
Data Transfer (with Lezrod) [Zymogen netlabel];

Particular Streams Remixes [Treetrunk netlabel]
Resting Bench Remixes Volume 1 [Earth Monkey netlabel];

String Ambient [Webbed Hand netlabel]
No R Mal [Just Not Normal netlabel];

A Candle's Golden Glow [Darkwinter netlabel];

Thoughts of the Long Now [Intelligent Machinery netlabel];

Low Times of Hi Fi [Pharmacom netlabel];

Long Defeat Varations (C. Reider) [vuzhmusic].

His music has been used on the Canadian public radio program Spark, on numerous podcasts, on netradio such as Stillstream, and in conventional radio airplay.

Video/Film:

Gurdonark music is featured in over 150 video soundtracks.

A sample includes:

Soundtrack, “Magnum Farce” (animated short, USA)

Festivals: Action on Film (USA), Indie Gathering (USA), Cinema City (USA). Featured on funnyordie.com


Gurdonark pieces featured in these broadcast/festival releases:
“No copy, the Movie” (German) (Jan Krömer, Evrim Sen) (2006)
“Flickradio” (Dutch) (Bert Kommerij) Broadcast: Dutch Radio 5, TV2 Holland.

Festivals: Picnic 09 (Netherlands), NPOX (Netherlands), Filmfestival Breda, Festival of Four Screens (France)

Gurdonark music in art video:

Video artists using Gurdonark for soundtracks include Sam Renseiw [Denmark]; Jennifer Proctor (Nanoramas) [USA], Florence Artur [France], Rupert Howe [UK] and Ryan is Hungry [USA].

ABOUT SACKJO22

SUSAN JOSEPH
aka SackJo22
sackjo22@gmail.com

Susan Joseph is a clear-voiced Los Angeles based singer/songwriter/poet who recently re-emerged artistically after a protracted hiatus spent raising a family. Writing with intelligence and sensitivity,. her influences are apparent — Joni Mitchell, The Roches, Emmylou Harris — but she is never derivative, showing an expansive musical and melodic vocabulary.


Susan’s first recording experience was to tell the story of her sweet sixteen on a spoken word album -- Voices of the Angels -- produced by Harvey Kubernick, featuring the voices of some of Los Angeles' preeminent poets and speakers at the time.


She was a founding member of The Beef Sisters (performing as Susan Ackerman), part of the burgeoning neo-folk, acoustic scene in Los Angeles during the late 1980's who offered up a unique funky/folky/acoustic/edgy sound centered around intelligent songwriting and vocal harmonies. They frequently played live, had recordings included on a couple of the legendary Radio Tokyo compilation albums, and released an EP. They also had one of their songs included in a Playboy soft porn video. Then they broke up.


After the break up of The Beef Sisters, Susan performed and recorded with her own band which was just getting off the ground when her first child arrived. As she really couldn't see herself playing a Hollywood nightclub on a Wednesday night at 11:00 p.m. when she had a little one waiting at home, she chose to take some time to focus her attention on her growing family. That brief hiatus turned into a 17 year deferment as the demands of her family took precedence over her artistic endeavors.


During that period, Susan was not completely inactive. She continued to write, and performed in an acoustic trio called Too Darn Hot singing originals and standards at various theaters and events around Los Angeles. She started recording rough demos and uploading them to her myspace page. During this period, she also emerged as an intermittent blogger. But her output was sporadic as her time and energy were focused on her family.


Then her kids became teenagers, she discovered ccMixter, and she emerged as SackJo22.


SackJo22’s first upload to ccMixter.org was March 31, 2009, and she quickly became an active participant on the site. Since that time, her voice has been remixed close to 200 times. Tracks featuring either her voice or her own remixes have been included in a number of videos, including the videos of video blogger Nando who invited her to create theme songs for several of his video series. Sackjo22’s music has also been included in various podcasts. She has been engaged in collaborative projects with other artists from all over the world. With Ciggi Burns (aka Moira Waugh), she created The Adventures of Sue and Mo series in which the exploits of a couple of righteous babes take on the world as memorialized in song and a blog. Briareus included his remixes of three of SackJo22’s songs on an album he released on Jamendo. @Nop's remix of SackJo22’s version of the Chanukah classic Sevivon is part of the "Peace of Winter" compilation album coordinated by Snowflake and recently released via itunes, TuneTrack and Jamendo as a benefit album in support of the people of Tibet. SackJo22 has a steadily growing fanbase at TheSixtyOne and Last.fm. As a proponent of sharing culture, Sackjo22 makes available her recordings so that she continues to find herself in unexpected places all over the world wide web.


SackJo22 also hosts The Mixin' Kitchen, a bi-weekly podcast featuring the work of ccmixter artists, which is the most popular podcast coming out of ccMixter.org. She conducted a written interview with DoKashiteru as part of ccmixer's "artist spotlight" series, and will likely do more of that in the future.


Presently, SackJo22 is working with Spinmeister who is producing a set of original songs to be released as a collection in 2010.


In addition, SackJo22 is currently involved as the musical director for an original theater piece called "Box, Window, Door" currently in development, with the initial workshop scheduled for early 2010, and the ultimate goal of performing the piece at REDCAT arts center affiliated with CalArts University and Walt Disney Hall by fall 2010.


The White Cube Remix Project is SackJo22’s most rewarding artistic effort to date affording her the opportunity to not only work closely with Gurdonark (an artist she admires greatly) to mobilize an entire, international musical community with the goal of creating an explosive musical experience that encompasses the qualities of her present orientation toward her work -- creating relationship through sharing and collaboration.


On-Line Presence

http://ccmixter.org/people/SackJo22
http://www.myspace.com/mrsjoseph39skitchen
http://www.mrsjosephskitchen.blogspot.com/
http://theadventuresofsueandmo.blogspot.com/
http://www.thesixtyone.com/SackJo22/
http://www.last.fm/music/SackJo22


Other Creative Acivities

Published an underground literary 'zine called "Letters of Dysfunktion"
Exhibited and sold original artwork via community exhibits and private commission
Belly danced semi-professionally as a troupe member, and solo artist appearing at festivals, night clubs, restaurants and private parties. Taught belly dance.
Blogger
Improv artist with The Hothouse Improvisational Theater