Artist Sean Duffy (who I’ve written about before) has an installation up at the Arizona State University Art Museum right now. Called The Grove, the installation is a collection of eighteen turntables connected to 400 speakers dangling from the ceiling. The piece is interactive: next to each turntable are crates of records—pop music, classical, audio books, whatever—for you to pick out and play. The more turntables in use, the more chaotic the sound in the room becomes.
The piece, in other words, is intended to be cacophonous. It will be interesting, therefore, to see the DJ collective b3 take on the piece on Tuesday night. The six DJs will use Duffy’s old turntables (no mixers or other special equipment), but—I assume/hope—they’ll bring some of their own records. How much structure and/or controlled chaos will these DJs bring to The Grove? Unfortunately I’ll be here in Los Angeles, so hopefully someone in Arizona can report back—ideally with a youtube clip! Meanwhile, here’s a clip of the piece in action, with audio supplied from an NPR profile.
"b3 in The Grove: A Reaction to the Installation by Sean Duffy" happens at the ASU Art Museum on Tuesday, September 25 at 7:30 pm. Admission is free. More info here.
I'm one of the founding members of b3 (bound.by.breaks) and I was linked to your blog, I just wanted to say thanks for taking note of this event! We, as a collective, are very excited to have an opportunity to work with such an amazing and innovative artist and incorporate our take on this exhibit. Just to clarify, we are indeed digging into our own crates to put our own original spin (no pun intended...ok, maybe a little bit) on the project. It is definitely a departure from the norm in that there are no Technics 1200s, mixers, or monitors as in a traditional dj environment...the Numark porta-tables are belt driven, and that alone presents quite a challenge in itself. Despite the obvious (and some not-so-obvious) limitations of the equipment, we're very excited to present our interpretation of The Grove. Typically the museum doesn't allow cameras (or even cell phones), but I'll see if they'll make an exception as we'd like to have some footage of the event as well. Thanks again for the mention!
Blake
aka ill-legal?
bound.by.breaks
Posted by: Blake | September 20, 2007 at 02:57 PM
No problem Blake - good luck with the performance!
Posted by: pgwp | September 20, 2007 at 03:11 PM
I just got a response from the point person we've been working with at the museum, and he plans on taking some video for youtube plus he's given us the go ahead to do the same! Very cool, we'll hit you up once we get something uploaded. :)
Posted by: Blake | September 20, 2007 at 06:20 PM
This is such a wonderful
Posted by: Cheatsgame | September 26, 2007 at 12:32 AM
Sorry it's taken me a few days to get back to you, but there are some great videos posted on the 'net from the event...first, 944.com was there covering the exhibit and you can see their footage linked on the ASU art museum homepage here:
http://asuartmuseum.asu.edu/seanduffy/index.html
and a two-part version of the entire 20 some-odd minute performance on youtube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q4-PWjmIcc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mglG4pu6vu4
Enjoy!
Posted by: Blake | October 01, 2007 at 11:45 AM