Ulf starts off by playing a very old audio piece made on tape – when he was a ‘useless’ painter and was making secret excursions into technologies. . . . he talks about the fundamental use-value of the tape being to capture the nearest possible copy of reality that is possible – but that in the attempt of mimesis – the fragments of the media interruption – the scratches, the glitches become obvious at a heightened level. This tension is a core problem that his work addresses…. he got hold of a syncing machine – and then used ‘live’ sounds and mixed repetitive sounds of his own voice. The process of making sound through technology without the intermediary of a musical instrument interface was for Ulf another key moment for him as an artist.
He states – actually he is not driven by the desire to affect perception – but to create an intensity.
Ulf plays sound from Drift – layering sounds, tone, sonic shapes . . . using one of his most important techniques of micro-tuning where the distance between each tone is very carefully calculated – when the sounds get closer, the piece develops a more rhythmical aspects, he was, however, trying to create a sense of a cloud.
Taking a ‘real’ found sound object as a starting point – and then abstracting to its outer-limits – the sample is expanded and stretched. Ulf talks about a project with an orchestra in France – working with a gong player – and a series of wind players. The sampling process from the gong sound broke down in its collection and compression – sinus waves develop a rhythm when they are put into extreme digital compression.
In Drift, Ulf uses this model in his visual work as well – he shows the use of a sample of a Ghanian market place that is abstracted visually – the result is that you find yourself visually probing into a visual fog which occasionally reveal a semi-legible shape which you can read.
There is clearly a challenge between blurriness and clarity of abstraction – this is a problem of technology but also a conceptual problem – but I like the scope of this problem – a clarity of abstraction – an almost figurative abstraction. In Drift – the sound and image deliberately don’t tally in a ‘narrative’ way. . .
He’s talking in depth about the artistic decisions that he has made and the journey that he has made.
He ends showing the audience a piece that he made in Ghana earlier this year with the dancer Toshiko Eva – he told her he didn’t mind what she did – but he asked her only to do the same thing throughout the work. She then investigated the involuntary movements of the body – the spasm.
I am not interested in what you play, what you dance – play them as if you were a sampler – play each note – not like a musician – for example – on the cello – no vibrato and panache – but a long note that includes the use of three strings that interact with each other.
Ulf talks about the screen – the study of the screen – the fear of the screen.
Investigating phenomena upon the eye and ear is not my main are of interest I am interested in creating a certain experience of overload and absence.
An act of purification – with the secret ambition that they will fail to become pure – so he’s searching for a moment of crowded pressure that almost reaches but doesn’t quite make it to purity.
Resistance and interference are central to Ulfs work.
