Larger Constructions: Dedicated to the Influence of Walt Whitman, The Performance-Artist, Not the Poet, Documenting his Projects in Poetry.
I’m like a
Journalist on
Assignment, embedded
With a community
Of Artists,
Made up of
Mirror-reflections
And shattered
Refractions of
One.
Of course, to
Get the inside
Scoop, the
Journalist must
Also be a
member of the
Community, his
assignment part and parcel
Of the projects of the
Group.
And, some more poetry... this time on video, accompanied by live beats... This is "A Trilogy of Poems About Music."
...about...
- Bernard P. Provencher LeVautour
- Phoenix, Arizona, United States
- musician...artist...bartender...writer...quasi-academic-freelance-literary-something-or-other...rabble-rouser... beat-builder...connoisseur-of-crazy-critical-theory...etc.
Showing posts with label performance art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label performance art. Show all posts
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Dirty Jobs; a retooling of the term for the stay-at-home-circus-set.
“That’s a pretty
Dirty job, isn’t it?”
I heard a woman a-
Cross the way with a
Vicious case of
Couch-ass say to
The mover as he
Hoisted her hideous
Blue-leather sofa
From a second-story
Slider... And it made me
Think.
What has a “dirty job”
Become? I mean, it
Could be argued that,
In the present condition of
American Capitalism, any time
Green paper or false credit
Changes hands a job is
Being done that is, on
Both ends of the exchange,
Inherently “dirty”...
But that’s an argument for
Another debate, and I will
Thus leave it, for now, in the
Periphery...
As I was overhearing
This, I was knee-deep in
A critical-essay dense with
Requisite references, realizing
That I was about to
Engage in a career as a
Professional Name-Dropper.
Realizing it is apparently rather
Uncouth to begin a piece of
Writing without the required,
However unrelated and irrelevant,
Quotes from Greenblatt, Jameson,
Frye...
I was in the middle of
Thinking aloud, “What the
HELL does that quote have to
Do with this essay?!?” when
My speakers shuffled to a
Song from one of my own recent
Records; that someone had
Lately described as reminding
Him of the cacophony, the
Layers and spirals of sounds,
Of standing in the middle of
An airport tarmac, without earplugs.
(I think it was intended, and
Thus taken, as a compliment.)
And I recalled my meticulous attention
To the texture of the dirt on the
Beat, the cloudy veil to
Mask my voice, and remembered
That this was “dirty” on
Purpose. I had worked hard
To make it such. Ok, then, let’s
Break it down a
Bit.
We work with... words,
And noise, and visual
Images (both tangible,
For their own sake, and
The combined construction of
All or parts of these thing...)
We’ve become, of
Course, compulsive
Multi-taskers, obsessive
Interdisciplinarians...
We are expected, at the
Same time that we,
Even more, expect
Ourselves to be,
Minutely specialized,
While being, at the
Same time, back-
Breakingly diverse...
We all become
Jacks of all
Trades though
Masters of one
Miniscule detail of
How to pull all of those
Together, to
Construct from it
Our individual
Microscopically
Diverse
Niche.
In most cases, our
Parents weren’t circus
Performers. Even when
They might have
Been artists, critics,
Musicians, whatever,
They would never have
Thought to jump
Through the flaming
Hoops we douse
With oil and light
Ourselves.
Can you look at me with
An “honest” twenty-first-century
Face (whatever that might
Mean) and tell me that
These aren’t “Pretty Dirty
Jobs?”
The difference I see,
However, between this and
How that term was used
In the past is that,
Unlike, for instance, the
Garbage-man (except, of course,
That rare yet somehow
Commonplace specimen that
Takes such perverse pride in
The beat-to-shit and disregarded
Stuffed-animals that he tacks to
The grill of his truck)
Is that we REVEL
In the dirt, it’s rather
WHY we do the jobs,
Instead of a hinderance
From holding them, as it
Might be for perspective
Garbage-men.
“Isn’t that a pretty
Dirty job?” the
Woman with the
Couch-ass said to
The mover, as they
Watched me sitting
On my patio, rabidly
Scribbling in the
Margins of my copy of
A cumbersome anthology
Of the complete works of
Milton...
Bernard P. Provencher LeVautour (w/ S.W.S.)- Dirty Jobs (poem)
Dirty job, isn’t it?”
I heard a woman a-
Cross the way with a
Vicious case of
Couch-ass say to
The mover as he
Hoisted her hideous
Blue-leather sofa
From a second-story
Slider... And it made me
Think.
What has a “dirty job”
Become? I mean, it
Could be argued that,
In the present condition of
American Capitalism, any time
Green paper or false credit
Changes hands a job is
Being done that is, on
Both ends of the exchange,
Inherently “dirty”...
But that’s an argument for
Another debate, and I will
Thus leave it, for now, in the
Periphery...
As I was overhearing
This, I was knee-deep in
A critical-essay dense with
Requisite references, realizing
That I was about to
Engage in a career as a
Professional Name-Dropper.
Realizing it is apparently rather
Uncouth to begin a piece of
Writing without the required,
However unrelated and irrelevant,
Quotes from Greenblatt, Jameson,
Frye...
I was in the middle of
Thinking aloud, “What the
HELL does that quote have to
Do with this essay?!?” when
My speakers shuffled to a
Song from one of my own recent
Records; that someone had
Lately described as reminding
Him of the cacophony, the
Layers and spirals of sounds,
Of standing in the middle of
An airport tarmac, without earplugs.
(I think it was intended, and
Thus taken, as a compliment.)
And I recalled my meticulous attention
To the texture of the dirt on the
Beat, the cloudy veil to
Mask my voice, and remembered
That this was “dirty” on
Purpose. I had worked hard
To make it such. Ok, then, let’s
Break it down a
Bit.
We work with... words,
And noise, and visual
Images (both tangible,
For their own sake, and
The combined construction of
All or parts of these thing...)
We’ve become, of
Course, compulsive
Multi-taskers, obsessive
Interdisciplinarians...
We are expected, at the
Same time that we,
Even more, expect
Ourselves to be,
Minutely specialized,
While being, at the
Same time, back-
Breakingly diverse...
We all become
Jacks of all
Trades though
Masters of one
Miniscule detail of
How to pull all of those
Together, to
Construct from it
Our individual
Microscopically
Diverse
Niche.
In most cases, our
Parents weren’t circus
Performers. Even when
They might have
Been artists, critics,
Musicians, whatever,
They would never have
Thought to jump
Through the flaming
Hoops we douse
With oil and light
Ourselves.
Can you look at me with
An “honest” twenty-first-century
Face (whatever that might
Mean) and tell me that
These aren’t “Pretty Dirty
Jobs?”
The difference I see,
However, between this and
How that term was used
In the past is that,
Unlike, for instance, the
Garbage-man (except, of course,
That rare yet somehow
Commonplace specimen that
Takes such perverse pride in
The beat-to-shit and disregarded
Stuffed-animals that he tacks to
The grill of his truck)
Is that we REVEL
In the dirt, it’s rather
WHY we do the jobs,
Instead of a hinderance
From holding them, as it
Might be for perspective
Garbage-men.
“Isn’t that a pretty
Dirty job?” the
Woman with the
Couch-ass said to
The mover, as they
Watched me sitting
On my patio, rabidly
Scribbling in the
Margins of my copy of
A cumbersome anthology
Of the complete works of
Milton...
Bernard P. Provencher LeVautour (w/ S.W.S.)- Dirty Jobs (poem)
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
"Unexpected Situations on a Crowded Street," a preface in poetic explanative expiriments.
"Beyond superstition, I was aware, in a manner more forceful than anything my academic research had brought home to me, of the extent to which my identity and the words I utter coincide, the extent to which I want to form my own sentences or to choose for myself those moments in which I will recite someone else's. To be asked, even by an isolated, needy individual to perform lines that were not my own, that violated my sense of my own desires, was intolerable." -Stephen Greenblatt, "The Improvisation of Power (Epilogue)"
Unexpected Situations on a Crowded Street, Revisited.
“Cars overturned,
Fists are flyin’,
Houses bein’ burned,
Children are dyin’.”
Full circle…
Riot.
Unexpected situations on a crowded…
Street.
What street?
This street,
That street,
The same
As the space in which we
Make these noises now
Sits a mere block-and-a-half from
That pad we inhabited
When I was a child…
In fact, I can almost see it from our
Grime-encrusted back-window as
I stand now sporting
Straight edge tattoo-work
Chain smoking Specials, sipping
Cloudy Green Fairy and red wine…
Life…
Blood.
To those who think they’ve
Kept tabs on my back-catalogue
So much of this must
Seem a bit strange
So bear with me a bit as I lay myself bare,
I tend to think in some sort of semi-logical trajectory
This makes some semblance of sense,
I swear.
I’ll slit my
{Insert something
Censored here}
For you,
I really will…
This game of performance is a Riot
Leaving faceless idols of divinity hanging
Upside-down from trees,
With banners of perversity
For its own sake,
And so many dead
People from a country that
We all doubted that the song ever
Really had anything to do with…
As the circular nature of this
Riot
Leaves me battling
Myself now,
Pitting what I
Should do against
What I seem to have to…
As after trying to quit
Cold-turkey so many
Times, I pull the
Tourniquet so
Tight again to
Inject “Music”
And “Performance,”
The stuff that seems to
Kill, into my veins with
Rhythmic pulsing pump and
Flow again, banging out
Noise with these people who
Shared the same first ironic
Moronic cult of a “band,”
Performance-art shams,
Devoid of Concept besides
In anachronistic retrospect,
A willing pint we call and
Raise.
As I battle the
Balance of
Sounds I can’t
Seem to cease making
With the words that
Prove my passion,
Squeezing my own
Voice within perversely
Problematic rehashes and
Re-fires of words from the
Past that I put in my
Mouth that weren’t really my
Own,
And try to make them fit
With what I really
Can’t stop needing
To say,
In speech and sounds,
In synthesis.
With this fire,
Raging blue with
Volatile and toxic
Plastic, we
Burn symbolic streets.
“Cars overturned,
Fists are flyin’,
Houses bein’ burned,
Children are dyin’.”
“Cops can’t do nothing’, even though they have those guns,
Youngsters on the sidewalk, glassy eyes turned to the sun.
You stand in amongst the throngs, try to stay alive,
Chantin’ pro-rebellion songs, smothered by the hive.
Ground comes up to meet your head, scattered mates call your name.
You’re gonna be left for dead, playin’ your private/public riot game.”
“Cars overturned,
Fists are flyin’,
Houses bein’ burned,
Children are dyin’.”
{The preceding is a piece of word-collage poetry that I posted on the Myspace blog for my electro-rock outfit Tipsy Cougar, who recently finally started posting some actual "music" to our site. It's intended to serve as a strange sort of preface to the next piece of noise that we intend to post, a drastically divergent reworking of the long-forgotten Moron Cult/ Pseudophonics song "USOCS". This seemed to be an ironically fitting choice for the outfit, as all three active members of the band were at one point or another at least tenuously part of the older act (in fact, depending on definitional technicalities, and at different junctures, Moron Cult was all three of our "first" band.) Thus, I must give credit where it's due and point out that some segments of the above that appear in quotations were originally written by C. Charles ("xian") Dyer of that outfit (while sitting next to me in driver's ed. class, in fact). Also, references and lyrical fragments are borrowed liberally throughout from many bands that I've contributed to in the past (we could make a game of it, if you like... cookies of some sort should go to those among you that can pick out and identify the most...)... This would probably be as good of a time as any to point out that if you haven't taken a listen to what I'm doing with Tipsy Cougar yet, you should. Conceptually, what I'm attempting there in auditory form is very similar to some terrain tread often within the pages of this blog.}
Unexpected Situations on a Crowded Street, Revisited.
“Cars overturned,
Fists are flyin’,
Houses bein’ burned,
Children are dyin’.”
Full circle…
Riot.
Unexpected situations on a crowded…
Street.
What street?
This street,
That street,
The same
As the space in which we
Make these noises now
Sits a mere block-and-a-half from
That pad we inhabited
When I was a child…
In fact, I can almost see it from our
Grime-encrusted back-window as
I stand now sporting
Straight edge tattoo-work
Chain smoking Specials, sipping
Cloudy Green Fairy and red wine…
Life…
Blood.
To those who think they’ve
Kept tabs on my back-catalogue
So much of this must
Seem a bit strange
So bear with me a bit as I lay myself bare,
I tend to think in some sort of semi-logical trajectory
This makes some semblance of sense,
I swear.
I’ll slit my
{Insert something
Censored here}
For you,
I really will…
This game of performance is a Riot
Leaving faceless idols of divinity hanging
Upside-down from trees,
With banners of perversity
For its own sake,
And so many dead
People from a country that
We all doubted that the song ever
Really had anything to do with…
As the circular nature of this
Riot
Leaves me battling
Myself now,
Pitting what I
Should do against
What I seem to have to…
As after trying to quit
Cold-turkey so many
Times, I pull the
Tourniquet so
Tight again to
Inject “Music”
And “Performance,”
The stuff that seems to
Kill, into my veins with
Rhythmic pulsing pump and
Flow again, banging out
Noise with these people who
Shared the same first ironic
Moronic cult of a “band,”
Performance-art shams,
Devoid of Concept besides
In anachronistic retrospect,
A willing pint we call and
Raise.
As I battle the
Balance of
Sounds I can’t
Seem to cease making
With the words that
Prove my passion,
Squeezing my own
Voice within perversely
Problematic rehashes and
Re-fires of words from the
Past that I put in my
Mouth that weren’t really my
Own,
And try to make them fit
With what I really
Can’t stop needing
To say,
In speech and sounds,
In synthesis.
With this fire,
Raging blue with
Volatile and toxic
Plastic, we
Burn symbolic streets.
“Cars overturned,
Fists are flyin’,
Houses bein’ burned,
Children are dyin’.”
“Cops can’t do nothing’, even though they have those guns,
Youngsters on the sidewalk, glassy eyes turned to the sun.
You stand in amongst the throngs, try to stay alive,
Chantin’ pro-rebellion songs, smothered by the hive.
Ground comes up to meet your head, scattered mates call your name.
You’re gonna be left for dead, playin’ your private/public riot game.”
“Cars overturned,
Fists are flyin’,
Houses bein’ burned,
Children are dyin’.”
{The preceding is a piece of word-collage poetry that I posted on the Myspace blog for my electro-rock outfit Tipsy Cougar, who recently finally started posting some actual "music" to our site. It's intended to serve as a strange sort of preface to the next piece of noise that we intend to post, a drastically divergent reworking of the long-forgotten Moron Cult/ Pseudophonics song "USOCS". This seemed to be an ironically fitting choice for the outfit, as all three active members of the band were at one point or another at least tenuously part of the older act (in fact, depending on definitional technicalities, and at different junctures, Moron Cult was all three of our "first" band.) Thus, I must give credit where it's due and point out that some segments of the above that appear in quotations were originally written by C. Charles ("xian") Dyer of that outfit (while sitting next to me in driver's ed. class, in fact). Also, references and lyrical fragments are borrowed liberally throughout from many bands that I've contributed to in the past (we could make a game of it, if you like... cookies of some sort should go to those among you that can pick out and identify the most...)... This would probably be as good of a time as any to point out that if you haven't taken a listen to what I'm doing with Tipsy Cougar yet, you should. Conceptually, what I'm attempting there in auditory form is very similar to some terrain tread often within the pages of this blog.}
Friday, January 4, 2008
Gimmicks, Grimy Glitz, and Chaos, remembering Stych, Part 2.
“You got- something to say, don’t need …” Ben bellowed at the crowd, who were most likely by this point closer to disgusted and annoyed than anything else, in a baritone-ish delivery that wasn’t quite talking, singing or yelling, but had elements of all three, and definitely wasn’t rapping either. He teetered on the edge of the stage, like a giant version of the Roadrunner, catching himself repeatedly to prevent a fall, just before the Coyote (the rest of us spasming on the stage behind him?) could catch up and push him over the edge. As he “sang,” his hands kept in continual motion; stealing hats from audience members and placing them on the heads of unsuspecting girls at the other end of his enormous wingspan, tossing out torn pages of ridiculous gimmick-porn mags, obscenely taunting the dancers that we had brought to occupy the cages that this venue happened to have perched on the corners of the stage. A devilish smirk stung across his face the whole while.
Later in the show, I thought that it would be a good idea to attempt to enter the cage with the dancer that was closest to my side of the stage. I forgot, however, that I was wearing a guitar around my neck, and needed room in front of it for my hands to move in order to continue to play it. Naturally, despite my somewhat diminutive size (Ben often jabbed at me between songs with derogatories implying in creative/ offensive ways that I was pale and malnourished) I got stuck. I found myself in the entrance-way to the cage (which, for those of you who’ve never had the privileged and enlightening experience of being on the performing end of a stripper’s apparatus, is basically just two of the bars that are spaced ever-so-slightly further apart), attempting to continue playing, while trying to figure out if it was more feasible to get in or get out. Meanwhile, the dancer decided that, rather than help me, it would be more entertaining to continue dancing and laugh at me, and draw the crowd’s attention to my plight. We had, after all, brought her and her companion along for the purpose of entertaining the crowd, and with that purpose in mind, I can’t begin to claim that she made the wrong decision. After the song concluded, I was able to remove myself, only by removing my guitar and edging it out first, while Ben stood making mock head-scratching gestures between me and the laughing crowd. “You know, I’m not typically the type to complain that strippers are too thin, but… when that kid can’t fit into the cage, the openings might just be a bit too small. Hell, look at him. He turns sideways, he disappears!”
Ben jumped across the stage to the edge closest to the bar. “This next one’s dedicated to the bartender jerk with the pompadour that we can’t seem to distract away from him god-damn game of nudie video-poker. I heard that he’s an Elvis fan.”
“Want to listen to the king? YOU look like an Elvis fan…” The little girl’s voice on the sample ripped through the crowd (yeah, you guessed it, the name of the act and samples throughout the show were lifted and modified from the most inappropriate source that could have been chosen; a Disney cartoon intended for children, which also happened to strike a strange resonance with our caricature-ish front-man), and we launched into what was probably the noisiest cover of “Heartbreak Hotel” ever attempted.
From certain angles, this act could possibly have been ridiculously entertaining. For the same reasons, from absolutely every angle this act was just absolutely ridiculous. The thing was, to at least a couple of us involved in the project, that was completely the point. Stych wasn’t shock-rock, that game’s been done. We weren’t trying to be over-the-top, or support any sort of initiative to bring physical entertainment back to music. To some of us, Stych was mostly an experiment in the validity of incoherent gimmicks, a foray into the absurd, a performance-art pastiche of conflicting elements of how entertainment is currently sold and marketed (even the music itself was composed of countless elements that were intentionally ill-fitted for each other, absurd change-ups, and gimmicky dance-riffs stolen from genres that were completely not what we were selling ourselves as). The members who weren’t completely on the same page in this regard only added a validity and earnestness to the endeavor that couldn’t have been accomplished had we all been concept-artists dealing in the art of gimmickry, intentional revelers in the ridiculous.
And, hell, most of all, the chaotic (and absurdly loud) experiment that we called Stych was more fun than most of my other musical endeavors that had “legitimate” musical aspirations (but, prove themselves, in retrospect, not much less gimmicky) combined.
Later in the show, I thought that it would be a good idea to attempt to enter the cage with the dancer that was closest to my side of the stage. I forgot, however, that I was wearing a guitar around my neck, and needed room in front of it for my hands to move in order to continue to play it. Naturally, despite my somewhat diminutive size (Ben often jabbed at me between songs with derogatories implying in creative/ offensive ways that I was pale and malnourished) I got stuck. I found myself in the entrance-way to the cage (which, for those of you who’ve never had the privileged and enlightening experience of being on the performing end of a stripper’s apparatus, is basically just two of the bars that are spaced ever-so-slightly further apart), attempting to continue playing, while trying to figure out if it was more feasible to get in or get out. Meanwhile, the dancer decided that, rather than help me, it would be more entertaining to continue dancing and laugh at me, and draw the crowd’s attention to my plight. We had, after all, brought her and her companion along for the purpose of entertaining the crowd, and with that purpose in mind, I can’t begin to claim that she made the wrong decision. After the song concluded, I was able to remove myself, only by removing my guitar and edging it out first, while Ben stood making mock head-scratching gestures between me and the laughing crowd. “You know, I’m not typically the type to complain that strippers are too thin, but… when that kid can’t fit into the cage, the openings might just be a bit too small. Hell, look at him. He turns sideways, he disappears!”
Ben jumped across the stage to the edge closest to the bar. “This next one’s dedicated to the bartender jerk with the pompadour that we can’t seem to distract away from him god-damn game of nudie video-poker. I heard that he’s an Elvis fan.”
“Want to listen to the king? YOU look like an Elvis fan…” The little girl’s voice on the sample ripped through the crowd (yeah, you guessed it, the name of the act and samples throughout the show were lifted and modified from the most inappropriate source that could have been chosen; a Disney cartoon intended for children, which also happened to strike a strange resonance with our caricature-ish front-man), and we launched into what was probably the noisiest cover of “Heartbreak Hotel” ever attempted.
From certain angles, this act could possibly have been ridiculously entertaining. For the same reasons, from absolutely every angle this act was just absolutely ridiculous. The thing was, to at least a couple of us involved in the project, that was completely the point. Stych wasn’t shock-rock, that game’s been done. We weren’t trying to be over-the-top, or support any sort of initiative to bring physical entertainment back to music. To some of us, Stych was mostly an experiment in the validity of incoherent gimmicks, a foray into the absurd, a performance-art pastiche of conflicting elements of how entertainment is currently sold and marketed (even the music itself was composed of countless elements that were intentionally ill-fitted for each other, absurd change-ups, and gimmicky dance-riffs stolen from genres that were completely not what we were selling ourselves as). The members who weren’t completely on the same page in this regard only added a validity and earnestness to the endeavor that couldn’t have been accomplished had we all been concept-artists dealing in the art of gimmickry, intentional revelers in the ridiculous.
And, hell, most of all, the chaotic (and absurdly loud) experiment that we called Stych was more fun than most of my other musical endeavors that had “legitimate” musical aspirations (but, prove themselves, in retrospect, not much less gimmicky) combined.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Gimmicks, Grimy Glitz, and Chaos; recalling the strange and short-lived mess that we called “Stych,” part 1.
Fumbling around with my guitar this morning, I stumbled onto a set of riffs that I hadn’t played or remembered in a few years.
A corresponding mental image struck me. I was crouched behind a set of unnecessarily-large speaker cabinets, wearing a big black Stetson-style hat, a black bandana pulled ranger-style over my face, and my matte-black power-strat with glittery silver letters of the word “Doom” propped on my shoulder like a frontier rifle.
A sample from a Rowdy Roddy Piper film spilled far-too-loud over the house P.A.
“I have come to kick ass and chew bubble-gum.”
“du-du-du-dutu-du.” I protruded from my shelter in a burst of silver smoke, aiming the deafening sound-bullets from my headstock into the confused and laughing crowd.
“…and I’m all out of bubble-gum.”
“du-du-du-dutu-du.” I stepped further onto the stage and out of the fogger’s blur, still cradling my musical rifle, targeting now Nat Ward, who stood bouncing and rocking with his fretless bass on the edge of the stage, clad in black besides the giant rubber Woody-Woodpecker head that he wore as a hat, and Ben Spellman, a large man taunting the crowd explicitly with his microphone, bobbing the two giant, multicolored antennas of hair that protruded from the front of his head.
“Oh my god,” a female voice on the sample shrieked.
“du-du-du-dutu-du.” I let my guitar sling itself down to the extent of the strap, and took a backwards dive, chest-level left-foot first (late-’90’s Boston pit-boss fashion) into the front rows of the crowd.
“bang!” I bounced my way back onto the stage.
“du-du-du-dutu-du.” My weapon was faced at Taco Dave this time around, smirking at me from behind a triggered drum-kit, surrounded by absurd stacks of the speakers and sub-cannons that were connected to it, a robot on some sort of audio life-support, as I lunged towards him in time to have mounted the speakers and be romping over the top of his kit by the time he hit his hi-hat twice and I dove back onto the stage as we launched into the frantic verse riff of the song Full Storm.
(…to be continued… if anyone out there happens to have digital-copies of images or videos from this or related "experiments," they would prove appreciated contributions, as I currently have nothing of the sort.)
In other news, I finally have some promotional graphics for this site that you'll start seeing around. Here are some examples, which I am willingly, as always, subjecting to the general criticism.
A corresponding mental image struck me. I was crouched behind a set of unnecessarily-large speaker cabinets, wearing a big black Stetson-style hat, a black bandana pulled ranger-style over my face, and my matte-black power-strat with glittery silver letters of the word “Doom” propped on my shoulder like a frontier rifle.
A sample from a Rowdy Roddy Piper film spilled far-too-loud over the house P.A.
“I have come to kick ass and chew bubble-gum.”
“du-du-du-dutu-du.” I protruded from my shelter in a burst of silver smoke, aiming the deafening sound-bullets from my headstock into the confused and laughing crowd.
“…and I’m all out of bubble-gum.”
“du-du-du-dutu-du.” I stepped further onto the stage and out of the fogger’s blur, still cradling my musical rifle, targeting now Nat Ward, who stood bouncing and rocking with his fretless bass on the edge of the stage, clad in black besides the giant rubber Woody-Woodpecker head that he wore as a hat, and Ben Spellman, a large man taunting the crowd explicitly with his microphone, bobbing the two giant, multicolored antennas of hair that protruded from the front of his head.
“Oh my god,” a female voice on the sample shrieked.
“du-du-du-dutu-du.” I let my guitar sling itself down to the extent of the strap, and took a backwards dive, chest-level left-foot first (late-’90’s Boston pit-boss fashion) into the front rows of the crowd.
“bang!” I bounced my way back onto the stage.
“du-du-du-dutu-du.” My weapon was faced at Taco Dave this time around, smirking at me from behind a triggered drum-kit, surrounded by absurd stacks of the speakers and sub-cannons that were connected to it, a robot on some sort of audio life-support, as I lunged towards him in time to have mounted the speakers and be romping over the top of his kit by the time he hit his hi-hat twice and I dove back onto the stage as we launched into the frantic verse riff of the song Full Storm.
(…to be continued… if anyone out there happens to have digital-copies of images or videos from this or related "experiments," they would prove appreciated contributions, as I currently have nothing of the sort.)
In other news, I finally have some promotional graphics for this site that you'll start seeing around. Here are some examples, which I am willingly, as always, subjecting to the general criticism.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Miss Claustrophobia's future, as it relates to her past and present, as it sculpts her identity.
Miss Chloe Claustrophobia, as she appears in the photographs posted in earlier entries of this blog, is not in her completed state. Those photographs are depictions, each an individual completed work of art in-and-of-itself, of a raw-material, prior to its use, for a larger piece of art. Miss Claustrophobia the mannequin is merely a canvas, on which Miss Claustrophobia the piece of art, which is merely a depiction of a single set of facets of Miss Claustrophobia the concept (the larger piece of art), will be rendered. The prior-posted photographs are therefore similar to art photographs of a blank canvas, positioned at particular angles, in order to make a statement.
Is one phase of her existence, one particular medium of art with which her concept is capture or exemplified, more genuinely, therefore, who "Miss Claustrophobia" is or is intended to be than another? Absolutely not. Is the pre-modification mannequin that graciously sat as my model for the photography set less authentic, complete, or representative of the themes that I use her to demonstrate then the form that has been muddled and modified with paints and words and sculptural elements? Absolutely not. Much as an individual at a prior stage of their development is still relevant to understanding their identity, even if their views or dispositions may not agree with the present juncture, each stage of rendering of the identity of Miss Claustrophobia is relevant and crucial to a complete understanding of her conceptual identity. Miss Claustrophobia as a naked, unadorned mannequin, struck and captured into a variety of poses by the click of a camera-shutter, can tell us things about the ideas being expressed that the post-adornment version of the same physical mannequin cannot after the time has been taken to spell out on her the physical ideas that I wish her body to eventually express.
I might be getting ahead of myself a bit. Miss Claustrophobia has yet to actually be modified or adorned.
In fact, she currently sits, still naked, in a corner of my office/ bedroom/ studio, with a ribbon on her neck, placed there on a whim one night and yet to be removed. The ribbon says "Bride to Be," and was worn by my frequent (and oftentimes reluctant) performance-art collaborator Hysteric Noir to a suicide-themed costume-party (get it? social suicide? yeah, ok, hardly anyone else seemed to think it was as funny as we did, so you're not alone...). The whim worked. The "Bride to Be" ribbon, and the reason that it was initially purchased and worn, fits the concept of the project rather well, and is therefore an appropriate adornment for Chloe at this phase of her development.
(I'm betting that the reader is now beginning to think that this sort of description seems a bit over-wrought and superfluous. And I agree. So I will alert you now to a shift in narrative modes. I am now relying on abstraction to illuminate, which I thoroughly believe not to be the non-sequetor it might initially seem.)
Performance art? Yes, this factors into the identity of Miss Claustrophobia as well. Does this mean that as one of the medium facets of the project I have a large scale and conspicuous performance-art exhibition planned? As of now, absolutely not.
However, this project is one which deals with, at its most simplistic level, issues of identity.
It is my firm belief that an artist's creation of his own identity is inherently an act of performance-art.
Therefore, individuals who come into contact with artists who are aware of this act of identity-creation that they are engaged in factor, whether they wish to acknowledge it or not, as collaborators in the demonstration. They are participants, and often even raw-materials, in the piece of art being constructed.
The relation of my anecdote about the suicide-themed party, and the subsequent placement of the ribbon on Chloe's neck, where it accidentally seemed to make sense to me as a facet of the mannequin's current identity, is in-and-of-itself a piece of art (another raw material) that I am utilizing to demonstrate a particular angle on the overarching idea.
This entry itself, therefore, is (hypothetically) merely another piece of art, another aspect of Miss Chloe Claustrophobia's identity. As will, and has been, every other, subsequent and to come.
Is one phase of her existence, one particular medium of art with which her concept is capture or exemplified, more genuinely, therefore, who "Miss Claustrophobia" is or is intended to be than another? Absolutely not. Is the pre-modification mannequin that graciously sat as my model for the photography set less authentic, complete, or representative of the themes that I use her to demonstrate then the form that has been muddled and modified with paints and words and sculptural elements? Absolutely not. Much as an individual at a prior stage of their development is still relevant to understanding their identity, even if their views or dispositions may not agree with the present juncture, each stage of rendering of the identity of Miss Claustrophobia is relevant and crucial to a complete understanding of her conceptual identity. Miss Claustrophobia as a naked, unadorned mannequin, struck and captured into a variety of poses by the click of a camera-shutter, can tell us things about the ideas being expressed that the post-adornment version of the same physical mannequin cannot after the time has been taken to spell out on her the physical ideas that I wish her body to eventually express.
I might be getting ahead of myself a bit. Miss Claustrophobia has yet to actually be modified or adorned.
In fact, she currently sits, still naked, in a corner of my office/ bedroom/ studio, with a ribbon on her neck, placed there on a whim one night and yet to be removed. The ribbon says "Bride to Be," and was worn by my frequent (and oftentimes reluctant) performance-art collaborator Hysteric Noir to a suicide-themed costume-party (get it? social suicide? yeah, ok, hardly anyone else seemed to think it was as funny as we did, so you're not alone...). The whim worked. The "Bride to Be" ribbon, and the reason that it was initially purchased and worn, fits the concept of the project rather well, and is therefore an appropriate adornment for Chloe at this phase of her development.
(I'm betting that the reader is now beginning to think that this sort of description seems a bit over-wrought and superfluous. And I agree. So I will alert you now to a shift in narrative modes. I am now relying on abstraction to illuminate, which I thoroughly believe not to be the non-sequetor it might initially seem.)
Performance art? Yes, this factors into the identity of Miss Claustrophobia as well. Does this mean that as one of the medium facets of the project I have a large scale and conspicuous performance-art exhibition planned? As of now, absolutely not.
However, this project is one which deals with, at its most simplistic level, issues of identity.
It is my firm belief that an artist's creation of his own identity is inherently an act of performance-art.
Therefore, individuals who come into contact with artists who are aware of this act of identity-creation that they are engaged in factor, whether they wish to acknowledge it or not, as collaborators in the demonstration. They are participants, and often even raw-materials, in the piece of art being constructed.
The relation of my anecdote about the suicide-themed party, and the subsequent placement of the ribbon on Chloe's neck, where it accidentally seemed to make sense to me as a facet of the mannequin's current identity, is in-and-of-itself a piece of art (another raw material) that I am utilizing to demonstrate a particular angle on the overarching idea.
This entry itself, therefore, is (hypothetically) merely another piece of art, another aspect of Miss Chloe Claustrophobia's identity. As will, and has been, every other, subsequent and to come.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Nihilist Sculpture Project Nears Completion
While attempting to find the footing from which to begin the critical discussion of the photo-set posted in my last couple of entries and the subsequent future of the Miss Claustrophobia project, I realized that this would probably be a good time to (give the reader a bit of a break from this singular subject and) fill in some helpful gaps of information on similar/ somewhat/ arguably interconnected projects. Therefore, I feel that before proceeding I should reprint a press-release that I wrote several months ago for The Asbjorn Poetry and Arts Collective that has yet to appear on this particular blog. If you are having a hard time gethering how this article relates to the projects that I've been discussing lately (other than explaining names haphazardly dropped in prior installments) keep reading in the future, the conceptual connections should become more apparent.
PHOENIX, Arizona-
Chris Castle, a nihilist performance artist based at ASU's West Campus, braces for controversy as he proposes plans for a post-modern sculptural work constructed entirely from green Bible pamphlets handed out around campus by trench coat-wearing evangelicals.
Castle, a founding member of the Asbjorn Poetry and Arts Collective, is a notorious individual in the local post-modern art community. His past projects have included performance installments on themes that blur the lines between representation and reality. With this project, he is taking his stab at an age-old question. "We're all so wrapped up in the insignificant aspects of our 'lives' that we fail to see the meaning, though the 'meaning' of our 'lives' may be just that there isn't one at all." This piece will be constructed of green-covered copies of the New Testament that have been distributed in throughout campus by an evangelical organization. As for the shape that the sculpture will take, Castle says, "I keep thinking of this Belle and Sebastian song… where they're talking about life-size sculptures of the Velvet Underground… but I don't have enough bibles for that. It will assume shape based more on my latent insecurities, hopes, dreams, loss of faith, all of this." He says that the project was inspired by "the lack of inspiration.. inspired by my own despondence, how little inspiration there really is." He proceeds to discuss the art of William Shatner, and compares his project to a particular song - "the first line of the song is 'live like you're gonna die. Cuz you're gonna.'"
When it comes to the scope of the sculpture project, Castle claims that "there will be random displays of the work in places where its meaning is most needed and most often ignored. Perhaps at the Greyhound bus station, a busy street-corner, shopping mall, or freeway off-ramp." He says that the green Bibles provide an ideal medium for bringing his concept to life for a myriad of reasons. "Green, like money, is a symbol of decadence, and how the living are made to service the unliving. The bible is an empty text full of wives tales. They mean nothing, yet to some, everything. Plus, they were free. I dropped the last of my paycheck on Jack-in-the-Box tacos."
Although the medium of this work may make it seem to invite controversy, Castle isn't anticipating much critical fire. "I expect most people to not even realize there's a sculpture present. And if they do, they won't be able to separate it from the dismal reality that surrounds it." Although other nihilist artists close to Chris Castle, such as William Steele Jameson III, assert that they've witnessed much work completed on the project, the answer from Castle himself is far from clear. "That's difficult to determine. If by 'work' you mean… copious amounts of… inspiration… then the project is nearing completion." The organization that distributed the green Bible pamphlets was not available for comment.
(a photograph from my own portfolio of Chris Castle's sculpture "Savior Rising From the Pool.")
PHOENIX, Arizona-
Chris Castle, a nihilist performance artist based at ASU's West Campus, braces for controversy as he proposes plans for a post-modern sculptural work constructed entirely from green Bible pamphlets handed out around campus by trench coat-wearing evangelicals.
Castle, a founding member of the Asbjorn Poetry and Arts Collective, is a notorious individual in the local post-modern art community. His past projects have included performance installments on themes that blur the lines between representation and reality. With this project, he is taking his stab at an age-old question. "We're all so wrapped up in the insignificant aspects of our 'lives' that we fail to see the meaning, though the 'meaning' of our 'lives' may be just that there isn't one at all." This piece will be constructed of green-covered copies of the New Testament that have been distributed in throughout campus by an evangelical organization. As for the shape that the sculpture will take, Castle says, "I keep thinking of this Belle and Sebastian song… where they're talking about life-size sculptures of the Velvet Underground… but I don't have enough bibles for that. It will assume shape based more on my latent insecurities, hopes, dreams, loss of faith, all of this." He says that the project was inspired by "the lack of inspiration.. inspired by my own despondence, how little inspiration there really is." He proceeds to discuss the art of William Shatner, and compares his project to a particular song - "the first line of the song is 'live like you're gonna die. Cuz you're gonna.'"
When it comes to the scope of the sculpture project, Castle claims that "there will be random displays of the work in places where its meaning is most needed and most often ignored. Perhaps at the Greyhound bus station, a busy street-corner, shopping mall, or freeway off-ramp." He says that the green Bibles provide an ideal medium for bringing his concept to life for a myriad of reasons. "Green, like money, is a symbol of decadence, and how the living are made to service the unliving. The bible is an empty text full of wives tales. They mean nothing, yet to some, everything. Plus, they were free. I dropped the last of my paycheck on Jack-in-the-Box tacos."
Although the medium of this work may make it seem to invite controversy, Castle isn't anticipating much critical fire. "I expect most people to not even realize there's a sculpture present. And if they do, they won't be able to separate it from the dismal reality that surrounds it." Although other nihilist artists close to Chris Castle, such as William Steele Jameson III, assert that they've witnessed much work completed on the project, the answer from Castle himself is far from clear. "That's difficult to determine. If by 'work' you mean… copious amounts of… inspiration… then the project is nearing completion." The organization that distributed the green Bible pamphlets was not available for comment.
(a photograph from my own portfolio of Chris Castle's sculpture "Savior Rising From the Pool.")
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