The Obelisk Questionnaire: Tom Denney of I Klatus & Tom Denney Art
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Tom Denney of I Klatus & Tom Denney Art
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
The attempt is to create the heaviest expression. The desire to experience the heaviest expression has not been achieved. The frustration is in the continued attempts to capture the heaviest expression. It started before consciousness started. More of a destiny, or a magnetic tethering. The first expression was pre toddler smashing different cooking pots together to make the noises bend to the will. Then Tuba in grade school. The largest and most primal brass instrument. The amount of air your lungs could produce could generate tones, primal chaotic tones. When the air passed through the various curvatures of the brass pipe system, you could stagger the breath in combination with certain vocalizations to generate the alternating tones which would sound closer to animal. Like an elephant or large cetacean. Also the volume and vibration that would be caused in the room always fascinated.
From the age of 8-18 I was able to grow my lung power to the point that I could yield the tuba as a sonic weapon, creating sharp whipping noises that would create great amusement by the consternation of and within a football field radius. Which was often fun because we would actually perform at football fields, like the Orange Bowl in Florida. I would have to work with an assault line of other tuba players in order to project our internal lung capacity through the winding of the brass tubes over the combined voices of sixty thousand stadium goers.
Soon after that I traded in the tuba for bass guitar. Continuing to search for the sound until I finally got myself a Gibson six-string and proper mesa boogie full stack. Originally it was just noise that would clear out basement shows. Then it evolved. It continues, the search for the heaviest continues.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
Playing on a big stage next to your best friends while every one is in sync. Playing music with other people, there have been so many times where it crosses over into the mystical. To attempt to point out one experience isn’t really viable. To say that there is something very metaphysical to playing live music with other talented musicians, it is as close to eucharistic transcendental experience that you could hope for as a human. Outside of jumping out of a plane, jamming live and really getting into sync with people musically is as close as you can get to the thrill of the void. It taps into a deeper part of my being. It’s proof of the resonance of sound and psychic abilities. They call it “Intuitive Playing”.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
…
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
Poverty.
How do you define success?
The ability to transmit a message and have it received by another participant.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
…
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
I would like to create an animated series. Lots of colors and moving elements all set to music.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
To capture the imagination, hold it in place. It is to make permanent the flowing of ideas which pass through the mind. Like taking a snapshot into the imagination, which is in itself with the flow of the nature of the universe. Where do ideas come from? Where every thing else in nature comes from. The Void. Pondering the void can lead to existential breakdown for most workers. However the artist stands at the edge of this void, tethered by a single rope, leaning into the void to report back to the rest of the culture the changing tides and torrents of the void. A seed springs forth from the shadowy mud as a stalk of receiving, searching for the light. Most people only want to hear about the light, see pictures of it in advertisements, listen to other people conduct their opinions about the mater. Yet only the artist are compelled to explore it in person. The experience of which can either destroy you or make you whole. For it is the true spirit of man which feeds of art. It holds immense value.
It will be the only way we have to tell our story to future generations. Art is our only document of how our souls are currently surviving, impacted by the flow of creation, and living in the warm embrace of a central star that will eventually go supernova and destroy us in every sense. We look to the art to show us lifetimes beyond our own, possibilities of our seed passing on through the darkness of space into a never dying new form of awareness. Art is the life raft of our culture through the deafening sour void that is existence. Destruction and cosmic survival intertwined. Like coiled serpents flowing in unison into each other for all eternity. Art is the promise of a cosmic rebirth. Through sound, and vision and storytelling in all its forms and conjurations. The art and its creator is our truest form of magick. As everything emanates from the void of the mind firstly and then through skill and control, is transcribed onto paper or computer. Then the engineers set to crafting it and it is made real.
Every technological miracle mankind has achieved from the wheel to the space vehicles, it all started with the artist, transcribing the vision for others to follow. On the cave wall with charcoal or the corporate hi rises with light pens and holographic interface. It will always be the artist at the forefront of these unfoldments. A visionary artist is your best friend when it comes to conjuring and manifesting the unseen or impossible. The artist will find the way, the artist will build the path that leads to kingdoms built of knowing. Like the temple of prayer which all emperors are crowned upon was envisioned by an artist, hanging over the edge of the void. The realms of chaos and noise. From which he conjures something pure. Something that we all can interpret differently, and subscribe to and follow. Art is not a religion, it is THE RELIGION, which is called by many names. Its unfoldment will continue to astound us and lead us into the future. Through fashion and technology, and interpersonal relationships, art will continue to be the life raft that carries all the consciousness of humanity forward. Into the void of unknowing, and the retainment of the past.
Art is our only promise of immortality.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
The Apocalypse
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