A conversation between David Toop and Adam Parkinson in 2015.
“In the 1970s we called it “sound work,” which I prefer and still use.
One of the reasons for that was a very 1970s idea of aligning
yourself with a worker. We tried to detach ourselves from the art
world (which we were detached from whether we liked it or not) and
also from the music world.” (Toop)
“…sound art to me is problematic for… a number of reasons. One, because it is so closely associated with a
particular world and a particular economy – the art world – and there
are all sorts of reasons why that’s difficult. It puts a strong focus
on the creation of some kind of object…” (Toop)
A rejection of the art world and it’s economy is a rejection of the wider trends and systems that art fits into – consumerism, materialism, capitalism and so on. There is value in sound work being on the peripheral of a society. It maintains a critical viewpoint of the society, like an outsider. (I often imagine humans as pigs, then I am outside and they look ridiculous.) Toop suggests a mutual detatchment “(which we were detached from whether we liked it or not)“, from Sound workers wanting new ways to circulate their work, and from a long established Art world that doesn’t understand sonic practices/sound in art.
I am curious about “whether we liked it or not“. What if they did like it? I wonder if people want to maintain their position as an outsider, if they perhaps need the “mainstream” to prove their own unique character. In this belief of being seperate from the horrors of society we might forget to be self-critical. Deconditioning might be an infinite process and in radical thinking we forget our source, where we came from. As outsiders are we not still fertile with same harmful ideas and approaches to human and non-human, ready to repeat oppression clothed in a new aesthetic?
A quote from ‘Give Up Activism’ by Andrew X – “Revolutionary martyrdom goes together with the identification of some cause separate from one’s own life – an action against
capitalism which identifies capitalism as ‘out there’ in the
City is fundamentally mistaken – the real power of capital
is right here in our everyday lives – we re-create its power
every day because capital is not a thing but a social
relation between people (and hence classes) mediated
by things.”
In a way, Toop frames the art world as ‘out there’ in the same way revolutionaries sometimes talk about capitalism. But Toop and his cronies in the 1970s were constructing newness by changing the product-orientation of art, from making art to working on a process. As we claim a critical perspective we must also be constructing – making the world where we can practice our way of thinking.
Culture is like an ocean, radicalising, assimilating, swallowing itself, but we hope in this process there is progress? I appreciate Toop’s point about the process of art rather than an end goal, recognising the impossibility of an ending.