2/3 documentations
directed / edited by Xingyan Guo
directed / edited by Xingyan Guo
Instrument—Body
“Instrument—Body” was a series of performances, presented in conjunction with the seminar of the same name and curated by Visiting Assistant Professor of Music and cellist Ethan Philbrick
“The student directors and camera operators did not just approach these videos as documentation, but instead used them as occasions for their own experimentation with cameras as instruments of visual capture.”
—Ethan Philbrick
The Waterfront Journals, performed by Ethan Philbrick and Justin Wong,takes its title from a posthumously published book by the visual artist, writer, and HIV/AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz. In the performance, we turn to Wojnarowicz, as well as broader legacies of queer sexual and social experimentation along the New York City waterfront, as sources of inspiration for finding new ways to use our instruments and each other.
“Y’all Don’t Wanna Hear Me (You Just Wanna Dance)” is a performance in which a long-range acoustic device (LRAD)* is used against its intended purpose of crowd dispersal, alternatively presenting it as a technology that might unite and even guide a crowd through sonic affect. Over the course of the device’s battery life, Toussaint-Baptiste will play music through the device, using its built-in microphone to speak with willing attendees and talk about his artistic practice, recite facts about the device’s history, and otherwise find ways to misuse the technology in an effort to reclaim something that has been funded by the public but used against the populace, and instead use it to bring public joy and conversation.