Dimensions variable
Three-part sculptural performance with live musical composition
Wood, screws, speakers, smoke machine, strobe light, tape player, custom-made mixtape, wiring, custom printed T-shirts, buttons, stickers, tote bags, box sets, commissioned essays, publicity photos, backstage passes, security guards, tablecloth, particle board.
Additional works include:
Anti-Everything, 2000
Black paint, black vinyl letters on wall
12′ x 6′
Untitled, 2000
Black and white photocopy of an altered Top 40 chart
14” x 11”
Every Record, Everywhere, Is Playing Our Song Right Now, 1998
Pen on paper
34” x 40”
Girl Singing in the Wreckage (Edith and Elvis’ Black Box Recorders), 2000
Girl Singing in the Wreckage (Dusty’s Black Box Recorder), 2000
Girl Singing in the Wreckage (Billie’s Black Box Recorder), 2000
In 2000, as I expanded my practice from DJing to becoming a visual artist, I conceived of a trilogy of shows that revolved around three fictional bands with elaborate backstories: Speaker Hole, Factory Girl, and The Polar Soul. Each band mutated from the previous one, redefining their sound, aesthetics, and audience—a personality and creative crisis in miniature. The first band, Speaker Hole, was a DIY punk band that performed solely from inside a large speaker; their anxiety about authenticity and suspicion of beauty reflected in their obsessive anonymity. Within months, they “broke up” and transformed into Factory Girl, a glossy, makeup-caked pop band with an abrasive edge, their struggle for success and artistic credibility further rupturing them from within. When success continued to elude them, they mutated again into The Polar Soul, a bodiless, minimalist electronic act that questioned whether their DNA alone could produce art, allowing themselves to be physically dissolved into their software.