jason daniels & kurt gardella
Intro
One of the reasons why Cornelia reached out to us about participating in her remote conversations [ferngespräche] project was because she knew that we had a history of (sometimes remote) creative collaborations. We began our conversation/ferngespräch by first looking back at past collaborations - documenting their process in a public space for the the very first time. Our conversation/ferngespräch ended with a new collaboration that we undertook specifically for Cornelia's project. But first, a look back.
Early New Jersey Collaborations
We have been working together creatively since school times in New Jersey in the late 1980s. We played drums and percussion together in our high school band class. Similar tastes in music also led us to collaborating after school where we traded bass guitar and drum duties in various post-punk bands. Here's a snippet of a music collaboration with musician jdallar from 1990:
We went our separate ways in the early 1990s (Kurt left the US in 1993 to study in Germany) but kept in touch as early adopters of using e-mail for remote collaboration. We reconnected for an in-person collaboration in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1996 - an experimental film project about poet and bookshop owner E.T. Cecile Hopkins called 400 Years. Kurt did the Super 8 camera work and Jason the location sound and film editing at a video post-production facility in NYC. Here are some still images from the project:
Music Video Collaborations
After the 400 Years film project, we parted ways and lost touch - Kurt returned to Europe and Jason moved on to Austin, Texas for a new job and to be closer to Austin’s budding music scene. After reconnecting via remote e-mail exchanges, we continued our collaborative work in the early 2000s in the form of two music videos for the band Moonlight Towers who Jason was now playing bass guitar for. Due to the distance between Germany and Austin, we began to develop a workflow where the majority of the work took place via online e-mail exchanges followed by short but intensive location visits. Here is the first music video we produced during this collaborative phase:
Remote Observations from 2015 to 2019
A long 10-year break from creative collaborations led us to the idea of exploring more formal methods of remote collaboration via the internet. We knew that we wanted to continue working together but were having a hard time finding ways of meeting up in person to work on projects. We decided to pursue ways of seeing and hearing the different locations we found ourselves in through film and sound projects that did not require us to actually meet in person.
The remote film project the other side of the river was a first attempt at a completely remote collaboration in 2015. An art residency that Kurt attended in Blönduós, Iceland put him in a location that he and Jason had always been interested in due to their fascination with The Sugarcubes and Björk back in the late 80s and early 90s. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to try a new form of collaboration.
After arriving in Reykjavik, Kurt stumbled upon a copy of an exhibition catalog for Yoko Ono’s Insound/Instructure Exhibition that took place at The Reykjavik Municipal Art Museum in 1990. This set the stage for a new phase of collaborations based on written remote instructions.
After sending Jason an edit of a first silent film shot on location in Blönduós, Iceland, he was given the following instructions:
Watch this 2:10 minute silent film shot in Iceland. Compose a soundtrack for it. Try to make a connection between my visuals and your own perceptions of Iceland.
The end result of our first fully remote collaboration is the film the other side of the river:
Remote Soundtracks in 2020
After completing the other side of the river in 2015, Kurt continued to take yearly trips to Iceland to expand on this series of films. By 2020 the series consisted of a total of 5 films grouped together under the title REMOTE OBSERVATIONS. Since the soundtracks of films 2 to 5 were all composed by Kurt, he reached out to Jason at the beginning of 2020 to propose a new remote collaboration that would allow us to continue to explore the visuals and sounds collected in Iceland from 2015 to 2019 while both in pandemic lockdowns in our respective corners of the world (Erfurt, Germany and Sacramento, California).
After sending Jason a series of audio files, he was given the following instructions:
Listen to the collected soundtracks of my REMOTE OBSERVATIONS film series. Shape the individual soundtracks into a sound collage. Do not look at the visuals of the films. Use only the soundtracks themselves to make your sound collage.
The end result of this fully remote collaboration is the sound collage remote soundtracks:
Remote Conversation in 2021
When Cornelia approached us about participating in her remote conversations [ferngespräche] project at the beginning of 2021, we thought it would be a good opportunity to document all of our creative collaboration work since the early 1990s. Of course we also wanted to use this project as an opportunity to continue our collaborations with a new phase of work. The remote soundtracks collaboration had helped us both stay in closer contact during the pandemic. Through a series of coincidences we found ourselves presented with the opportunity to meet up in person in Sweden in August 2021. While in Sweden we spent 1/2 a day “in the studio” exchanging ideas about various film and sound projects that we might work on for remote conversations [ferngespräche]. We noticed that it was challenging to be creative in the same room at the same time without the distance of time and space that our past remote collaborations had afforded us. Ideas came and went - with little to no time to reflect on them or make any progress towards an actual piece for the project.
We parted ways after a week - feeling inspired by the in person meet up but also looking forward to time on our own to process and focus on the experiences and conversations that took place in Sweden. After some weeks passed Kurt began working on a new film sequence and sound recording that he had collected during the 30-hour ferry ride from Germany to Sweden (via Finland).
After sending Jason a rough edit of the audio field recordings (recorded using a contact mic taped to various metal parts of the ferry), he was given the following instructions:
Use these two audio field recordings to create a soundtrack that is 11:20 in length. Make the soundtrack yours by altering the sonic nature of the recordings via mastering alone. Do not change the length or alignment of the two audio tracks. Something special happens in the film/sound overlap between 5:00 and 7:45 which I would like to maintain.
The end result of our remote conversations [ferngespräche] collaboration is a piece called weightless again:
Weightless again. 11:20 minute sound HD video loop, 2021 / 2022. Remote collaboration with Jason Daniels (soundtrack).
Looking to the future, we have begun planning a new phase of remote conversations/collaborations which turns the tables: beginning with a sound piece composed by Jason that Kurt will attempt to add film visuals to based on Jason’s written instructions.
About the Artists
Jason Daniels
In addition to his own soundwork, Jason runs Nano Taro records (@nanotaro_records), issuing vinyl releases of experimental music of other artists.
Kurt Gardella
Kurt makes field recordings about material, focus and place. Recently, he has been documenting quiet scenes unfolding in remote locations.
www.kurtgardella.com