This paper traces everyday routes toward an aesthetics of sublime boredom in works of Tara Donova... more This paper traces everyday routes toward an aesthetics of sublime boredom in works of Tara Donovan, David Dunn, and George Romero.
How do you make yourself a BwO without working so hard? Possibilities: having a cold, taking cold medicine, going underwater, going shopping, listening to relaxation tapes, watching television programs, channel- surfing, surfing the Internet, doing math problems, practicing scales, doing penmanship exercises, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, washing dishes, becoming a zombie, getting bored. These are repetitively immersive experiences of slowing down instead of speeding up, dwelling on the mediocre instead of the extraordinary, but still leading to a continuous flow of pure sensation, a fluid state without stable hierarchy, teleology, or climax. Donovan’s Untitled (Straws) is a sculptural installation of translucent drinking straws stacked perpendicular to a wall. Dunn’s Chaos & the Emergent Mind of the Pond is an underwater recording of ponds of North America and Africa. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead is an apocalyptic horror-adventure flick in which a small band escapes the city to fortify themselves in a deserted shopping mall against an army of zombies. All start with unremarkable ingredients – plastic drinking straws, bugs in a pond, human bodies. Ordinary things are repeated, not just a few times, but to an uncountable degree, a magnitude that changes their relationship to the perceiver. Quantity, enough quantity, achieves qualitative shift: the mass moves beyond what can be conjectured about the solitary. There emerges a threatening, horrifying, or sublime quality undetectable in the mundane single. Mind and content empty. The subject dissolves. Tonal ambiguity hangs, unresolved. We circle oblivion.
This paper addresses courage and awesomeness in music. I write of the experience of being awed by... more This paper addresses courage and awesomeness in music. I write of the experience of being awed by some pieces of music that have moved me, or convinced me of the necessity of making art. This music is not music that I have simply enjoyed listening to – it is music that I do not understand, that operates under premises I may consider dubious, that I am not only incapable of imitating, but would be uninterested in imitating – yet somehow it convinces me of the necessity of its being, and by extension, the necessity and value of art in general. I begin with general ideas about awesomeness and courage, and follow with musical examples. I am interested in the effect certain pieces had on me – the experience of their moving me and the factors that shaped it. Thus, I write not of idealized works or scores, but of specific listening experiences, situated in my own history as a listener and a person who makes music.
This paper traces everyday routes toward an aesthetics of sublime boredom in works of Tara Donova... more This paper traces everyday routes toward an aesthetics of sublime boredom in works of Tara Donovan, David Dunn, and George Romero.
How do you make yourself a BwO without working so hard? Possibilities: having a cold, taking cold medicine, going underwater, going shopping, listening to relaxation tapes, watching television programs, channel- surfing, surfing the Internet, doing math problems, practicing scales, doing penmanship exercises, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, washing dishes, becoming a zombie, getting bored. These are repetitively immersive experiences of slowing down instead of speeding up, dwelling on the mediocre instead of the extraordinary, but still leading to a continuous flow of pure sensation, a fluid state without stable hierarchy, teleology, or climax. Donovan’s Untitled (Straws) is a sculptural installation of translucent drinking straws stacked perpendicular to a wall. Dunn’s Chaos & the Emergent Mind of the Pond is an underwater recording of ponds of North America and Africa. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead is an apocalyptic horror-adventure flick in which a small band escapes the city to fortify themselves in a deserted shopping mall against an army of zombies. All start with unremarkable ingredients – plastic drinking straws, bugs in a pond, human bodies. Ordinary things are repeated, not just a few times, but to an uncountable degree, a magnitude that changes their relationship to the perceiver. Quantity, enough quantity, achieves qualitative shift: the mass moves beyond what can be conjectured about the solitary. There emerges a threatening, horrifying, or sublime quality undetectable in the mundane single. Mind and content empty. The subject dissolves. Tonal ambiguity hangs, unresolved. We circle oblivion.
This paper addresses courage and awesomeness in music. I write of the experience of being awed by... more This paper addresses courage and awesomeness in music. I write of the experience of being awed by some pieces of music that have moved me, or convinced me of the necessity of making art. This music is not music that I have simply enjoyed listening to – it is music that I do not understand, that operates under premises I may consider dubious, that I am not only incapable of imitating, but would be uninterested in imitating – yet somehow it convinces me of the necessity of its being, and by extension, the necessity and value of art in general. I begin with general ideas about awesomeness and courage, and follow with musical examples. I am interested in the effect certain pieces had on me – the experience of their moving me and the factors that shaped it. Thus, I write not of idealized works or scores, but of specific listening experiences, situated in my own history as a listener and a person who makes music.
Uploads
Papers by Carolyn Chen
How do you make yourself a BwO without working so hard? Possibilities: having a cold, taking cold medicine, going underwater, going shopping, listening to relaxation tapes, watching television programs, channel- surfing, surfing the Internet, doing math problems, practicing scales, doing penmanship exercises, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, washing dishes, becoming a zombie, getting bored. These are repetitively immersive experiences of slowing down instead of speeding up, dwelling on the mediocre instead of the extraordinary, but still leading to a continuous flow of pure sensation, a fluid state without stable hierarchy, teleology, or climax. Donovan’s Untitled (Straws) is a sculptural installation of translucent drinking straws stacked perpendicular to a wall. Dunn’s Chaos & the Emergent Mind of the Pond is an underwater recording of ponds of North America and Africa. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead is an apocalyptic horror-adventure flick in which a small band escapes the city to fortify themselves in a deserted shopping mall against an army of zombies. All start with unremarkable ingredients – plastic drinking
straws, bugs in a pond, human bodies. Ordinary things are repeated, not just a few times, but to an uncountable degree, a magnitude that changes their relationship to the perceiver. Quantity, enough quantity, achieves qualitative shift: the mass moves beyond what can be conjectured about the solitary. There emerges a threatening, horrifying, or sublime quality undetectable in the mundane single. Mind and content empty. The subject dissolves. Tonal ambiguity hangs, unresolved. We circle oblivion.
How do you make yourself a BwO without working so hard? Possibilities: having a cold, taking cold medicine, going underwater, going shopping, listening to relaxation tapes, watching television programs, channel- surfing, surfing the Internet, doing math problems, practicing scales, doing penmanship exercises, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, washing dishes, becoming a zombie, getting bored. These are repetitively immersive experiences of slowing down instead of speeding up, dwelling on the mediocre instead of the extraordinary, but still leading to a continuous flow of pure sensation, a fluid state without stable hierarchy, teleology, or climax. Donovan’s Untitled (Straws) is a sculptural installation of translucent drinking straws stacked perpendicular to a wall. Dunn’s Chaos & the Emergent Mind of the Pond is an underwater recording of ponds of North America and Africa. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead is an apocalyptic horror-adventure flick in which a small band escapes the city to fortify themselves in a deserted shopping mall against an army of zombies. All start with unremarkable ingredients – plastic drinking
straws, bugs in a pond, human bodies. Ordinary things are repeated, not just a few times, but to an uncountable degree, a magnitude that changes their relationship to the perceiver. Quantity, enough quantity, achieves qualitative shift: the mass moves beyond what can be conjectured about the solitary. There emerges a threatening, horrifying, or sublime quality undetectable in the mundane single. Mind and content empty. The subject dissolves. Tonal ambiguity hangs, unresolved. We circle oblivion.