Object Attachment
Ignaz Schick
Object Attachment
When I was a kid strolling around our small farm, I always had a strong affection for found objects. Small stones, pieces of driftwood from a small riverbank, special shaped or colored leaves from trees. Every time a triumph: cuckoo or jay feathers, deserted snail houses, fallen-off empty wasp nests, or the empty eggshells from some wild birds. Even more exciting: the dry snakeskin I once found on one of our grass hills. Or, what would usually get me into trouble: small shiny brass or copper pieces stolen from the junk metal in my father’s workshop. I did not have any specific use for those little collections, I would just gather and store them somewhere in my playing zones. I just loved the shapes, colors, and materiality of each of them.
One day my mother had enough of my constantly broken pockets and just sewed them up, hoping that by doing this she could prevent me from collecting useless objects and from destroying my pants all the time. Later, when I got into art and music, objects became important again to me, or rather my interest for found objects started to make sense; for making collages, assemblages and sound pieces, music machines, or installations. At first very naively, later on in a more refined manner. I started investigating the sonic possibilities of objects, first by using normal and pick-up microphones, later by using rotation and vibration, trying to bring out the inner sonic potential of a found/given object.
Not only, but especially during my “Rotating Surfaces” period, objects played an important role in my set-up. I was especially attached to a metal spring which I soldered to the cartridge of my turntables: I was hoping for some special amplified spring sound, but the contact broke and all I could hear was this acoustic, singing droning note caused by the friction between the metal spring and the rotating rubber slip mate. In this moment, a whole new sonic universe unfolded with such a simple principle that it would become the base of my new setup: I would test all kinds of objects by using the rotation of the turntable to animate them to resonate and sound. And for some pieces/performances in Portugal and Australia, I even brought back natural found objects into my setup: dry leaves, small branches, palm tree bark, eucalyptus leaves, small branches with thorns, laurel, small stones, etc., etc.
In the meantime, I have returned to using vinyl in my turntable setup. Still, every time I take a record into my performance collection there is this moment of hesitation: do I really want to sacrifice this one record?! There is some weird, respect-demanding aspect of a brand-new record, it creates a certain resistance which I need to overcome every time I start using a new vinyl. Maybe it is fear or too much respect for an in-the-end banal and everyday object. So why not just misuse it?
Ignaz Schick is a composer/performer, turntablist, sound and visual artist, and curator, who is based in Berlin.