______________
Dave Muller Karen Carpenter Empty Drum Kit 4 (2013)
______________
Alicia Eggert Pulse Machine (2012)
‘This electromechanical sculpture was ‘born’ in Nashville, Tennessee on 2 June 2012, at 6:18 PM. It has been programmed to have the average human lifespan of babies born in Tennessee on that same day: approximately 78 years. The kick drum beats its heartbeat (at 60 beats per minute), and the mechanical counter displays the number of heartbeats remaining in its lifetime. An internal, battery-operated clock keeps track of the passing time when the sculpture is unplugged. The sculpture will ‘die’ once the counter reaches zero.’
______________
Stéphane Vigny Sans Titre (2012)
‘Witness the dozens of cymbals arranged by Stéphane Vigny into a musical landscape, which is subtly brought to life by the discreet triggering of a mechanical vibration.’
______________
Terry Adkins Muffled Drums (2003)
______________
David Shrigley Headless Drummer (2012)
______________
Michael Sailstorfer Drumkit (2005)
‘Michael Sailstorfer fuses two loci of masculine aggression in Drum Kit, a drum kit fashioned from the scraps of an LAPD police car. The drummer and police man are recurrently imagined as rogue figures, however the police officer only becomes one when teaming up with other officers to create “force.” The LAPD is one of the most violent police departments in the United States and the drummer is perpetually cast as the craziest band member in our pop cultural memory.’
_____________
Terence Koh Sprungkopf (2006)
Mixed media sculpture/installation:destroyed/altered drums, plaster, paint, spray paint, wax, metal, plastic, wood with sweat, beer cans, strobe lights, black plastic, black walls and floors, accompanied by video documentation and hand silkscreened posters.
_____________
Christoph Büchel Minus (2002)
‘A punk-concert was held inside a room at the Kunstverein Hannover. Immediately after the show, the entire room was frozen.’
______________
Fabienne Audéoud, John Russell & Wayne Lloyd The withdrawal from conversation/return to the oceanic: the weight of the breast. Twenty women play the drums topless. (2002)
______________
Ivan Navarro Wail (2010)
Neon light, plexiglass drums, metal, mirror, one-way mirror and electric energy.
______________
Samson Young Nocturne (2015)
‘For this work, Young collected video recordings of night bombings – predominately U.S. attacks on the Middle East, ranging from the Gulf War to ISIS – and edited the found footage into a six hour-long film, which plays mutely on his laptop computer. As he watches, the artist uses household objects and “live foley” techniques to reproduce the sounds of explosions, gunshots and debris as accurately as possible. This work is conceived of as a “Sonic Warfare Training Program,” with the artist taking on the role of training combatant; by the end of the show, he will know the aleatoric composition by heart. His “sound effects” are broadcast on-site via pirate radio frequencies, accessible via FM receivers both within and outside of the gallery.’
________________
Pascal Grandmaison Manner (2003)
______________
Krištof Kintera Bad News (2011)
‘Bad News, created in 2011, represents a devil who, head leaning on a drum, reacts to his listening to a radio airing announcements about catastrophes, speeches by dictators and Heavy Metal music hitting the instrument like a maniac.’
______________
Naama Tsabar Twilight (Drum Case) (2006)
‘Encasing a whole drum set into an instrument case extended to such a size that it nullifies its usability. It is transformed into a giant stage, substituting a backstage functionality with a performative, front-stage one.’
______________
Dolphin Explosion performs “Boogie Man” with guest drummer Mike Kelley (2006)
______________
Pedro Reyes Disarm (Mechanised) (2012)
‘Disarm (Mechanized) is an ambitious installation, comprising of 8 mechanical musical instruments, resulting from Pedro Reyes’ international project in which illegal firearms were used to fabricate musical instruments. Musical instruments were created from firearms, including revolvers, shot-guns and machine-guns, which were crushed by tanks and steamrollers to render them useless. These were offered to the artist by the Mexican government following their confiscation and subsequent public destruction in the city of Ciudad, Juarez. From the 6,700 destroyed weapons the artist received from the Mexican Secretary of Defence, Reyes created two groups of instruments including Disarm. This installation of mechanical musical instruments can either be automated or played live by an individual operator using a laptop computer or midi keyboard.’
______________
Ed Ruscha Double Americanisms (2019)
______________
Yuko Mohri THE BEGINNINGS (or Open-Ended) Part 1 (2015)
______________
Jonathan Polkest Drum Fusion (2008)
______________
Christian Marclay Museum Tinguely Performance (2018)
‘On the 26th of January, as part of a two-day international symposium, performance artist Christian Marclay took up the challenge to interact with the artwork of Jean Tinguely. Joined by Okkyung Lee (Cello) and Luc Müller (Percussions), the trio performed a concert in the midst of machines created by Jean Tinguely and other material found in the museum by interacting with them spatially and by the sounds they produce.’
______________
Los Carpinteros Congas (2015)
______________
Anri Sala Still life in the Doldrums (2015)
______________
Michelangelo Pistoletto Terzo Paradiso (2003-2013)
346 cymbals, lids, 120 x 640 x 1120 cm
_______________
Open Reel Ensemble Tape Tapping (2018)
‘Japanese musicians Ei Wada, Haruka Yoshida, and Masaru Yoshida create reverberating drum beats on the outstretched tape of cracked open reel-to-reel tape recorders from the 1970s and 1980s. The group, appropriately named Open Reel Ensemble, produces an intriguing timbre that more closely resembles a synthesizer than an analog drum. The group has created the soundtrack for Japanese designer ISSEY MIYAKE‘s last four seasons.’
______________
John M Armleder Furniture Sculpture 189 (1988)
‘Furniture Sculpture 189 is a quasi-symmetrical composition consisting of a silent drum kit standing in front of a horizontal yellow canvas with two strips of mauve at each end, hung very low, so that the drums share the same visual space. The title of the work is a nod to its musical genealogy. Indeed, Furniture Sculpture echoes Erik Satie’s experiments in Furniture Music from 1917 on. This was music designed to create a mood rather than be listened to: as Satie himself wrote, it ‘claims to contribute to life in the same way as a private conversation, a painting in the gallery or the seat one is, or is not, sitting on’. While Furniture Sculpture may be read by analogy as installations contributing to an ‘art of ambiance’, the use of a silent drum kit in Furniture Sculpture 189 also gestures to Cage, a major influence on Armleder’s performances.’
______________
Alex Gawronski The Old Man With the Big Long Horn (He’s the One Who Isn’t There) (2016)
‘The title of this installation, The Old Man With the Big Long Horn (He’s the One Who Isn’t There) paraphrases a lyric from seminal experimental-absurdist ‘band’ The Residents. The creepy apparition conjured in the song is that ugly thing, ignored by reason and self interest, that is nonetheless ever present and inescapable. Inserted through the wooden monolith, a TV depicted a close-up of a musician (Jack Wotton) simulating a beat from Jean Luc Godard’s 1967 film Weekend. In a scene towards the end of that film, a rock drummer plays over farcical events like the blackly humorous cannibalisation, by a group of deluded ‘revolutionaries’, of a wholly unlikable bourgeois couple. The lose-lose scenario depicted speaks of a contemporary world devouring itself.’
______________
Dawn Kasper Cluster (2016)
Cymbals, cymbals stands, ardunios, motors, motion sensors, power strips, extension cords and AC adapters, dimensions variable.
______________
Claes Oldenburg
Drum Set (1967)
Miniature Soft Drum Set (1969)
Ghost Drum Set (1972)
______________
Jean-Lucien Guillaume Chocolate Drums (2000)
_______________
Takeshi Ikeda Band of the Night (2005)
‘I and my friend destroy earnestly the drums made from styrene and corrugated paper. This work is made by the basis of the influence of the idea which records the song for 1-30 second on a 7-inch record in large quantities. This idea was borne by the trend of hardcore punk from the first. At the exhibition, all possible drums were made among one day, and it repeated destroying every day. The wreckage of the broken drums so, then day by day stacks and goes up to the hall.’
*
p.s. Hey. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi. Yes, I’ve heard and read nothing but disappointment and accusations of counter-productivity re: that ‘Manosphere’ thing. Chucky, now there’s a real man. ** Bill, Hi. I hope your flight had lots of filmic gems and generous freebies and that your jetlag is kind. And where are you? ** Hugo, As you can surely guess, I had nothing to do with the ‘Ugly Man’ cover. When I was doing research on Dean Corll there was absolutely nothing about any snuff film connection. That seems like a stretch to me. Rain here too. Non-high five. ** Dominik, Hi!!! I guess the only potentially good thing is that cancelling an election for no plausible reason might be the final fuel needed to start a revolution? Film programmers are even more passive aggressive than literary magazine editors. In the worst case scenario, obviously. The birthday wishers seemed totally random. Oddball. As a semi-addict of lost and unadoptable dog videos, I feel love’s relief. Love making the Punch the Monkey video uploading phenomenon much less viral, G. ** jay, Hi. 30 minutes, you’re such a jet- or EuroStar-setter, wild. There’ll be another time. I hope the dinner is a feast. ** Carsten, Famously nuts. If you have no other way to try to reach him, and you really want to pitch him on your idea, going through his production company … why not? It could reach him, and you have nothing to lose apart from the unpleasantness of possibly being ghosted. ** Adem Berbic, My impression is that it was more the people who controlled his career that were the creeps. But I don’t know. He and I shared a boyfriend at one point, and the boyfriend said he was kind of innocent and sweet. If you can quit, for fuck’s sake do. Don’t be afraid of the patch. When Zac quit, he had them plastered all over himself. If you can’t quit, I’ll spot you a cig when I see you. My week is my usual week so far. It’s okay. Less frustrations than not. And it’s not over yet. ** fish, Hi. I’m not writing fiction at the moment either for the same reason: none of my ideas are exciting enough. That said, I would recommend just writing to get used to doing that, and I think if you get into the semi-habit at least, it’ll give exciting ideas a good reason to form maybe? ** Steve, Yeah, I heard, what a wasted theoretically interesting possibility. ‘Songs of the Humpback Whale’ was a little too scary to listen to on acid back in the day, but people certainly tried. ** kenley, Hey. Oh, I’m not sure what the grocery store cake liking is about. I have a thing for fake food, and they’re kind of like fake food that you can actually eat, which is certainly appealing. I like the cakes with the most unnatural colored icing. Like blue and purple and stuff. The French aren’t into cakes except at Xmas/New Years re: the Buche de Noel, etc. Otherwise there aren’t really cakes here in the North American sense. Pastries, for sure, in all shapes and sizes. The patisseries here are everywhere and like amusement parks for the mouth. Faye Dunaway is fun to observe being a diva freak. It seems like she can’t open her mouth without saying, ‘Don’t you know who I am?!’ ** Steeqhen, So sorry to hear about your downer week, man. It really does sound like forcing yourself to fraternise with friends IRL is the right way to go. It’s okay about the venting. Whatever works and helps. ** HaRpEr //, I will. He’s on a big book tour right now, so I probably won’t hear back from him for a while. I think he would love being taught in schools. Dude likes to be respected. Granted I’m a giant Baldessari fan, but I’d say he’s a poet, sure. Yay, you’re in the impending SCAB too. Can’t wait. Any moment now, I think. Nice, I always feel like when I’ve aced a novel’s ending, it will definitely get finished, whatever backwork is still needed. ** Uday, Hi. With the restored posts, it’s mostly dead video imbeds and links I have to fix, but this blog has a bad habit of disappearing images sometimes that I have to re-upload. And sometimes the posts are dated, and I need to expand them a little. Stuff like that. I don’t know what you mean about ‘unfindable’. When I restore a post, I take the original offline. That Pettibon is so seductive, yeah. And hard to transcend, yeah. Nice project: yours. ** Laura, Hi. As I always say, I don’t remember my dreams, and I have no understanding what they’re doing. They’re an inaccessible genre to me. I’m not much of a Placebo fan other than their first album, so I guess that comparison is like, I don’t know, Instant coffee -> coffee. Fave GbV albums … I’m going to have to be minimalist. At the moment I would say ‘Under the Bushes. Under the Stars’, ‘Bee Thousand’, ‘Universal Truths and Cycles’, ‘Kid Marine’ (Pollard solo), ‘Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department’ (Pollard/Gillard), ‘Let’s Go Eat the Factory’, … I’d better stop there. If the visa application gets cancelled, I’ll have to get a tourist visa and hope the second longer terms visa application works. I’m an optimist, so I predict aka hope you’re getting closer and closer. Save all of your zen for your migraine, for goodness’s sake. ** Right. Self-explanatory thematic post today. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
hi dennis!
sent the ikeda piece to my band, lol. that tape tapping shit is witchcraftttttt 🤯
dammit, everytime you talk about france, i get closer and closer to impulse buying a plane ticket haha. i hear you. my favourite flavour is the colour blue
do you like dunaway as an actress? unfortunately, i adore her. she seems like one of those people whose dogged commitment to her craft chafes against flimsy cardboard hollywood shit, and that her hilariously monstrous ego is a reaction to her resentments. maybe im projecting tho, cuz i see some unsavoury parts of myself reflected back. idk. do you have thoughts, as someone who has built their life committing whole-hog to singular work and yet has…y’know…grace and warmth? how do you stay nice?
I have a longterm dislike of both Oasis and Star Wars but I always find a quote from Noel Gallagher to be quite true, that if Chewbacca were ever somehow in a band then he’d be the drummer.
Hm, interesting intel. His last years always struck me as really weird and sad, being stuck in that house in Kansas with Grauerholz drip-feeding him methadone (it’s sad in a bracing way, at least). I’ve always really resented the ‘Wylie-ification’ of his reputation, which is probably not an original take. Creep in that I can picture a sort of shy, self-effacing, self-pitying pushiness — which reminds me of one or two people I’ve known in the past. It’s a specific mindset which I’d like to probe in writing at some point.
‘Jerk’ hit the spot last night, in the bath no less. I think I’d say it’s your ‘Othello.’ Imperative duly received. Nicotine gum was stopping me from slitting my wrists earlier this week — today is day two without any nicotine at all, and re-learning what emotions are, etc. ‘Okay’ is okay, I suppose, and same here, really, un-enthusing. I’m hosting those sewer freaks I mentioned on Sunday, wish me luck. And give Zac a hearty thumbs up from me.
I love drums with a passion. I feel like they’re my soul instrument, as in tapping directly into it when hit just right. Yoruba drum rhythms for the gods do that most powerfully for me, & I’ve shared some of those in the Duende post. My contribution to the topic today is this brief bit of advice from my poem “Steps to the Spirit-Dance”: “follow the voices in your head on drums”
All this diva talk, first re. Kier & then Dunaway, proves that my dad would fit right into showbiz. He’s always the first to say “You have no idea who you’re dealing with”, despite, in my view, having accomplished nothing of value. I think he even dreamed of being a movie star (as opposed to an actor) in his youth. I once found a doctored “Conan the Barbarian” poster in the basement with my dad’s face in place of Arnold’s. Yeah, let that one sink in, haha…
So far I haven’t been able to find any kind of social media presence or the like for Raoul Peck, so I think I will try my luck with his production company. As you said it’s worth a shot. Is there any route I’m overlooking?
Have you seen “Exterminate All the Brutes”? I know you’re not into series, but trust me, this more like a 4 hour film.
Hi Dennis.
High fives are funny. I spend so much time looking at people’s hands, yet I forget they can lunge at me.
RE: the Corll thing – the snuff stuff comes from a supposed connection between Corll and John David Norman, who was more involved with Gacy. Pictures of some of Corll’s victims ended up being found in David Norman’s ring.
BTW – I’m gonna be in London soon to help chill out a friend who had a mental breakdown over being a mother. I’ll be telling her your Faye Dunaway anecdote, and maybe watch some John Waters movie (maybe not psycho mom, that might be too close to home). – I will also be doing a tour around a university, but that feels less important now.
Sorry for being scatterbrained, my friends seem to be all messed up, and they want me to be around. It’s strange to be wanted. I suppose you know that feeling.
Whalesong samples are a bit cliched, but after listening to SONGS OF THE HUMPBACK WHALE, I want to try using them.
Drums are the only instrument I used to play, although not since I was 15. I was pretty bad at them.
Tone Glow ran an excellent, very extensive interview with ELUCID today.
Any plans for the weekend? I’m seeing UNDERTONE tonight and Julia Ducournau’s ALPHA at Lincoln Center tomorrow.
Unfortunately, both my laptop’s battery and keyboard are on their last legs. Within the next few weeks, I’ll have to take it to a repair shop and have them replaced.
PS: I forgot that I used to own and play a synthesizer, although I never took piano lessons. I bought it with the money I earned from winning a spelling bee, and I wish I still owned it.
When it comes to GbV discussion, I have heard some really good stuff about the album Mag Earwhig! and want to listen to it now
I also never listened in full the albums Let’s go eat… and Universal…
Need to expand my knowledge, I was always liking them but my obsession grows stronger as time goes on
My favourite albums by them are Propeller (my number one ever) and Under the Bushes, under the stars and Alien Lanes and Bee Thousand
So need to expand my knowledge further
I love the song Non-absorbing from Vampire on Titus
I also found the 33 3/1 book on Bee Thousand to learn more about how they made this great album
Hi from cooking after midnight Chania Crete
I have heard I Am a Tree before I think in some sort of compilation or something
What an amazing song
Apart from this song the album will be new to me maybe
Album Mag Earwhig! came out the same year as Guide did
Do you have it inside your soul tied to your book Guide as they were released at same timeline?
Hey Dennis! The drum case piece is so beautiful… I like that it also looks like one of those retro circular beds… quite the romantic presentation! The guy I have a serious crush on is a drummer, so I will send this his way.
I’M SO HAPPY YOU GOT INTO AIFVF! Will you and Zac be visiting Athens? I’m going to make sure all my former classmates attend the screening, I’m so happy your film will be showing in my college town! The festival I got into in Ireland is TITE- the film seems to be doing very well with trans specific audiences, which is pretty awesome.
Oh yeah, I found a pdf of the butch manual pretty quickly on tumblr of all places, but the book is also back in print!
Hope your day is splendid!
Hey Dennis!
Today’s post just reminds me to try the drums again soon. I never took lessons, but figuring out rhythm, tone, and all that came fairly natural when I started playing around with the kit at church as a kid. Now I just fool around with drum machines built into music software.
It also makes me think of 77 Boa Drum, that project by the band Boredoms where he conducted 77 different drummers to play together in an NYC park. An incredible live album.
Anyway, how’s it been? I’ve been back in the swing of getting my play in the running for the annual Variations Project. In the middle of that, I’m writing my first full-length piece, and I’m real excited about it. Hopefully my internet algorithm recommending a bunch of Disney Park/Disney Adult videos will be worth it.
*”he” being Yamantaka Eye, of course
Hello. Karen Carpenter may be my favourite drummer ever.
My professor’s theory was that there are certain artists who use words in their work who could have put their work in a literary space if they wished to. I don’t know if he actually believed it or if he was trying to get us to think though. The general question was that what if, say Baldessari, never exhibited his works publicly and just made these books with his (language heavy) works in them, would he be considered a visual artist or a poet?
I worked myself up into a real intense mania with the writing today. I don’t really like what it does to me when I get so wrapped up in something that I get a bit manic. I feel wiped out by just typing and thinking. It’s like I’m stuck within my own labyrinth. I go out for walks and stuff but I still end up talking to myself sometimes. Still, if I wasn’t this obsessed then the book wouldn’t be worth fighting for. I will say that I am always pretty grateful when I get busy with something and have to step away from a project for a while and re-emerge with fresh eyes.
Generally I’m just feeling sort of strange at the moment because the meds I’m on are sort of starting to work and I don’t know how to feel about them. I’m very aware that my general state of being and how I feel is artificial, which is kind of interesting to think about. I’m definitely a bit better in a more general way and begin to realize that I’m still sort of a mess, but not as quite an intense one. I think I get tired easier now as well which isn’t good. I’ll see how it goes. The big relief is that I’m still creatively functioning as per usual and don’t notice any difference there.
Hey Dennis,
Yeah I really should, but I’ve been in this period of interpersonal conflict and change, and then the big apex event messed me up enough that I feel (even if in my own head) completely changed. I have two people I would want to meet up with but one lives in a different country now and the other is busy with college. I basically feel friendless and I’m almost too afraid to hang out with new people. In some ways it excites me as perhaps this is a time of great change and some period I can focus on being by myself. But at the same time I’m at the risk of unnecessarily isolating myself. I don’t know, it’s all muddled. I feel like once I get back to therapy at the end of the month I’ll be able to sort it all out.
In the meantime I’m content with playing through my backlog and reading. I finished RE7 today. Though I really did enjoy it, I’d probably rank it lower than most of the REs I’ve played (which is just the first, 2make, 3make, and 4), but I haven’t gotten around to the duds of the franchise yet. One thing I did like about 7 is how it felt like a spiritual remake of the first game, and the cat and mouse aspects in the first half. Maybe it also scared me a bit too much hahah, the bug house with the Mother made me skin crawl.
Drums was one of those things I got really into for about a month, but I wasn’t getting lessons nor did I own my drum kit so I could only practice twice a week at the youth centre. Guitar was what I primarily focused on, but I never could stick with it enough that it became easy for me; maybe it’s cause I’m left handed or maybe I needed to develop more callous on my fingers, but there was this certain threshold I couldn’t pass, which was bar chords. My fingers could just not get them to sound good. It would always squeak or vibrate at a nasty pitch in the back.
Amusing post, i like it. I see I’m not the first person to mention EYE/Boredoms/77BoaDrum, so I guess I dont need to say much on that…
Yes I love all those british bands very much, Incredible String Band is most certainly a favourite especially. Really enjoy a band with two distinct songwriters… Also Bert Jansch does a mean “Wild Mountain Thyme”, perhaps my fave rendition of one of my fave songs…
Recording was fun, we did a rendition of the old british song “My Bonny Bonny Boy” and some wacky collage drone stuff. Gonna fashion some kinda EP out of that, probably a 15 minuter.
In other news, Same Place The Fly Got Smashed really clicked with me finally, but it infuriates me when people hard pan vocals to the right, cuz thats my bad ear! Not actually a problem of course hehe… Drinkers Peace and Local Mix Up/Murder Charge were standouts on first listen… also if I go downtown tommorow I will probably pick up the reprinting of Godlike.
Hope you have a pleasant day!