2009!!

wow. it has been a crazy eight or nine months let me tell you. Our second child was born (forgot to post about that) the monotheatrum ended its run at the AGH (i forgot to post about the 20 musicians who occupied the structure on closing weekend), and then i participated in a collaborative work at the Gladstone Hotel as part of UpArt (forgot to post about that). And now 2009 is already full steam in gear, and I have exhibitions at Latcham Gallery and Rodman Hall, performances at Cambridge Gallery, at the Salmon Arm Roots and Blues festival in B.C., plus all kinds of other stuff. Naturally, I started this year in a complete funk, and tried to work through it by cleaning up the studio and making odd looking shields out the half ton of wooden debris, trying to concoct fast simple ways of inlaying chunky pieces of wood into other chunky pieces of wood. The results are somewhat mixed, I think.

Yesterday, I put in the first official hours thinking about the ways I will construct the next performance stage.
It is a much less architectural piece, more intuitive, more poetic perhaps, essentially based on the notion of recreating a dense forest around the performance area as the focal obstruction. I have an idea what it will look like. I'll post a drawing in the coming days.

cheers

amchok gompo dhondup

hey,

amchok gompo dhondup is such a good sounding name, don't you think? say it aloud and your mouth suddenly feels better, all those nice round 'o' tones opening everything up. anyways, he was at the AGH performing a concert of his original songs, based on the Tibetan folk music tradition into which he was born and raised, and took an interest in the structure. i wasn't free to come down, but i gave him permission to enter and use the monotheatrum as he saw fit. i still don't know what exactly occurred, but did receive the following picture.
this is exactly the kind of behavior i want the monotheatrum to encourage. in fact, during the final weekend at the AGH, i will attempt to open the structure up to any musicians or performers who would like to keep it activated. if you are such a performer, and have some time this september 5, 6, or 7, do let me know.

cheers
t

holy jeez, i forgot to post

wow,
august 5 already, about a month left before the monotheatrum gets packed away, before the urban moorings exhibition gets dry-docked (i have included a picture of the Viking Soliloquy Chair, now floating in Hamilton's Cootes Paradise as an enticement to you). All this, and still i haven't bothered to mention what a great performance night we had June 5 at the AGH. Singer songwriter Jacob Moon, soprano Lindsay Michaels each took turns within the structure, while a receptive audience tried to make sense of it from the outside. It turned out that the monotheatrum was far more obtrusive than even I had thought it would be; you can't just hold in your mind the belief that the audience is there, you can't turn the audience into an abstract idea because the proximity between them and you is way too close. Inevitably you are caught between the spheres of public and private, and to peform becomes something similar to a leap of faith.

Here's what Jacob Moon wrote about his experience:

"For me the Monotheatrum was the ideal practice space: a womb-like enclosure that blocked out the outside world, so hostile to creative concentration with all its moving distractions and pretty colours. Inside, I was aware only of the sound I was making. And I found myself luxuriating and crawling into it, like a Russian doll: it was just me, inside the sound of my voice and guitar, inside the vaguely imagined outer atmosphere, where I knew there was an attentive silence, and beyond--the hearts and minds of the almost-forgotten audience. But what a long distance they seemed to be from me!"

lighting and interior

hey,

not much time. but today we finished up the lighting, some of the final details, and installed a sound component in the interior--basically 35 minutes of me trying to keep my guitar and voice in pitch. but the illusion works, you can sit in the gallery space and experience a singer tucked into a yurt of felt, trying to work out his issues between himself and the cosmos.

Tomorrow is the opening reception, which I hope I won't be too stunned to enjoy it, in a few weeks we will bring in some musicians to test it out live with an audience.

All in all, a very good experience, and hopefully the dawn of some further experiments in performance venue design.

cheers
t

well hoopass,

everything trucked over without incident and got dumped into the Art Gallery of Hamilton, into a little room called the Young Gallery. Even laid out in pieces on the floor the sculpture started to percolate with a strange kind of kabuki-eskimo ceremonial hut-like energy. Mostly I think that's good. It will certainly add some gravity to the performances when they happen.

We had the structure assembled in about 15 minutes or so, and with a team of four people, came together fairly effortlessly (my props go out to greg, paula, tina, and ben for their help). I then cut two flaps for the entrance and was able to join the entranceway into the dome. The felt sags in some places, and I have managed to bleed on it twice, but it's hopefully nothing a little creative lighting can't fix.

I'll write a little more on the interior next time.

felting

hey,

so just as i finish tweaking my frame, with the thought of what i might use as a skin just beginning to eek into my brain, doesn't the owner who rents me my studio tell me about the abandoned bale of industrial felt in the parking lot. It's been there for a year. No one wants it, and boy wouldn't it be great if someone could make use of it.

The felt has illustrated what I feel are the basic issues surrounding serendipity. I mean if an opportunity comes along that may not be within your aesthetic parameters, but will work, will change the nature of your structure in a host of interesting ways, and will allow you to claim without fudging that your entire sculpture has been made from reclaimed, salvaged, and abandoned materials, you have to jump at it, no? The presence of the felt is almost cosmic, revealing itself only at the moment I was ready to receive it, and literally presenting itself no more than 50 yards from my studio door. I think the only answer is, 'the monotheatrum must be made from felt, because the heavens decree it'.

The felt has been mostly a joy to use. It's heavy enough to add strength to the pieces, holds its shape pretty well, is easy to cut and apply, gets dirty just by looking at it, and acquires strange dents for no reason. Most importantly, it's translucent, so i will be able to light the structure from the inside.

Tomorrow, the felted skeleton will be assembled on site at the Art Gallery of Hamilton. It will be the first time the monotheatrum will be functional. Ho-yay!

hey kids,

So it's been a really energizing, really productive few weeks--i had to ready a work for an exhibition called TH&B, another performance structure, this time riffing on the idea of a precious singer-songwriter's stool. Mine has a hood, possibly as a way to cater to the anxieties and pretensions of the average North American musician (I include myself in that group.) Anyway, I am really happy with the work, and the exhibition opening turned out beautifully, something like 700 people in attendance.

Mind you, I did get a bit behind in work for the monotheatrum, so this week I blitzed it and managed to finally start erecting the dome section of the sculpture. I don't have much time to monkey around with now, so the dome has to come together and the skin has to be applied quickly and, God help me, painlessly.

It's great to be alive right now.