Ordinary Aura

I've heard this one before, and it is more evocative by itself than the Dreyer piece, again because we can hear the traces of W's speech in the silences. You hear the slight glottal noises at the beginning and end of words, and you know that something's being said there, if you could only hear it.

I think the affect of these sounds depends strongly on context. If the Dreyer piece were being played in a space that contradicted it -- for instance, a soundproofed window through which you could see city traffic -- the juxtaposition would highlight what you're missing, the fragmentary nature of your experience. But hearing disembodied noises over my computer's speakers is so natural for me at this point that I barely even notice the sound at all. Which may be an interesting phenomenon in itself, but it doesn't mean the thing has "aura." The Rogalsky thing contains more of its own context, and so is, to me, more affecting.

i am reminded of the omar fast piece where he redubs the sound of a video of a suburban street setting
it is a totally average scene
he recreates all of the noises in a sound studio
and the finished piece you see the original video and a video of him making the seemless soundtrack
he also did this great project, where he rented terminator on video, dubbed over it with personal wartime narratives, and returned the video to blockbuster or whaterever

also, in terms of carboard aura- i may have been thinking about the embedded meaning/history of that material
i feel like materials can assert meaning based on innate qualities
this history component is really integral to my definition of aura- being able to locate an object in a specific, ritualized moment, like shipping boots or something

i like your word "embedded" better than "innate" - that way it allows for qualities to seem innate, but locates them as placed there through use.

what are shipping boots?

The shipping boots I know are what you fit around a horse's legs to brace them while they're flying. The equine equivalent of shin splints. I guess, as a cultural artifact, they only have relevance in a single rather arcane moment; but I don't know if these are the boots Adam's thinking of.

shipping- verb
boots- arbitrary noun (could have been cables)

yes i'm big on embedded meaning
i often encourage my students to do things with their sculptures that will never be visible in the finished work
but somehow, i suggest, the work will have this embedded meaning/aura
i also use the term "invest with meaning"

what about duchamp's piece with the hidden object-
With Hidden Noise or A Bruit Secret
1916

"Before I finished it Arensberg put something inside the ball of twine, and never told me what it was, and I didn't want to know. It was a sort of secret between us, and it makes noise, so we called this a Ready-made with a hidden noise. Listen to it. I don't know; I will never know whether it is a diamond or a coin"

the horses wear them when they fly?

haha.

with embedded meaning, I guess I prefer keeping this kind of thing within a social or communal setting. so many objects that seem to bear more meaning than they empirically contain have aquired it from large groups of people. when one person does it alone, and as an art piece, I can't help but see more of the meaning coming from its status as an art object than from the actual material/physical act.

That's exactly what's wrong with Cornelia Parker's work - I never figured that out before till now, it just bugged me even as it looked like I should like it.

even if only two artists work together on embedding invisible stuff, it would be better.

this suggests some possible projects for us maybe. we could mail around some object and all do things to/with it, and show it without saying what we did, see what happens. not a collaborative drawing per se, more like all checking out the same library book or spending the same dollar bill.

I've got a CD by reynols called "blank tapes." it's just that - recordings made by splicing different blank tapes together.