Airwaves, 1977

Two Record Anthology of Artist's Aural Work & Music

A-Seite
Vito Acconci, Ten Packed Minutes, 1977, 12:47 Min.
musikalische Ausschnitte der Aufnahmen von Leon Redbone, Cow Cow Davenport, Eric Dolphy, Karl Berger und Ornette Coleman
Jana Haimsohn, Hav' a Lava Flow, 1977, 2:36 Min.
Terry Fox, The Labyrinth Scored for the Purrs of 11 Different Cats, 1976, 9:03 Min., Ausschnitt

B-Seite
Julia Heyward, Mongolian Face Slap Big Coup (Part One), Nose Flute (Part Two), 1977, 8:48 Min.
Dennis Oppenheim, Broken Record Blues, 1976, 5 Min.
Meredith Monk, Rally, für 25 Stimmen, 1975-1976, 3:23 Min.
Meredith Monk, Procession, Stimme und Klavier von der Oper "Quarry", 1975-1976, 6:42 Min.

D-Seite
Diego Cortez, Arbiter, 1975, 1:42 Min.
Diego Cortez, You Pay, 1975, 1:45 Min. (Sound Track zum Film "Poisoning", 1975)
Jim Burton, High Country Helium, 1976, 5:58 Min., (mit: John Deak - Geige und Percussion; Ed Friedman - Bottle Neck Gitarre; Jim Burton - Peddle Steel)
Leandro Katz, Animal Hours, 1977, 7:50 Min. (Stimmen: Judith Hndra, Ellen Friedenberg, Ted Castle, Leandro Katz)
Connie Beckley, Triad Triangle, 1977, 5:48 Min.

C-Seite
Laurie Anderson, Two Songs for Tape Bow Violin: Ethics is The Esthetics of The Few - Ture (Lenin), Song for Juanita, 1977, 4:06 Min.
Laurie Anderson, Is Anybody Home, 1976, 4:27 Min. (für Schiffssirene, Kamera, Treppen, Klavier und Gesang, mit: Peter Gordon - Klarinette; Joe Kos - Schlagzeug; Scott Johnson - Bass; Laurie Anderson - Gesang und Geige)
Laurie Anderson, It's Not The Bullett That Kills You - It's The Hole (for Chris Burden), 1976, 3:49 Min. (mit: Scott Johnson - Gitarre, Bass; Joe Kos - Schlagzeug; Ken Deilik - Harmonika; Laurie Anderson - Geige und Gesang; Scott Johnson, Laurie Anderson & Ken Deifik - Arrangement)
Diego Cortez, Cataract Monologue, 1976, 2:53 Min. (Ausschnitte einer Ansprache zum "April TReffen", Belgrad, 1976)
Jacki Apple, Black holes/blue sky dreams, 8 Min.
Richard Nonas, What Do You Know, 1976-1977, 0:20 Min.


Vito Acconci, Ten Packed Minutes, 1977, 12:47 Min.
»This is written before the piece is recorded. What I want is: ten packed minutes (that can be the title-or, maybe, »Ten Minutes to Zero«.) The beginning is a single voice: crooning familiars as a base for tongue-twisting (after all, this is a record: there's no space to pin down here-now do you get the picture?-so there are games in the air, yes, it's you/me/ we/go/come/who goes further/the question is, who made somebody come tonight, who among those crowds of people ... ) But the song drifts off: there's a world out there, besides you and me: so this is a record of war, there's been an invasion of the city that could have been built into the empire of our love. But things go quickly, on the air: there's an underground, time passes, the scene changes: this is like overhearing a police broadcast: there's a report, from person A, under the grating, of person B's movements, on top of the grating-have we caught a sneak out of those multitudes of armies? (So the picture becomes clearer, no? But, all the while, there's always the thought: we can go to the movies later.) Say, then, that person C has escaped: there's a bar in another part of the forest: but person C fades away here, person C is just the excuse for the placement of a duel duet: bring back the music, bring on the night. After a life like this, I come back to you, bearing my very first songs: but, now, by this time- oh-oh-oh ... At this point, then the picture should have disappeared right in front of your eyes; but what replaces it is, no, not a thousand words-rather, the sound of the sounding that the words were there merely to prop up« (Vito Acconci, zit. nach http://www.kunstradio.at).

Terry Fox, The Labyrinth Scored for the Purrs of 11 Different Cats, 1976, 9:03 Min.
Tape produced by Z.B:S:, Fort Edward, New York. Sound engineer: Bob Bilecki
»The labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral is made of blue and white stones set into the stone floor of the cathedral. It is a unicursal path winding in 34 turns through 11 concentric rings to the center. It is 12m 87 in diameter and has 552 steps following its course from the entrance to the center. This labyrinth formed the blueprint for all my work from 1972 to 1978. I attempted to make sound from it a few times. Two examples are 'The Labyrinth Scored for the Purrs of 11 Cats' and '552 Steps Through 11 Pairs of Strings'. For the former, I recorded 8 continuous minutes of purring from 11 different cats. They were then mixed to follow the exact path of the labyrinth with one cat representing each of the 11 concentric rings, 10 seonds of overlapping purrs to indicate each of the 34 turns. The tape follows in stereo the path of the labyrinth with the center finally represented by the simultaneous purring of all 11 cats.
(The other work '552 Steps Through 11 Pairs of Strings' was a performance in my loft in San Francisco in which I stretched 11 pairs of piano wires of 11 different thicknesses across the wooden floor of my studio)« (Terry Fox in: Linkage. LP und Katalog, Kunstmuseum Luzern, 1982).

Dennis Oppenheim, Broken Record Blues, 1976, 5 Min.
»This work incorporates a single revolution from an early blues record and loops it thereby simulating the effect of a broken record. It was part of a complex installation at Boymans Museum, Rotterdam, Holland. 1976. (Components: two 18'' surrogate performers, blue sand, spotlights, stereo sound track) but also appeared as a piece of its own on ’Airwaves’« (zit. nach http://www.kunstradio.at).

Laurie Anderson, Two Songs for Tape Bow Violin.
Single. Holly Solomon Gallery, New York, 1977
»This single - produced by Bob George - was part of Laurie Anderson one-woman show at the Holly Solomon Gallery in New York, and was displayed in a juke-box. The show contained work which was considered part of the at the time very much acknowledged ’narrative art’. Laurie Anderson carried this movement, which mainly used a combination of fotografy and text into the new context of analogue and electronic audiovisual media and their application in performance art« (zit. nach http://www.kunstradio.at).

Dirck Möllmann

Details about this work

• Bibliography

  Performance Artists Talking in the Eighties, Interviews u.a. mit Eleanor Antin, John Cage, Suzanne Lacy, Faith Ringgold, Dick Higgins, Annie Sprinkle, Allan Kaprow, Meredith Monk, Eric Bogosian, Adrian Piper, Karen Finley und Kim Jones, Linda M. Montano, 2001, Abb.-Nr.