Pop Mantra Video Documentation #4 (2008, 51.7MB, 5:17 min) Pop Mantra Video Documentation #7 (2008, 50.5MB, 5:41 min) I like admire Curt Cloninger for his steadfastness of belief in both his religion his artistic work. He s also one of the best writers about new media around at the moment. In both theory practice he s curious, inventive, knowledgable, quirky and passionate. Unlike many in this sphere he s also not afraid to think aloud in public, to take risks. Even, (quelle horreur!), to risk appearing uncool. Recently he s been making work away from the web, some of it performative very interestingly so. Here ( I stress what you see here is the documentation, not the piece itself -a fine, but important, distinction) he repeatedly sings plays a single phrase from a popular song, in this instance Radiohead s Karma Police, for several hours. For me there are number of interesting resonances - minimalism, shamanism, the kinds of test that occur in many religious belief systems, a losing, dissolving of the self (In additon to the eponymous mantra ,there s an echo too, I think, of Sufism); but also there is the straightforward investigation*** of the mechanics of playing, of performing ( there s a fractal quality to the rather symmetric crystalline structure of popular song that makes this kind of extracting both possible immediately approachable -it s a world familiar enough to welcome us in.) The two extracts are from different ends of this marathon ( selecting typing that word just conjured another association - the dance marathons of the twenties thirties). I find this work fascinating. Fascinating affecting too. *** It s almost always a laughable misuse of the word to say investigation in an art-speak context. Here it seems correct natural.
