In contrast to his stoic demeanor last night, on Saturday night David was interacting with the musician,smiling, attempting to dance, and miming out requests and praise. My conspiracy theory is that David is counting on these grating semi-musical zaps to keep him awake for the planned three sleepless days. But I think the annoying nature of the sound of the tuned electrical bolts has kept the attendance low. You might enjoy the video best playing it at either very low volume or extremely high. But Electrified is well worth seeing in person, it’s a spectacle not likely to be repeated. Think of it like Andy Kaufman singing 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall to completion.
Surrounded by 7 musically tuned Tesla coils, David Blaine is on Pier 54 at 13th Street and the Hudson River. He plans to stand here for 72 hours straight.
Music included: Bach, Toccata and Fugue in D minor
The last day of the four-day juggling festival at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. The video features Markus Furtner on Devil Sticks, Lin Junming from the Fujian acrobatics group rope spinning, Florian Müller-Reißmann and Jochen Pfeiffer of the Martial Arts juggling duo, Get the Shoe, David J. Friedman on rope dart, Larry Vee juggling on a balance board, Kyle Peterson with the cigar boxes, and Viveca and Paul passing the clubs in the beginning. If you can identify any of the other performers, please let me know. Juggle This
I made some of the props and brought my Gametone instruments to clang for this extravaganza at
Theater for the New City. I make a brief appearance behind an array of gongs in the second video.
I am especially proud of the ship’s steering-wheel / joystick, padded with bubble-wrap so the cast
could fling it around without injury.
This was downtown Manhattan in May following that famous September in 2001. We made giant paper-mache
spheres in a dim basement apartment in Brooklyn directly under the ash plume from the Towers. Is it any
wonder we were mad?
from LOVESPHERE 7: THE GOLDEN SPIRAL Haideen Anderson, Chris Baxter, James Byrd Jr., Ernie Fahl,
Gary Heidt, GirlGeo, Terry Lee King, Frank Marino, Tom Maucher,Nathan Metz, Toshie Nagatsuka,
Hiromi Nakamura, Michael Natale, Doug “Grand Pepper of Reality” Principato, Carry Sky Sipple, Albert Solomon.
Costume and sets by Nathalie Vogel. Directed by Yuji Takematsu. Executive producer Crystal Field,
artistic director, Theater for the New City. Barbara Vann, producer of Lovesphere 7.
Film by Chris Baxter. Sound recording by Dan Gaydos, Museum of Sound Recording, mixed by Jason Candler.
Guerilla subway performance art in New York City’s Union Square station 1997, featuring Gary Heidt, Cassandra Weston, Chris Weston, Bill Weaver, Christopher X. Brodeur, Belen Cortizo and Tonya Saiya
Sunday Congas from GammaBlog on Vimeo.
On warm sunny Sundays, congeros gather in Tompkins Square Park, East Village, NYC.
As a quick remedy to all the editing and fussing over my Toy Tower videos, this video is simple and uncut, shot late in the afternoon, up on the blog before midnight.
Update, 6/5: Added Video, bottom of the post. Playing the Building, a 9,000-square-foot, interactive, site-specific installation by David Byrne in the Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan. The project consists of a retrofitted antique organ, placed in the center of the building’s cavernous second-floor gallery, that controls a series of devices attached to its structural features—metal beams, plumbing, electrical conduits, and heating and water pipes.
I loved having access to the Battery Maritime Building, but the organ as an actual musical instrument left much to be desired. The keys, especially the ones that banged on things were often unresponsive (the solenoids tap on things that swing like a pendulum) often leaving you tapping away and not getting a sound. But I imagine if left to play with it for a longer than I felt comfortable doing with a long line waiting behind me and learning its quirks, I could get something going eventually. Don’t get me wrong this event brought to you by the great folks at Creative Time is awesome. Go check it out, weekends until August.
Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 12 to 6pm May 31–August 10, 2008 – The Battery Maritime Building, 10 South Street, NYC
I’m going through many of my old video tapes. This one was undated but my best guess is 1995. My improvisational group, The Gametones (Pronounced Gamma Tones), performs at the Exit Art Gallery.
If you can’t see the video embedded above try this link.
ROBOHAMLET is a play about the extinction of the human race at the claws of their own creations, the Crylons, genetically modified crabs created to make a caviar substitute, whose incredible fecundity has overwhelmed their human creators. The last humans make a brave stand, and the only weapon that can stand between them an annihilation of humanity is the Robot, who carries the burden of human culture, recites Shakespeare, and feels ambivalent.
ROBOHAMLET is written by Pat Harper, who was House Manager of Theater for the New City from 1999 until 2006, and is not only a barbed commentary on humanity in general but also on off-off Broadway theater and its denizens.
