hyperessay

jessica rylan is one of my favorite current performers/artists these days. she combines the essence of russolo and the futurists with quirky pop-esque motives. she combines machine noise with the sounds of a flowing stream. and she does it all with home-built analogue synthesizers. jessica rylan is a sound artist based out of boston, ma. though she has done installations in many places, she is most well-known for her dynamic performances which include but are not limited to music, poetry, and storytelling.
i appreciate a lot of what she has to say about her art/music in relation to the rest of the world. she has stated that it is important to her to be appreciated in both academic and popular settings. referring to the serialist composers she said that "most people don't actually like to listen to that". even Helmut Lachenmann agrees that music has split off so that much of what is composed is inaccessable to people without an advanced degree in music theory. rylan has a "folk-pop-noise" approach to her music. her performances are usually in small venues such as houses or apartments, she is incredibly friendly and approachable, and her music is homemade from the ground up.
in my own work i hope never to become too heady or esoteric for people to understand what i am trying to communicate. i feel that when this happens in art or music, the artist becomes instantly disenfranchised from the audience and the art itself looses much of its importance and validity. stockhausen once said that an electronic composer never has to artistically justify his work because he can point to the fact that it is an experiment. while i feel that this is true and also important, i do not intend on spending my life creating art that only appeals to other scientific and experimental artists.