David CabuenasFinal Paper

As young artists and furthermore, young adults it is self evident that we have a lot

to learn about our practices and ourselves. Speaking from personal experience, post-high

school, I had thought I had already established myself as an artist. I had themes I already

wanted to explore and an aesthetic. I thought I was going to extend my concentration in

high school into college. A lot of the work I did was in reaction to the still life orientated

curriculum of AP Drawing. A lot of the works in the concentration were predominately

subjectively colored and contained imagery that I created. However, upon entering AAP

and being bombarded with just intro studios my first semester I was pigeon holed into the

same sort of curriculum a high school AP art class would have, and it frustrated me. To

make matters worse, the rest of my freshman class and I were thrown into an Art writing

seminar that few of us have grown to appreciate. Ironically the very system I detest was

the one that revealed philosophies about my practice and myself, probably wouldn’t have

happened if I had been comfortable.

Admittedly I was not very well versed in art history as evident in my first spheres

of influence, and to be entirely honest, I did not want to be. I was originally to my belief

that an art education was not necessary to create great art. My thoughts about this would

change, however for a different field. For most of my educational career I participated in

two expressive practices, art and music. This relationship was clear in my original

spheres of influences, most of the artists I listed had collaborated with musicians in some

way, either through album artwork, or directing music videos. Some artists like Basquiat

had participated in both. I am however stating the obvious. Music and art are related, but

after a semester at Cornell I understood the relationship not only from an educational

perspective, but from a practical one as well. One practice abundant in both art and music

is the practice of borrowing. Music itself comes from a long tradition of borrowing,

particularly strong in the genres of Jazz and Hip-hop. Jazz performers often draw upon a

the long and rich history of and will improvise their own interpretations of the work. This

became known as “Signfyin” the use of taking an existing work signaling it, and

changing it in a form of homage or parody.1 And Example of this would be John

Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things”. The song nearly identical in chord structure to its

original from “The Sound Of Music” but the difference is clear upon listening. An

intrinsically similar example in art would be Miró’s “Dutch Interior II”.

This is painting that is, similar to

Coltrane, based an interpretation of

an existing work. Miró takes what

he finds to be the most salient parts

of the piece such as form and color,

and appropriates and changes them

to his own interpretation. This is directly analogous to Coltrane. In Hip-hop this practice

of borrowing is used through sampling. Sampling in Hip-hop is often defined by taking

clips of existing music and changing it by either altering the borrowed piece or merely re-

contextualizing it. This is done either for aesthetic purposes or to make political or social

statements, both were done by Public Enemy. Public Enemy’s use for sampling has been

1 SAYING SOMETHING: JAZZ IMPROVISATION AND INTERACTION Monson, Ingrid T. (Ingrid Tolia), c1996.

notorious for using hundreds of samples in their music, both for aesthetic reasons and for

significant reasons. For example samples of sirens or other noises and the samples of

significant black leaders often to compliment a political commentary on their songs such

as the song “Fight The Power”. This use of sampling is very much analogous to the

borrowing practice defined as détournement by The Situationalist Internation. Defined by

Guy Debord and Gil J. Wolman there are three ways to borrow through détournement,

they are listed as minor détournement (the use of an insignificant piece that gains new

meaning in a new context, deceptive (the use of a significant piece that gain adds

meaning and gains new meaning in a new context), and extensive (the wide spread use of

both).2 This practice is arguably used by many Hip-hop producers and artists. This

borrowing tradition also carried on in the forms of collage both visually and sonically. In

music the sound collage creation genre was defined by John Oswald as “Plunderphonics”

a practice evident in the beginnings of cubism, in example the use of newspapers, a labels

and photographs.3 I also drew a connection to these borrowing practices

to the work of Jason Fulford and the “Mushroom Collector” , a book that

is essentially a collage of photographs both found and taken by Fulford

himself. In his work the themes of sampling and signification are

explored by his use of re-contextualizing existing photos (the mushrooms) and creating

new relationships and meanings in its new context (often times the mere placement next

to another photo).4 This is intrinsically no different for the work of early Musique

2 A User’s Guide To Detournement http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/presitu/usersguide.html3 “Plunderphonia” Cutler, Chris January 2004 https://blackboard.cornell.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-2729463-dt-content-rid-6827994_1/courses/17922_2015FA/Chris%20Cutler%2C%20Plunderphonia.pdf4 AAP Visiting Artist Lecture “Raising Frogs For $$$” Fulford, Jason 2015http://share.aap.cornell.edu/video/art.html

Concrete5 musicians who took found sounds as well as manufactured sounds and

explored their relationships when juxtaposed in the new context of their tape

compositions. The format is also similar to

Fulford’s books. Both are linear appearing one

sound after the other or one photo after

another. Other borrowing practices are also

evident in the post-modern aesthetics in both

musicians and artists. For example the collage practices of Robert Rauschenberg and his

“paintings” which used various, almost multi-media, collages. An interesting

intertextuality occurs when mediums are juxtaposed and joined in new context. He would

often draw his collaged materials from pieces of newspaper and photos in an

abstract way. 6This post-modern philosophy of drawing from existing works

was also present in the works of composer Charles Ives who often drew

references to American musical classics but used them in an abstract way

exploring atonality, often ways what were difficult to hear.

After drawing these relationships together I realized the importance of drawing

from what historically exists both in art and music, as this awareness is not only a tool but

also a way of expression. Eventually I applied what I learned to my own practices. For

my final project in my intro to drawing studio, our final project was to create a mandala

piece that spoke on our origin or about the very pieces that make up our being. Drawing

from Post-modern aesthetics as well detournement and inspiration form Musique conrete,

5 Image: Pierre Schaeffer “Father” of Musique Concrete with synthesizer 6 Contemporary Art : 1989 to the present Alexander Blair Dumbadze; Suzanne Perling Hudson, Hichester, West Sussex, U.K. : Wiley-Blackwell, 2013

I created a nonlinear, non-rhythmic, atonal musical piece, which was a sound collage that

paralleled my journey to Cornell. I collaged sounds such as trains and sampled speech

that symbolized my origins in Queens, but most the most significant are the samples

taken from a Cornell sesquicentennial promotional video I used ironically to speak of my

discontent with the school. This piece I believe is reflective as my growth both in my

practices as an artist, musician, and as a student.