Creation Myths/ Meta Narratives:
This project began in the middle of a dj set. I had just come home from watching Philip Glass' KOYAANISQATSI, and I felt inspired. Putting down some tribal house, an idea began to form. It was about music as narrative, religion and it's meta-narrative.

The Art of the DJ:
Thanks to a certain DJ Spooky it seems as if theorists are beginning to lionize the DJ as a sort of post-modern poster child. The DJ recombines and alters texts; synthesizing new meaning: two records make a dependent yet unique third iteration. One record may have bitten a drum loop from James Brown, (Paul/Spooky has some interesting theories about sampling as ancestor worship, btw) thus adding another level of text. The DJ is a collage artist and a storyteller, or he/she might just want to make people move. A good DJ is a shaman, knowing through un-taught experience exactly which concoctions to brew for certain desired effects. All in all, a good place to start.

I guess I would define the music I play as tribal house. It is music rife with imagery and spatial considerations. Probably a bit more esoteric than your average fare, but functional (or maybe funk-tional). A track I played after KOYAANIQATSI, the Peace Division remix of Yothi Yindi's "Treaty" got me thinking about myth and religion. The track is a 2000 mix of a song written in 1992 by an Australian Aboriginal group that sound remarkably like Massive Attack. It is a melange of mean kicks, layer upon layer of percussion. Synths sound like didgeridoos that sound like synths, and a plaintive vocal, that once heard, burns itself into the listener's synapses, never to be forgotten. In short, it is a masterpiece
I began thinking of the layers in the track, the layers that it creates in conjunction with other tracks, and the narrative history and connotations of its palette. It might be somewhat arrogant to assign spirituality to a track that is not ostensibly about religion, but I will do it anyway. As I expanded my ideas to think of a final project, I began to think of how I could use these layers of meaning structurally: (as a record to be played with other records) and narratively/thematically: (as a spiritual experience, or relating to spirituality). I hit upon the idea to spin a set using records that made me think of spiritual expression, then create visuals to correspond to the audio. In short, its a big, insanely layered conceptual mess right now; but I am finding my way and salvation as I work on it. For perhaps the first time, I think that my work is really starting to answer some of my questions about narrative and construction, rather than merely exploring ideas.

I have been interested in comparative religious studies for quite sometime. They are stories that people live for, die for, and kill for. They are social programming, and individual ecstasy. The meta-narratives of religions seem to be some of the richest material one could choose to work with. Constantly being altered through social values and recombination, they may be seen as the first living-texts/hyper-texts, both in their programmatic potential and mutability. It is also some pretty heady ground to be traversing for the same reasons. These stories are people's lives and souls, not some abstract theory. It is problematic and exhilarating.

My Questions/Goals/Ideas:

Explore the levels of narrative meaning through form and content.
or How many levels of meaning can Tray make up?

I really want to explore how the narratives of spirituality can be looked at and recombined, especially when these narrative structures are attached to the formal structure and idea of DJ'ing.

Get a better understanding of the power of these religious texts
or Tray finds God

The unquantifiable ecstasy of spiritual experience has fascinated me since I saw Chelsea Smock's Vision project last spring. I often ponder the deep-seated need we have to have a sense of spirituality.

Try to use DJ'ing as a metaphorical process Or "how can Tray turn it into theory"

Every time I hear the word bricollage, I think of turntables. I wonder about how this art form came to be. Did Grandmaster Flash secretly have a thing for Post-Modern theory? I think the metaphor of the DJ is timely and powerful, and may be appropriated for use in other (e.g. visual) formats. These are my first steps towards that idea.