[Interview One] Roy Caussy - an artist with a truck

A Listener’s Lab
Interview One

Date: September 17, 2009

RC: Roy Caussy
DZ: Debra Zhou

Roy Caussy is a Hamilton-born Canadian artist. His work explores the forces of balance, tension, energy and the release of these forces. The work often takes place within a landscape and evidence, or documentation, of these projects are brought into the gallery space as proof of their having taken place. Caussy perceives his role as an artist much like a voice yelling out into the expanse joining other voices which together take form and become a force itself. Having graduated from NSCAD University in 2006, he is also one of the three founding members of Mountain Club, an artist collective based in Vancouver.

I interviewed him before he left Vancouver, where he was the artist-in-residence at Centre A.

DZ: Can you describe the project that you are working on right now?

RC: I just bought a pick-up truck, and I am going to transform it into a traveling/living/studio space. The intention is to drive across the country and meet up with friends and work on projects. The whole idea is to connect project with project, and the distance I go through while traveling will be part of the experience. One of the elements of the project is a sound system, a home sound system with really good speakers that I’ll install in the truck. Figure out alternate power source as well to power all the equipments, like a record player, and stereo amp. I have a portable digital sound recorder with me in the truck and a couple microphones as well. So the whole aim is to do a bit of both, recording sounds that I come across or me and friends make, and play those sound clips out of the speakers of my truck as I am driving into landscapes. I will drive to a destination point, not sure exactly where, which will come about as the work progresses. I'll play these sound clips that I recorded into the landscape. Usually it’s a quiet landscape with no people around. The other side to it is working with the record player. I am thinking of playing certain records into the landscape as well. So far I'm thinking heavily of playing comedy records, like Steve Martin and Bill Cosby.

DZ: Why comedy records?

RC: Because there's something I really like about comedy. It is the need for an audience. It relies so heavily on audience, even more so than music does, because it's so directly communicating. Also comedy isn't actually funny but the comedians make it funny. In fact Most of the comedy is either about very awkward situations or a power relation, the oppressed talking about their oppression in a sense like that. It's all in the delivery that makes it funny which is up to the comedian. If you read the jokes themselves, they are not funny at all. So if you take away the audience, and you still have the performer, which also ties in with a bigger idea of this collective mind. The collective mind is always aware of things happening even though no one is actually there to see it or experience. Information just gets passed along collective. That's the beginning point of this project.

DZ: how to you plan to present the sound aspect of the project?

RC: I am hoping to compile the sound clips that I recorded, after I collect enough of them, I want to make a vinyl record. I really like the idea of people taking them and playing them at their houses. I'll make them very accessible and cheap, so people can sit in their homes and listen to various things that I've recorded. It could be, for example, me and some friends yelling into a landscape that has a lot of echo. Like taking the natural setting and putting it into someone's home environment, which I find quite nice. Maybe through various shows here and there, I'll be able to present one element from that.

DZ: I know your background is in sculpture. When did you start having the idea of incorporating sound into what you do?

RC: It's a combination of becoming really tired of working in a studio, and making these objects in my studio and presenting them in shows afterwards. I am slowing moving away from that. One way is to go on these trips, so my own physical body is moving through time and space and experiencing, and that experience becomes the art. I started going out into landscapes with a few friends. We'd just yell into the landscapes, like standing on top of the canyon and yell into the canyon, or yell across a ridge. I would never record them. I just did it. With this idea, as I explained it earlier, about world energy and affectation, which I am not sure, that me and my friends can go into the landscape even no one else is around but something has changed. What is the exact outcome? I don't know. Maybe it can never be known either. But that's beside the point. I just want to highlight that it did occur. That first triggered the use of sound. I was reading a book by 90 year old yoga guru. He brought yoga to the western world and popularized it and made it into what we know as yoga. In it he was talking about sound and brought up a really interesting point. He mentioned that it's non-verbal sound that communicates the most effectively with people. People feel sound first as communication and it is sound that cut through everything, barriers and walls. So when I think about that, I think about life as well. It is not language but the communication, the tone, the feeling of sound.

DZ:I remember last time you were talking about echoes that you yell into a landscape as a way to study the landscape. I found that intriguing.

RC: Yeah. The idea that landscape has a very specific frequency that's its own. When you yell into it, it's almost like echo sonar, like how dolphins and bats perceive the environment, because it is only that specific landscape can shape the sound bouncing back to them. So now it's also introducing the idea of a relationship that goes beyond being present in it.

DZ: When you say you want to record the sound of dragging the couch across the floor, and play it back to whales, are you trying to learn something from it, or a way to communicate with the hunchback whales, or something more than that?

RC: Maybe not so about establishing a communication with the hunt back whales, in a way, bring a notion through absurd means that communication is beyond what we think it is. Dragging the couch across the floor is communicating with the hunchback whales. It's entirely absurd, but at the same time it's not dismissive. You can't dismiss that as a joke because communication is so further beyond what we perceive it to me.

DZ: Would you describe your trunk project a sound project? What 's your definition of sound art? What comes to your mind?

RC: The definition is entirely loose for me. It depends on how the artists choose to classify themselves. Either they actively define themselves "I make sound art" or they accept the distinction other give them, that's good enough for me. I don't want to go into their art and really break it down according to the history of sound art and say oh this is not sound art because this and that small elements. It’s the same with sculpture. A sculptor is a sculptor in a sense of how they label themselves. Would I consider this a sound project? I guess so. I am very directly working with sound. In a way, I am using sound to get to an idea. It doesn't stop with the sound, but the sound is a vehicle for communication. Throughout my practice I've used varying ways about communication ideas, like the clay cup project. It's not really sound piece, not sculpture either, maybe installation, somewhat performative.

DZ: there was sound involved too. When people were smashing the cups right?

RC: Yeah. Exactly. It echoed so much in the space too. It was quite nice.
However, the truck project is bigger than a sound project, even the physical truck itself is a project. There will be documentation of the time I spend traveling in it. One of the reasons why I got the truck is because I was finding it difficult to do these sound project, I had to reply on other people's vehicle or spent money to rent vehicle which would get expensive. So I was "Ok I am just going to buy my own vehicle and be independent with it", but I still become depend on others for the execution of it. So far it's been me going with friends, more than just one person, trying to communicate with each other.

DZ: So what made you interested in making sound work is the idea of using sound as a communication factor, besides just words or speeches.

RC:I think that those bits of information I gathered all the time just come up. I didn't really seek out what the yoga guru had to say about sound, but it just to be in my environment and struck a cord with me. As I develop my practice, I am starting to move away from a consistency in method and material. I'll follow this sound project through for as long as I go, but for me it's a mean to an end. It's the right voice for this project and idea. When I first started to work with sound, I was quite amazed that now I am entering into the realm of sound, because I was so object-based for such a long time. Looking back, when I graduated from university, the stuff that I was working on right now is quite a big shift. There's no way I knew I'd take the direction I did.

DZ: Does it have anything to do with the shows that you see in Vancouver and the people that you meet in Vancouver? Is there any connection?

RC: The first sound project of which is going into a landscape and just yell. I brought a quarter inch audio reel with me, and I would go into a landscape with some friends, and we'd just yell. I was working with the idea of tape. Even I wasn't using the necessary technology, like reel to reel. Rather, the presence of the audio reel itself, did record the entire event. In fact it was being a witness, being present. Therefore, that reel, in a way has infused with this pattern of energy. The first one I did was in Hamilton before I got to Vancouver. Also growing up in Hamilton, playing music was an important part. So the first people I ask to do this project with was old band-mates. It seemed the most logical choice at the time. So I guess it came more from playing music in high school. We decided to transition away from writing our own songs to start jamming together, just let the music happen. We totally gave up any song structure. We can't write songs anymore but we could jam really well together. We could be in a garage for hours and just make sounds. It's steeped in music because we played traditional instruments, but we were also creating not just energy, but also a specific energy: the four of us were creating this one thing, we were also together communicating so much non-verbally, the style of base I was putting into it, or the tone of guitar, and it all affected us all to morph this energy ball to something more concise. At the end, when I listen back to the recording, it started with all kinds of chaos and then the four of us just fell into it and clicked for a moment. Maybe 2 minutes out of an hour jam, we had something amazing, solid, together and fluid. That was the beginning of working with the idea of energy people can create together. That let me into using sound with those purposes. How a specific group of people gathering together can alter energy, and turning it into something unique that only that specific group of people can create. There's something really nice about that. That's why I am letting go of the musical aspect but using the sound to highlight the idea of the alternative energy and pattern.

DZ: Actually that leads to the next question I have for you. Do you think there's an overlap between experimental music and sound art?

RC: for the most part, it's really depends on the context. In a sense, I stayed away from studying music and sound art. As I make projects, other people let me know of more projects that I should know of. I am avoiding labeling myself as a sound art or someone specifically engaged in the dialogue of sound art. In a way I could reach a broader dialogue. But my opinion is my opinions, but I think anything is context. Some context has higher audience rate. For someone who does experimental music verses sound art, they are presenting to different audience, for experimental music has a larger audience, even just using the title music as art. I don't know if it comes down to commercialism or elitist elevation. I went to some experimental music show and it was insane chaos, and there was no music but musicians were performing. In a way they are using these performative acts not about creating music, but really highlighting their relationship with their instruments. It depends on how you term it. But I don't think there's a difference.

DZ: what do you think of the Vancouver sound art scene? Do you see a lot of shows?

RC: I don’t go out much, really, but I would say I’ve seen more experimental music shows than sound art shows. In many ways, the sound art shows I ‘ve gone to see are less engaging, but the experimental music was always quite heavier in its sound and tones. Seems the sound artists come from this technology-based foundation, verses the experimental music comes from a hard-core metal type foundation. So it's way more entertaining to watch. They are just destroying themselves and their instruments to make this sound. There's a big Vancouver experimental music scene. I know of sound artists who go into the music venue to present works, which follows almost the same format. So is that really sound art then? Or is it borrowing the venue? It gets really blurry.

DZ: have you heard about concrete music (Musique Concrete)? It's an early French school of sound artists who started manipulating sound using tape recorder in the 50's. They were the first ones to use techniques of sampling, looping, reverbs. In the book on sound art that I am reading, they are clearly labeled as sound artist, but nowadays every DJ uses those techniques. We don't call them sound artists, because these techniques are so established. You think it's a natural progression of things?

RC: of life? (laugh) For sure. In many ways. For example, Our parents generation fought for the rights that they have. They have the struggle to get the concept of post modernism, but on a more physical tangible level, they had to struggle with racism and equality within society. Whereas as our generation, we just grew up as if it's give. We don't have to fight for it anymore, just use it as what it is because it is just there. We just accept it as the way things are. Life keeps progressing and changing but the pattern stays the same.

DZ: When Concrete Music started using sampling and looping, it was a revolutionary idea like a new way of looking at sound because they weren't just using music, but all kinds of sound from daily life. For sound artists now, if they simply use the techniques, it wouldn't make art out of it. They have to build a contextual base for it in order to make it "art".

RC: It's similar to something I read recently, Hans Richter on Dadaism. He is someone who's with Dadaism from the beginning and stayed through till the end. So he started talking about the next generation and how they are just taking all the things Dada has fought so much. It really changed the role of art within society. And now younger artists are using those things to create sensation, not trying to push anything anymore. Maybe just to push themselves, but that's it. Dadaism was trying to find a truth within humanity by trying to tear down and deal with all the inhumanity, like WWII. So you have Hans Richter like "who are these kids taking all the work that we did and make money and make a name off it”. I know within my own practice, I am trying to make honest work that's pushing the exploration of ideas and through that, sound has become one of the tools that I use. Whether it's a use of sound with conviction, it's hard for myself to say, but there is honesty in the attempt. That' s why I am trying to stay away from the history of it. It'll be interesting t find how other sound artists are trying to explore the same ideas. Ideas go around. However, it's hard to know anyone's intention really. Same with the book on Yoga. You can look like at peace in a yoga position, body relaxed, right breathing, but no one really knows if you are meditating. You might be thinking about a Starbuck coffee and no one would know.

DZ: Thanks Roy. I will put this interview on a blog-style website.

RC:It's funny to publish a blog on sound artists eh? The idea of compiling or using this written form to let others know about sound artists is funny: an entire silent format to communicate sound to others. It's kind of nice, but also super confusing.

DZ: Maybe i'll put a little sound clip of "this is Roy Caussy 's voice".