SEX MACHINES 2000

sound installation

 

It has to do with stimulation: from the images I do the music, from the music I do the sound.

But sound is not something foreign to adorn the film. It is intrinsic to the film...

Oral tradition is a tradtion of images.

--Djibril Diop Mambety, film maker

[Sounds] penetrate not only through the ears, but over the skin, not only into the hearing, but also into certain cavities of the body in,

continue in bone courses and other channels, in order to enter the whole body acoustically.

 

--Bernhard Leitner, architect and sound artist

A picture held us captive, and we could not get outside it for it lay in our language

and the language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably

--Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher

 

To be naked is to be speechless.

--Ogotemmeli, sage

Are some desires and histories beyond speech? What role does desire play in the making of avant garde art and the telling of its history? Why are some narratives more appealing than others? In my recent work IÕve become increasingly concerned with constucting a metalanguage that can function as a personal art history/sonic praxis. This device should be useful not only for expressing momentary concerns but also in creating a conceptual lineage for my work.

SEXMACHINES is a chapter in this series of investigations. In 1967, Nam June Paik created Opera Sextronique, a performance/music piece with Charlotte Moorman. In 1969-70, James Brown recorded ÒSex MachineÓ. These events were an aural anticipation of a future filled with internet porn sites, erotic cd-roms and satellites dedicated to beaming sex flics around the globe. SEXMACHINES is a sonic portrait of Nam June Paik (The Godfather of Video Art) and James Brown (The Godfather of Soul) in the moment in which they emphasized the intersection of pleasure, art and technology. There are three modules in SEXMACHINES. Each module in this triptych is abstracted from textures created by one sex toy.

 

Hear SEXMACHINES at Audiophfile 6.0 http://www.nomadnet.org/audiophfile6/index.htm