statement

This is a rejection of what constitutes "good" music.
This is a rejection of the idea of "production value".
This is a conscious and unconscious effort to never become trite via perpetual spontaneity. Songs are rare. Plans are less so.
This is all based on the utility of what is at hand. Overpriced current recording tools and practices are not used. Digital technology is used, reluctantly, because there are times when one doesn't need a layer of tape hiss.
There is a time and place for the instruments to be in tune, and that is not all the time and everywhere. It is sometimes and somewhere. Likewise with singing.
Looping can make a spontaneous moment last forever. An accident can be relived again and again, good or bad.
Looping also allows sounds to form a continuous stream, which is necessary when the goal is to erode all the badness going on on the shore. Wear away the dirt and the stilts that cash-palaces full of bad art made on fake sentiments will soon buckle.

Keeping Up Appearances

Video collage of installation by Elizabeth Alexander in the exhibition Home Sweet Home at Montserrat College of Art. Sound by the Inevitable Minor Fires.

Keeping Up Appearances from Todd Bowser on Vimeo.

This was my second collaboration with Liz and I'm starting to get over the nervous excitement of getting to collaborate with my favorite artist, and slowly starting to get good at these made-to-order pieces, with the slight advantage of slowly improving technology. Her next show is now open here in Wellesley, and I am proud to be a part of it again.