Behind the Scenes: capturing applause for Assembled Audience

Transcript

Marisa Espe interview

Makayla Davis: Can you please state your name and where you are currently?

Marisa Espe: Yes. My name is Marissa Espe and I am in Red Hook, New York, which is a tiny village. Not Red Hook, Brooklyn, but two hours north of New York City.

MD: What did you learn, like, about people and about the project just from doing this work? 

ME: I learned that there are way more people who are willing to say yes to a random ask like this from a stranger than I actually would have expected. You know, despite all the people who said no, the fact that there are hundreds and hundreds of people who were game to do it was really surprising. 

MD: So, what's it like to really do the behind the scenes work for an artist?

ME: Um, it's... it's cool. I mean, despite all the issues that we encountered with it, the fact that she could have very easily had people go into a proper studio recording setting—have, you know, volunteers who would willingly sign up to be part of this art installation. Knowing that she instead opted for this very specific process and form of data collection where, who the people were, the events that they were attending where they were, that was all so integrated into the goals of the project that we did this sort of ridiculous thing of running around the city for months and months to do this. But because it was so important to the work is... I don't know, that was special, I think.

Maria Joranko interview

Makayla Davis: Can you please state your name and where you are in, in the world for me?

Maria Joranko: Hi, my name is Maria Joranko. And currently, I am in Fairfax, Virginia. I was previously in Columbus, Ohio, but this is where I am now. 

MD: So what is it like from your perspective to record audience, or individuals', applause for Assembled Audience? 

MJ: Well, it was an interesting experience overall. Um, again, I know we've talked about this before, but it's been a few years. So like, whenever I think about it, it's always with like, the veneer of the past.

MD: Yeah.

MJ: I mean, it was kind of a difficult experience because sometimes getting random people to clap for a random stranger is really difficult. And it's also weird to think about this now that we're in COVID because like, there's no way now that I would approach someone and be like, "Hey, would you clap for me?" that they would probably do it. And it's also really hard to think of anybody assembling in large amounts as an audience anymore. So now that I'm thinking about it from that perspective, it's really such a strange experience to look on and think on now. Because it was just so normal in a way.

MD: So what did you learn from the project? And what made it difficult? Or what.. Yeah, what made it difficult?

MJ: I learned a lot from the process. So the way it was kind of explained to us was that it was a project collecting the sounds of clapping from the city of Columbus, Ohio; events at like the Convention Center and Nationwide and stuff like that. Because the city of Columbus—and we had to, like, explain this several times—the city of Columbus is like a testing ground for different types of commercial products. And from it, I learned who people consider consumers, which is to say largely white people, and largely people who can afford to go to these kinds of events, which is still majority white people, and that that's who people perceive the consumer to be. At least for like mass marketed projects and stuff like that. And it was also interesting to see how, from an outside perspective, what the view of community was for Columbus, Ohio. I mean, there are a lot of really great, intimate, community-based events that I learned about after the project because at the time, I was still a newcomer—well, not fully, but still like, newer to the city, and still figuring out, you know, where I wanted to be and the kind of people I wanted to surround myself with and the kind of community I was parts of, and where I would invest my time and energy. And from an outside perspective, it was a really interesting view into how people perceive the people of Ohio and who they perceive as the majority community, and what's going on in that town and how it's very consumer-driven. Meanwhile, I've seen events found that have been really incredibly wholesome, and not, you know, just this targeted audience, and this audience that was assembled. And so, I'm curious about why they chose to engage community in this way. And it also—like through, you know, doing larger events, and not just having people clapping from smaller arts or books, events and stuff like that, that really was interesting to me. And I learned a lot about enagement and how different artists engage with communities that they're not part of or not inside. And that having someone sort of from that community, being kind of an emissary to go to these events, is one of those ways. 

Tala Kanani interview

Makayla Davis: What is it like to like, record and be recorded, just like applauding, like I imagined that's just the the string...

Tala Kanani: Clapping for 90 seconds actually feels like a really long time. When you're standing with a recorder, it's just like this, you know, *this big* of a recorder. It's like one of those professional ones that have an external mics on them. You can see like, the amperage or whatever, their clapping. So you had to keep it in a certain area. So you either have to step back from them or step forward if they weren't clapping loud enough. So, it was actually fairly complicated, but you got used to it. And I was saying, like, this is really teaching me how to be a salesperson; convincing somebody like, hey, no, I don't actually want anything else other than for you to clap for the next 90 seconds. It's not a gimmick. Like there's nothing, no contacting you, your information is private. Everybody was very concerned about that. But, yeah, I would say awkward. I mean, I definitely had some weird conversations with a lot of people in 2018.

MD: Yeah, I bet.

TK: Yeah, I was following people around like, hey, please clap for me. At first, I was pretty timid. I was like, "You know, whatever." And then eventually I'm like, "Hey! Clap for me for 90 seconds."

MD: (Laughing) That's OK, just do just do the work, please.

TK: And I would fill out the whole sheet or whatever, as much as I could. And then I would have them sign and write their name. And then I would just like hand it to them and like, here, that's fine. It became this thing where it was like, OK, now I know what I'm doing. I'm just gonna go to people and be like, "Hey, clap for me." Literally, just anybody that would like give me the time of day.

MD: How did this project affect you as an artist?

TK: I don't think directly but I think probably indirectly. The whole fact that there was talking earlier was like, well, I think it made me a better salesperson. Yeah. I think that affected... like, I was a bartender for a few years. I think it made me a better bartender.

MD: That's definitely a huge social job.

TK: Yeah, right? And then you're not afraid of talking to people anymore, because it's just an everyday thing. And people are people, which is sad that we don't really get to do that anymore. You know, the face to face thing

MD: One day it will happen again.

TK: I hope so. I really do. I think so. So yeah. I think it made me a better salesperson. It made it easier to talk to people. And then as far as like affecting my art, I think it made me realize that compensating people that participate, or that I wanted to participate in my own work, was important. I think it made me think about the place that I live, like the place that I grew up in, in a more well-rounded way, and the fact that other people look to the city for things like that, I think it makes you prideful, right? Because I was born and raised in Columbus. And it also makes you think, like, Oh, well, if she can do it, then I can do it, you know what I mean?

Juli Sasaki interview

Makayla Davis: Can you please state your name and where you are in the world currently.

Juli Sasaki: I'm Juli Sasaki, and I'm in Columbus, Ohio.

MD: What did you learn just from the process of collecting audio soundbites of applause, random people,

JS: It was definitely an interesting experience, being able to... I guess, I had to put myself in a very like vulnerable state in order to make that connection with a random stranger. And like, I remember sometimes it would be so cold outside, like a lot of them took place in the wintertime. So you're just like out there in the cold for a long time. Like, sometimes my hands would get so cold that it was like even hard to press the record button on the recorder. I think it was an interesting experience to like, force connections with people, all different types of people, and then see where that led me.

MD: What made the project difficult, aside from, you know, your fingers freezing off in the snow and having to ask random people for weird claps for a minute and a half or so. 

JS: Yeah, I think the most difficult part was just myself—like, the way that I viewed myself in that process. I'm an introverted person, so on days when I was feeling particularly introverted, I would have to l force myself to go out of myself for those, so that was pretty difficult. But I did notice that the way that people responded to me asking them to clap for me was totally different based off of how I personally was feeling that day. I noticed that if I was in a good mood, people would be like, "Yeah, of course, I'll do this crazy thing for you." But if I was in a bad mood people would instantly be put off and be like, kind of suspicious about what I was doing. So I think the most difficult part was learning how to control my own mental state and change that to like a positive mental state every time that I was going out to do this.

MD: What's it like to do all of this mechanical behind the scenes work for an artist as popular and renowned as Taryn Simon? 

JS: It was definitely interesting, and I know [this] relates to one of your later questions: I did go see the final exhibition at Mass MoCA. And I saw Taryn from afar, but we never like really talked... Like, I think somebody from Mass MOCA might have introduced us, but we didn't have a real conversation, you know?. Collecting all of this sounds, you know, that came from extremely humble place. And then they were just so elevated and abstracted by Taryn Simon. So that was I think one of the most interesting things about working on like an exhibition like this, seeing the difference between where the material came from to how it was presented.