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Thoughts on Monotrona, Cory Arcangel, and the return of Old School Vid Games. I've never been much of a player of videogames but I love the distinctive, cheap-synth-meets-sped-up-player-piano sound of the early consoles. There's something beautiful and stupid and perfectly reductive about those adrenaline-filled melodies, as urgent in their own way as Ramones songs. In 1983 Haruomi Hosono, of the Japanese technopop outfit Yellow Magic Orchestra, released an LP of game ditties on the Alfa label; the genius of his Videogame Music was that he didn't "interpret" the tunes but presented them straight up (according to this Hosono fan page, VGM was the first of what went on to become an established genre in Japan). Of all the tracks on the album--"Xevious," "Bosconian," "Pac-Man," "Phozon," "Mappy," "Libble Rabble," "Pole Position," "New Rally-X," "Dig Dug," and "Galaga"--only the last got some YMO-style musical embellishment; everything else was treated as found sound. I bought the album in the '80s and listened to it with the proper degree of quasi-ethnographic disinterest, as if it were a Harry Smith collection of folk ballads, but also just plain enjoyed it. Not only did the anonymous composers compress the entire musical spectrum--classical, pop, show tunes--into the smallest number of bytes, they wrote some damn catchy tunes ("Dig Dug" is still stuck in my head).
Videogame bleeps and sniggles were an important component of the early '80s "electro" scene, which was primarily urban hiphop and synthfunk in the Man Parrish/Afrika Bambaataa/Roger Troutman mold (see David Toop's A-Z of Electro for a definitive rundown). Pop culture has been revisiting that scene for a few years now in connection with the '80s nostalgia boom, and videogame sights and sounds are once again in the air. In this post I discuss two careers that are somewhat tangential to the taste-cycle, but nevertheless informed and uplifted by it. Monotrona is a post-feminist, posthuman musician/performance artist who uses old-school electronic gadgets in her act: her new CD, Hawkeye and Firebird, prominently features ancient Commodore 64 game sounds. Cory Arcangel is a computer artist associated with Beige Records, the definitive electro-slacker (but not really) combine.
I first heard Monotrona on the Stork Club on WFMU-FM (a sadly missed live music show), around '97 or '98, performing "Joey, a Mechanical Boy,” which was described as the "fourth in a 14-section work called the 'Fourteen Imitations of Man.'" The story--told in music and dialogue, all performed by the artist using a variety of accents, vocoderlike filters, etc.--was extremely weird. Joey is an ectopically-spawned robot child who goes to work for NASA. His mother, in a ridiculous Chicago accent, tries to reach him on the phone and is headed off by the "Dark Technical Force," a gnostic demiurge that has a strange hold over Joey. Meanwhile, two shadowy government operatives discuss a rogue scientific scheme to create a ManWoman. The piezoelectric puppet show includes some really beautiful songs in the Chrome/Suicide/Throbbing Gristle postpunk vein, performed with buzzy, distorted keyboards. After the performance, Stork described Monotrona's equipment for listeners as "a mountain of unpatented cheap toy electronics adapted for her use--an indescribable array of electronics centered around a Casio machine, using light sabres, pistols, all sorts of mixers, and an oscillating device that looks like a little recipe box with two joysticks coming out of it..." [added 3/24/04: my cassette tape of the event: 36 min, 33.6MB]
Clearly Monotrona's act is visual as well as sound-based, but I've yet to see her live. Searching around the Internet I found a number of baffled and/or dismissive reviews of her stage show. Nevertheless, as a radio musical "Joey" was brilliant and I've been eagerly awaiting a followup. It finally arrived last month in the form of Hawkeye and Firebird, an 8-song, 21 minute CD on Menlo Park. Evidently her "14 Imitations" cosmology has morphed into a gesamtkunstwerk called "Superbeings," and the CD's title characters are two more personae in that scheme (I note that Joey is still on the list, too). Some listeners may be put off that she sings all the songs in the pidgin-English, little-girl voice of Hawkeye, a "Korean superhero" who flies around the world in her airplane accompanied by Firebird, a legless robot slave. ("People awound the world are afwaid/Don't worry people, we will fight and save the day!") The vocal conceit works well on about half the songs, and the music is consistently arresting. She integrates game tunes from the Commodore 64 ("Hotrod," "Monty on the Run," "Sanxion," "Crazy Commets") into the songs sometimes as the primary melody (I think), other times as effects and fills. All of the tracks have the breakneck speed and delicious brevity of the best game music, and there's at least one Gary Numan reference.
The Commodore 64 also appears on The 8-Bit Construction Set LP, released in 2000 by the musical ensemble of the same name: in addition to Cory Arcangel, the group consists of Paul B. Davis, Joe Beuckman and Joe Bonn. This unusual record is marketed as a "dj tool" that includes samples and lock grooves for use in live performances. "8-bit" refers to the very low memory computers first introduced in the '70s and early '80s, including the Atari line, much fetishized by geeks. Meticulously organized, The 8-Bit Construction Set has an "Atari side" and a "C64 side"; each includes samples and "scratch tones" taken from the respective computers (including sound clips from ads used to sell them back in the day), about ten locked grooves with beats and simple loops played on the machines, an original 2 or 3 minute composition ("Saucemaster" on the Atari side and "Dollars" on the C64 side), and a track of actual data that can be recorded on audiocassette tape and fed into the appropriate computer (these sound like fax machine tones until you translate them). Highlights include a promo of Alan Alda hawking the Atari to nervous first-time users, and the two aforementioned original tracks by the group, which are slammin' Detroit-style electro (wish there were more of them). With two copies of the record you can amuse your friends and pets by performing long, trippy Steve Reich compositions using the lock grooves and a fader; I'm not embarrassed to admit I tried it.
The DIY aesthetic also infuses Arcangel's visual work, particularly what he calls his "Nintendo cartridge hacks." On his website, he describes in mind-shattering detail his process of disassembling game cartridges and adding or subtracting characters and backgrounds. This compulsion to educate is part of the Beige Records schtick, as explained in this New York Times article:
The [8-Bit] stage show was a testimony to nerdiness. It wasn't enough for the group simply to play dance music on old Atari and Commodore 8-bit computers and show homemade "Star Trek"-like films. It continually stopped its show to announce the type of computer being used, how much memory it had, its assembly language and other technical minutiae. This was an attempt not just to show how difficult sophisticated electronic dance is to make on such retro technology, but also to savor the moment in the limelight that the group members' cumulative hours of computer reconstruction, programming and yard- sale searching had bought them.
For his piece I Shot Andy Warhol, Arcangel took apart a cartridge called Hogan's Alley, a fairly elementary target-shooting program, and substituted new characters on a chip of his own making. The object of the hacked game--and it really is this simple--is to aim a plastic pistol at the screen and hit the Andy Warhol icon whenever it pops up in the alley, while avoiding hitting the Pope, Colonel Sanders, and Flavor Flav icons. The game ends when you've made 10 misses (including erroneous celebrity kills). In another part of the game you take potshots at falling Campbell's soup cans, and flouting the laws of physics, make them bounce upwards through an open window.
Elsewhere on this page I've dissed art-smart art using videogames, and still think the idea of blowing apart a Foucault text in an arcade-style shoot-em-up is pretentious. At first I was annoyed by the concept of I Shot Andy Warhol for this reason. Oh, no, not him again. But after playing the damn thing at Eyebeam Atelier (and I must proudly say, advancing the TOP SCORE on all 3 subgames) I have to say it's so focking stoopid it's OK. It is what it is: an opportunity to be vicariously transgendered (if you're a guy) and sociopathically kill an important-but-overhyped art world figure again and again. (My only two "misses" were plugging Colonel Sanders twice; that was pretty fun too).
A quick round of the Chelsea galleries yesterday: Sam Taylor Wood at Matthew Marks (uninspired photoandvideo); Alexander Ross at Feature (should spend more time rendering and less time with the mitrebox); Alan Wiener at Feature (excellent--his best solo to date); Paul McCarthy at Luhring Augustine (horrible sculptures); Paul Feeley at Matthew Marks (the season's best show of hip new painting by a dead guy); Peter Cain at Matthew Marks (resembled OK Harris ca. '75 in 1990 and still does); Eyebeam Atelier (Cory Arcangel's I Shot Andy Warhol rocks); Bitforms (closed for the day).
New music acquisitions: Adrien75 Coastal Acces (sic) (trippy, subtle, post-ambient?); Monotrona Hawkeye and Firebird (speed electro--great use of Commodore 64 game sounds--tracks 2, 4, 7, and 8 are best).
More on Cory Arcangel, the Commodore 64, and video game art/music soon.
Here's a bit of casual racism from the New York Times' lead editorial today: "Poor neighborhoods are the killing box, and if a drive-by shooting occurs there it may touch the middle-class heart, but it does not chill the soul. When a criminal like the sniper demonstrates that he can strike anywhere — in a mall, by a school, at a bus — we tend to endow him with unique personal qualities."
Michael Moore's film Bowling for Columbine, in theatres now and worth a look, shows how the media demonizes the black male "other" as the main source of crime in America. After seeing that film's endless montage of blowdried talking heads saying "The suspect is a black male...", you couldn't help but wince when news outlets blitzed the world with John Muhammad's headshot, before he was officially accused of anything. Here we go again. Of course the rightwing nutball commentators seized on the accused's last name, trying to add fuel to Bush's Anti-Islamic Crusade, but surely the most salient fact is not Muhammad's race or religion but that he's ex-Army, and an angry Gulf War veteran to boot. Chalk 10 dead as more blowback from bad government policy in '91, add them to the five spouses brutally murdered by Delta Force guys returning from Afghanistan, and think about all the future mayhem GWB is about to unleash. As one of those kids whose deaths don't chill our middle-class souls might say, "Actions have consequences, yo."
Addenda: In an essay that appeared a few days after this post, Alexander Cockburn made a more fleshed-out argument for the sniper-as-blowback, including a recitation of all the domestic killings by US military personnel, post-Afghanistan. Also, a friend read the Times quote above and didn't believe me that that paper could be that callous. Surely I had misread a comment that was intended to be an ironic take on the average blockhead view. No, unfortunately it was that view straight up. In the comments to this post, I've included a longer excerpt from the editorial to put the remarks in context. I assume these lines were written by Gail Collins, the Times' editorial page editor.
One last post on the Elevator Project before I return to ranting about the government and media (like the interview I caught on CNN's "all sniper all the time" coverage today featuring some idiot hawking bulletproof vests). I've documented the elevator piece (some might say overdocumented) here, with installation shots, curatorial notes, my diary in chronological order, and a new series-in-progress inspired by Jim Bassett's molecular closeup shots. I know, I know, there's too much material and it's way self-indulgent, but I'm really happy with the way the project turned out.
October Exhibition Diary 8. I installed my piece Molecular Dispersion (Elevator Kit) in the freight elevator at 50 Washington in DUMBO (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass) NY on Thursday and Friday. The piece was open to public viewing in connection with the DUMBO Art Under the Bridge Festival on Saturday and Sunday (Oct 19 and 20). Lots of people came by both days, as they wandered around the fifth floor touring the open studios. In my previous post I described installing amidst the chaos of a normal busy day in the elevator; the contrast between that experience and my weekend experience was marked.
On Saturday and Sunday, the building's management decided for crowd control reasons to keep my elevator frozen on the fifth floor with the doors open, while allowing other elevators to service the floor. This was nice because it kept the work on "permanent" view. But it was also not so nice, because the art was no longer in a functioning, workaday environment. People either entered, pushed buttons trying to get to other floors, and left in frustration; or saw the explanatory text on wall outside, realized it was an art show, then gave it a quick look from the doorway. If they'd been using the elevator, they'd be immersed in the environment for however long it took to get to their floors, and they'd see the art full-on, with the depth-effect (such as it was) of the simulated 3-D molecule floating on shiny metal. From the doorway, seen at an angle, glare and wall-smudges are more pronounced and the depth was lost.
Nevertheless, some people were curious enough to enter the space for a better view, from what I could observe standing in the hallway talking to friends, which kept me in a good mood. If I happened to be in the elevator talking to someone, however, it created an interesting social dynamic. Seeing us in the lift, people would assume it was working, and walk in and push the buttons. When one of us inevitably piped up to say "It's not working," about 6 out of 10 visitors got huffy. At least four type-A personalities actually said, with sneering sarcasm, "So what are you doing in here, just hanging out?" When I said "It's an art exhibit" I either got the hand-over-the-mouth "I'm so sorry" reaction or the eye-rolling "Well la-di-fucking-da."
There's an awful lot of free-floating hostility out there; two of the friends I was talking to (one of whom had recently exhibited in a public space) discussed with me how art becomes a lightning rod for all that anger. Of course, anything that smacks of conceptualism (or presumed superior posture on the part of the artist) just generally pisses people off. Not guessing I was the artist, a couple of guys read the text aloud in pretentious voices and then loudly dissed the work, while their girlfriends giggled appreciatively. But that kind of reaction was the exception--when all was said and done, the piece was too brightly colored and "fun" to really hate. (Some people expected more of an elevator-filling spectacle, to which I can only say, I'm sorry, I think this particular type of structure would have diminished the more it surrounded you--one wall was enough!)
In any case, the project was an adventure. Thanks to curator Ombretta Agrò for including me in the exhibition and bringing tours through each day. Also, big shoutouts to James, Gregory, Claire, Ross, Deb, Matt, Jim, Sarah, Alex, Linda, Dave, Mike, Janet, Brian, Cory, and anyone else I might have missed that came by. Jim took some nice pictures with his Danger hiptop and posted them while he was in the elevator; the sheer immediacy of that publication I find mind-blowing. I also like the way he shot them, in a kind of "descent into the Microverse" montage. I'll have some more pictures up soon.
October Exhibition Diary 7. I spent a few more hours in the freight elevator at 50 Washington installing my wall-piece yesterday (see details and map below). The elevator never sat still for more than five minutes. The building has 10 floors, fully leased, mostly with commercial tenants (artists are the exception; they're all corralled on 5). Deliverymen bring boxes in; workers bring boxes out; and all day long it's garbage, garbage, garbage. The 8th Floor is the powerhouse tenant: a company that makes low-cost plastic items such as carry-all bags, videocassette cases, and so forth. The owner appears to be Indian and his employees African; the latter were constantly getting on the elevator with dollies hideously overloaded with boxed merchandise, grunting back and forth as they try to maneuver motorized and non-motorized handcarts through the door. One of them looked to be about a hundred years old--I thought maybe he was the other guy's Dad. He got the job done, but just barely. (The UPS guy, who knew everyone in the building, made fun of them to me: "Those guys moan and groan at each other and you don't know what the fuck they're saying.") Another place makes IKEA-type furniture; I saw a number of disassembled bedframes go through the elevator. As for the trash, after doing this project I feel like a pop-abstractionist version of Mierle Laderman Ukeles. (At one time the Official Artist of the NY Sanitation Department, this eco-conceptualist is famous for her piece Touch Sanitation, where she shook the hand of every garbage truck driver in NY.) I asked about the trash at 50 Washington: it supposedly goes out three times a day, but a couple of maintenance guys never stopped getting on the elevator with garbage. Even after 6, when the DUMBO art tour had officially begun and visitors were sprinkling through, one of these guys was still wheeling his plastic tub on and off the elevator. By 3:00 pm, I had reached the stage of making my piece where I needed to get back from it, so I could see the whole and add or subtract struts. Instead of the sculptures that Barnett Newman complained about bumping into when backing up to look at paintings, I kept putting my feet down on bulging, refuse-filled plastic bags.
I did get a non-stop stream of commentary from elevator users yesterday. The knuckleheads who gave me a hard time a few weeks ago came back through ("Look, it's the tape-test guy!") but were actually complimentary (for guys) when they saw the piece. One of the 9th Floor employees gave me a full blown interpretation: "It's an elevator molecule... See, you got metal, plastic, electricity, oil (?), the whole elevator is here in this molecule." In fact, I got a mostly enthusiastic reception until the NY art-erati started coming through (and I'm one of them so I can say this): maybe the poker-faces expected more bells and whistles? Another elevator in the building is draped in sepulchral black cloth, backlit in red light, and pulsates like an enormous beating heart. I can't really compete with that.
October Exhibition Diary 6. Worked from 6:00 pm to 1:00 am yesterday installing phase one of the elevator installation. That freight elevator is truly the alimentary canal of 50 Washington. Boxes come in on dollies and bags of garbage go out, all fricking night long. The custodial staff, both Albanian, were split on the merits of the piece. One thought it was nice and the other was completely baffled. "What is it?" "Atoms. Molecules. What everything's made of." "You ask office?"
October Exhibition Diary 5. As I've been mentioning, I'm doing an installation in a freight elevator in D.U.M.B.O. (Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass), Brooklyn, as part of The Freight Elevator Project 2, curated by Ombretta Agrò. The elevator project is under the auspices of the D.U.M.B.O. "Art Under the Bridge" festival, a three-day event of gallery openings, open studios, and performances. Here's how the curator describes my piece: "In Molecular Dispersion (Elevator Kit), Tom Moody has assembled a 70-foot-square lattice of molecular spheres and struts drawn and printed on his home PC. This 'kit' consists of several hundred individual pieces, put together improvisationally within the elevator site."
See http://www.dumboartscenter.org/festival/ for more information and a DUMBO map. The Elevator Project is described under "open studios." The Festival's (and elevator's) hours are: October 18-20, 2002, Fri 6-9 pm and Sat/Sun 12-6 pm. Below is a map showing how to get to my elevator. I hope you can stop by over the weekend.