When going to see the “Graffiti Composition” by Christian Marclay at the Whitney Museum, his piece stood out as odd and unusual.  In this particular piece, which does not in fact contain any graffiti or visual, he uses unconventional sounds in his piece with a guitar.  “Unconventional” sounds may include high shrills, popcorn sizzling, cork popping, water dripping, sawing, glass breaking, and everyday sounds of annoyance.  One can actually visualize the items banging, crashing, or falling when closing your eyes and listening.  Even though you might be comfortable in your seat to sleep, the high pitches shrills and banging keeps the attention of most people. In combination with the “unconventional” sounds, the conventional guitar is played side by side.  The loud cacophony could have been heard through other performances due to the thin curtain that separates the space.  The clashing between traditional guitars with non-traditional sounds of popcorn popping is like the bickering or the argument between a liberal and a conservative.  Neither side wins nor loses, the argument simply end when the piece is over.

The content of the piece was very abstract due to no words for communicating ideas, meaning, or perspective.  Only the listener can evaluate and interpret the meaning.  I found the musical piece or the “consolidation of random noises” to be something that challenges the meaning of music with frequent lyrics, beat, bass, rhythm.  His piece is a lot like modern art because he pushed the idea of “when can something not be a music piece? and the question “What will baffle the public?”  While modern art leans toward abstraction and experimentation.  Marclay’s sound experiment with seemingly random noises and guitar only further emphasizes the fact that art had no bounds.  Experiments with different materials and instruments stretch boundless and fruitlessly like the empty echoes of Marlcay’s Graffiti Composition.

In contrast with his gallery of comic strip and endless music symbols, his work in the gallery shared the theme of different sounds- onomatopoeia, exclamation, sounds without the video, and visuals without sounds.  He displays music notes in representation of sounds over the chalk board walls and through all means of music notes in advertisements, tissues, etc.  His lack of originality through his gallery of ripped up comics, boring ads (that were collected), bells, and music notes only made it more enticing to skim through the floor.

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Check out a mini-documentary on turntable sound pioneer Christian Marclay: