My Name Looks Like Me: Richard Serra

In the middle of the day all of the shadows from the windows cast their beauty on each Serra piece. This was the day of Dress Rehearsal/Sound Check and pretty much perform for all of the major players of the DIA:Beacon Museum.

We each decided to have one hemispherical speaker in each structure. There were 4 large speakers (2 on each side of the gallery) on the outside of the gallery and we agreed on the importance of localized sound within our structures. In the end it really worked nicely for my structure which had the longest hallway to walk through before you got to the center. So my structure was like a huge speaker when I localized my sound.

Originally I place myself nearest to the back portion of the structure mainly because I didn't want people to fell like they were imposing on my space. Since the Serra pieces are so large I felt that it was a public space and so if they saw my back they would feel more at ease walking around.

Here is a map of the museum. We're in good company....

The shadow in my structure....

Merce and his assistant watching the dancers rehearse in the south wing, my structure is next to Merce.

Dancers in the north wing.

Merce was very hands on and watched his dancers every day during their warm up. They practice in silence, with Merce just clapping his hands to a 4/4 rhythm. It was very soothing to hear when your in a space like that.

Me, waiting for my cue....

The dancers really admired Merce, you can see their dedication to him in their body language. It was really inspiring to watch.

He speaks softly, but everything he has to say is important.

My view from my chair....god....I wish I was there right now.....

Saturday performance. Waiting for my cue.

I decided to move myself into the middle rather that closer to the back because I wasn't comfortable with the original set up. This felt better.

So each performance was 38 minutes long and each musician had to not play for 18 minutes of the 38. While the performance was happening people were free to walk into each structure, I kind of felt like a zoo animal.

These re all of the pictures that I have for the Saturday performance. Tomorrow will be the Sunday performance with photos of me with Merce and the crew, and one with Jasper Johns! He was really sweet and it was nice to have met him. Such an icon!

Onward with my photos. While we were at the museum this day working on sound design stuff we had an interesting meeting with the conservationist of the museum. She pretty much took us into each sculpture and showed the damage that has been done to each of them. Any hand mark, shoe mark, graffiti, yes, people wrote their names into some of them, animals....anything, even rubbing your shoulder on the side of the walls of the sculptures damage them and cannot be fixed. In my sculpture there are even shoe marks ABOVE your head from people that actually try to climb the sculpture. No class, so tragic.

Every once in a while they will close the gallery and spray water on the pieces to encourage oxidation like what you see below....

One of the things I love about the DIA:Beacon is it's representation of "chance art" and the idea of time and deterioration as part the work. So I was really inspired walking around the museum and seeing all of the Robert Smithson pieces. Here's a close up of his shards glass piece....this is an interesting idea about letting gravity control the look of the piece, very natural in approach, but when it was put in a "natural" setting it actually caused harm to the curious animals and some deer ended up cutting themselves while trying to understand what it was.

I'm really into rocks and salt lately. Everything I'm doing with my store is focused on this idea of random placement.

I really loved being surrounded by the Smithson pieces, but I couldn't help but notice the concrete floors and the shoe scuffs that surrounded each piece. So Cy Twombley.

While walking around the Serra gallery I was reminded of my favorite architect Louis Kahn and his approach of never adding a sealed finish to the walls of his buildings. Same as the Serra, the beauty of deterioration, one should see the flaws in the space. Some say that Louis Kahn had an affinity for this approach because as a child he was badly burned on his face that left large scars.

The Merce map of the Serra Gallery.

And now it's time for: WHAT'S INSIDE THOSE MICHAEL HEIZER'S???!!!!!!

Since we had the museum to ourselves we saw that the door to the Negative Sculptures from Michael Heizer was open. So we snuck in and I took some rare photos of the insides of the pieces. Normally you're only allowed to look from a partition and can never see the inside...

The Cube:

The Cone:

The Rectangle:

The Cylinder:

A random cart with lots of wires.

An old Leslie amp, we wanted to use them but they didn't work....nuts....

Off to Bard to perform for the summer MFA program.

The performance went really well. We each did one solo and then did a quartet type deal. It was short and sweet. Afterwards we had an open Q & A about our work. A lot of the students wanted to understand my approach and my equipment, so I started talking my work and how I no longer record any of my pieces because I am no longer focused on releasing my work, but rather concentrating on the moment. I was afraid that the guys wouldn't be open to the idea, but they were really into it and we had a really interesting discussion about recording and improvised music.

While we were discussing the issue of recording versus not recording, one student asked me to explain my process of my set up. So I figure that now would be a great time to show you guys how my set up works:

ON THE CHAIR- I always have a chair set up next to me with new records that I have purchased for each particular performance. In this group I have been playing with some "Non Such" recordings of Peruvian music and music from Chiapas. Also have been playing a record called "Groupies" which is a 1960's recording of a bunch of groupies talking about having sex with rockstars. It's AH-MAY-ZING!! And I've also been using a Peruvian record of singer Yma Sumac. Her voice was something crazy, like a 6 octave vocal range or something. When you slow a portion of the record down it makes a really nice warm tone, so I used that a lot.

So on the left side of my set up are pieces of records that I have broken apart from past performances. These pieces give me a nice dry sound when I need it. It's like the sonic version of a Robert Smithson piece. Where ever the pieces land is where they make their sound. It's one of my favorite things to do.

From broken pieces into 45's, some with the large middle hole, some without, they're good to use when I need to loop a regular LP. The one record with the red stuff is actually rubber paint that I slowly peeled off. When the rubber is pulled tawt it make little guitar noises that the needle picks up when its resting on the record.

Then it goes into my ruined records that I made in the beginning of my career. I have found that I no longer have to ruin any record I buy because I know exactly how to make what ever sound I want. I think these ruined guys have a nice plethora of sound to work with. It's definatley still part of my vocabulary.

To the right are sound effects records that I have collected over the years but haven't had a need to keep them by my side. But every once in a while I'll use them, it just depends on the moment.

Then there's the records on my lap, which conisists of about 15 records. Some are environment records, teaching children how to read, test tone records, records that Dieter cut for me for our performance in Vienna and many more. So there you have it, my set up.

Here's a MIDI studio in the music department, reminded me of the good 'ol days in Audio school. It was funny, throughout the whole time I was at the college, I had this nagging feeling like I didn't finish my homework or something.

Marina Rosenfeld and her twins. Marina set up our performance at the school and we have been meaning to get together and talk shop, so it was nice to hang out with her after the performance:

Her little potatoes, running around.....

We had a picnic and it turned out that a German composer was visiting the school as a guest professor, so we had a nice little chat about how much I love Berlin and want to live there someday.

School food, wasn't too bad...

The kids loved the park and were so sweet running around and giggling.

After the long dat I went with Stephan back to Merce's studio in NYC and he took me to the catacombs of the studio. When I got there I was greeted by all of the instrument cases with Gordon Mumma's name on one case, conch shells that were originally John Cage's from decades past, and some instruments that once belonged to David Tudor. It was like an unintentional museum of contemporary music. Amazing...