...50 sculptures ranging in size from 4x20 1/2x2 1/4" to 3x2x1/4', composed in various permutations of wood, wire, plastics, plaster, paper, yarn, thread, rope and found objects.
...Cardboard wire cutters, 48x28x4".
...A gravestone shape with a cruciform hole, 5 1/4x4 3/4x1 1/2", in wood, cardboard, plasticene, and mixed media (wire, paper, burlap, tape); plasticene and cardboard versions later to be augmented with wire, yarn, and pencil inscriptions.
...Performance piece to be done in the area of the slide room. The lights will be turned off, except for a faint light within the room; the landing will be cordoned off by a specially prepared rope. A glass of water will be on the floor, near a boiling (and thus steaming) pot of water placed beneath the ladder to the roof. I will hide in the slide room, and begin to make droning sounds on a synthesizer as the class ascends the stairs--none of them will know whether I am actually present or if a tape is playing (my shadow will be visible but unrecognizable as such). After a certain amount of restlessness becomes evident in the observing class, I will simultaneously lunge up (thus moving my shadow), stop playing the synthesizer, and kick an identical glass of water into the landing area, splattering its contents.
...A chair in false collaboration with Rebecca Horn, 44x16 1/2x17 1/2". Wood, plexiglass, steel, burlap, muslin, copper tubing, four-track tape recorder (with tape), microphone, effects pedal, cables, headphones, thermometer. The seat and legs will be made of stained wood (with copper tubing in a spiral around the bottom of one leg), the back of a plexiglass plate and bar stock, the seat of burlap and muslin. It will work like this: the sitters will put on the headphones and put the thermometer in their mouths. They will then sit on the chair, activating the tape recorder (which is concealed under the seat) and causing it to play a pre-recorded tape of distorted studio noise. At the same time that the sitters hear the tape, they will hear the sounds around them through the microphone mounted above their heads; these sounds, however, will be filtered through the effects pedal between the microphone and the tape recorder. The sitters will then be able to alter the sounds around them by placing the pedal in their laps and manipulating it. The pedal will be concealed in the same layers of inward muslin and outward burlap as the seat, however--so that the sitters cannot direct the manipulation, but only experiment haphazardly.
...Performance piece. Before the performance, I will cut a standard plywood piece into 15 biomorphic shapes of various sizes, draw little eyes in pen on 14 pieces, and smear the 15th with vaseline. I then will arrange the eyed shapes in a cluster on the floor spilling diagonally out from the space. A fellow made out of cloth with identical eyes will watch from a nearby chair. I will attend on this day dressed in my funeral clothes: white dress shirt, black Oxford shoes, black dress pants, black tie, and a black sweater. I will also have a pink cigarette lighter at hand, and pink lip balm in my pocket. As the performance begins, I will arrange my class in rows on either side of the cluster as I face it head on, the vaseline-smeared shape on the floor between the cluster and myself. I will apply the lip balm to my lips, light the cigarette lighter three times, kneel to genuflect, and then proceed to pick up the vaseline-smeared shape and use its vaseline to anoint each of the other shapes above their eyes. That done, I will genuflect once more, and light the cigarette lighter three more times.
...Performance piece. Prior to the performance, I will have sharpened a broom handle into a spear, wrapped it with a broad, long piece of latex, and left it to the side in the presentation space. That night, when called upon to perform the performance, I will stand up, remove my shoes and socks, and remove my flannel shirt to reveal a t-shirt emblazoned with a gravestone. Picking up the spear, I will remove the latex band and wind it around my neck in the manner of a scarf. I will then walk over to the blackboard and draw a diagram of five parallel lines in chalk. Instructing my fellows to follow me, I will lead them to a yard across the street. I will draw the same diagram with the spear in the earth before me, and then incompetently throw the spear. I will then laugh uproariously.
...Two loaves of french bread with 31 pins protruding from each end, bound together with a band of pink cloth. On the pink cloth are two buttons composed of pound coins, each one wrapped in a patch of the same cloth. A length of plastic and wire cord will protrude from the middle of the band, and lead to a pouch of the self-same cloth which it seals by coil at the top. This pouch will be filled with every penny I have collected during my time here, and will be surrounded by a ridge of ground-up black liquorice sticks.
...A timeline in pink pencil along the side of a length of toilet paper (still on the roll), with dates of interest (i.e., the ambush of Roland, the siege of Masada).
...A sort of over-large hot water bottle headpiece, made of pink cloth stuffed with batting, with a ruffled fringe and metal cap on top and a velcro strap to go about the chin.
...A smallish battery, composed of a small pouch of pink cloth filled with silicone caulk. The pouch will be sliced half-open, allowing viewing of caulk and permitting conducting wires (twisting together into a loop at the end) coming from the caulk to protrude outwards. Six black liquorice sticks will protrude from slits in pairs along one side.
...A bird made of pink cloth stuffed with batting, with painted eyes; five rocks made of burlap stuffed with batting, with painted eyes; a sack of money made of burlap tied off with cord, with a pound sign painted on the side; a t-square made of plywood with painted eyes; and a pair of eyes made of gauze with painted pupils and red thread optic nerves.
...Performance piece. It will be a sort of cabaret, done at 3:30 P.M. on May 4th for a private crowd of friends. I will sing eight songs. The space will be set up with cafe tables in a front row and couches in a back row, all facing the performance area. This area will be mostly empty except for another cafe table with a swivel chair beside it. On the table will be: a glass of ginger ale with a black liquorice stick for a straw, several blue pills, the tape recorder audio-recording the event, and a small notebook. In the back corners of the space will be an amplifier into which a thin microphone will be plugged, and a stereo playing backing tracks. Two helpers will be employed: one in the audience filming the event on digital video, and one, dressed in a black cocktail dress and black sling-back heels, who will hand me the props for each of my songs (a quilt, burlap rocks, sewn eyes, etc.).
...Final performance piece. I will record critiques of the other pieces for the night of this presentation simultaneously on two tape recorders. Near the end, having picked up the viola case I have brought and turned on both tape recorders, I will lead the class up the hill to a small clearing. I will set down the two tape recorders side by side in the middle of this clearing, and tell them to make a circle around the recorders and myself. I then will remove the viola from its case and set the case open upon the ground next to the recorders. I will start to slowly saw a two note pattern on the viola, and to walk slowly in a circle. I will gradually accelerate both walk and play until each is quite fast, and then suddenly burst out of the circle and away into the night, not to return.
