Bea Redweik
How does not finishing affect the process of making?
At the very heart of this practice research project is an effort in valuing, interrogating and affirming of process in song-based music. It is a clear outset from which process, holding disruptive potential, may unfold – endlessly – into a multitude of interrogations: finding meaning in the tentative, the flawed and the unfinished through a constant re-instantiation of practice. I began with the research question already positioned above “How does not finishing affect the process of making?” and this inquiry runs like a thread through five original songs, aiming to bind together an already complexly interwoven and interconnected exploration.
When I speak about not finishing, I invoke an openness in the work, a moveability, that might even characterise the work. Similarly, not finishing also refers to lack of abandon. Paul Valéry is famously quoted as saying, “a poem is never finished, only abandoned”’ and I apply the same sentiment to my own songs. Within the framework of this research project, I have set out to remove said abandon as part of a self-experiment. Lack of abandon is, as previously stated, constant re-instantiation; it is honouring movement, appreciating process, and an emphasis on the everyday as a ‘place where repetition and creativity confront each other,’ as expressed by Henri Lefebvre.
For a set amount of time (from July 1st to August 15th, 2021) I sang and played (my instruments are guitar and piano) five days a week, instantiating my songwriting practice for thirty minutes at a time and documenting this consistent return to process over product on video, through voice notes, pictures and personal reflections to build an autoethnographic account of practice. Experimentation is a key component of this project welcoming multimodal and hybrid methodologies, or perhaps a fluidity in modalities, as part of artistic practice, as well as research practice. I mention this because in addition to the July-August experimental phase this project encompasses a live event – another experiment of sorts, one I chose to call a multimedia performance installation – which took place on September 8th, 2021, and materialised as a presentation and continuation of unfinished work in front of an audience. It was captured on film also.
‘How does not finishing affect the process of making?’ produced a myriad of epistemic outcomes for me: the most striking being a complication of the recording as defining popular music; an argument for anti-mastery; an emphasis on the everyday, incremental change and slowness; an appreciation and investigation of experimentation and play; and an exploration of working with resistance. All these outcomes can be techniques of valuing songs as process, practice as movement. And they all contribute to an overarching research impulse as I continue to question what social, political, personal and artistic consequences may follow a pluralistic disruption of the artefact as paramount.
About Bea Redweik
I am a musician, producer, curator, writer and researcher based in London, with roots in Germany, Turkey and Australia. My research is practice-based, exploring experimental music practice and the body that sings through popular music songwriting, as well as video art, performance art and conceptual art.
Contact: iredw001@gold.ac.uk
Website: https://www.asleane.com
All project films and recordings available here: https://www.asleane.com/songs-as-process-practice-as-movement
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5ZF8HPy9GR4xSRu6yc-g7w
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-771653970