Wunderkammer

I'm excited about the up and coming Wunderkammer show at Margaret St, dans le foyer. The joint curatorial genius of Charlie & Kate should make this a good event. David Miller, a.k.a The Dandy a.k.a The Merman (from our own bevvy of collaborations) and I will be performing on the night. Last time we performed together for the Crowd 6 Mingling & Mistletoe show. It was a rad blend of modern myth making and Marshall mini amps for voice projection. This time we will (hopefully) be appearing in separate exhibition cabinets; I can't account for David's performance as yet; as for my own it's in its infancy.
A recent discovery of some old cassette tapes has informed my decision to do an extended sound piece called Kasegesicht. Thanks to Babel fish for this one: roughly 'Cheese face'. So named for the character I will be appearing as on the night. Anyway, back to the tapes.
I wrote a short synopsis for the press release and that's when I remembered the 5 or so tapes I'd made between 2001-2. These combined (and in order): learned ramblings; the Pleistocene epoch; newspaper readings of shark attacks; music; typewriter recordings; dense, multi layered voices and manipulations: whistling, breathing slowed down and sped up; eating; hiding in cupboards and screaming down cardboard tubes. Hilarious! However my aims were deadly serious, and the way I come across is urgently earnest and excitable. It's embarrassing! However these are important qualities I lack in my practice now. I want that feeling back. Like the art is the most important and cathartic, sometimes maddening but always uber relevant means of my self expression and self awareness. The means of becoming engaged with an idea, no matter how frivolous it seems.
In the Chronicles of Edward Winter I took that to it's extreme. Edward Winter was my main alter ego for the duration of 2001. I went to some significant lengths to explore the colour white (my then monomaniac pursuit): shaving off my eyebrows and bleaching my hair then pasting myself white all over for a photo shoot. Then came the tape - which was a culmination of all my discoveries and ideas surrounding the colour / non - colour. This was a piece by piece dissemination, my crazy attempt to categorise (like Melville in Moby Dick) the vast implications of whiteness. Like Melville I didn't come up with a definition, just a list. But the feeling was one of: 'Wicked, at least I've tried and come up with some good shit into the bargain.'
The rugged charm of these tapes - the very rugged charm; still exerts an influence on me. Admittedly I haven't had a practice since 2006. With Wunderkammer, and like performances I hope to build something up again. Sound pieces will very much have a part to play in this.

Wunderkammer, 9th April, 6pm - 8pm at Margaret St!