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.