Hi All, Good post on Warhol. I wasn't aware of his audio archive. Always intriguing to see the way that his power was totally shamanic. What I always find my self wondering is how much of his behavior was conscious and how much unconscious and deranged?
4000 hours of audio. Woof! Cheers, Ben Matt Hulse wrote: > Zoe: > > Based on my understanding of Warhol through his book 'A TO B AND BACK > AGAIN', the man's compulsive recording of sounds that are 'in themselves' of > no particular interest to an audience ( ie neither intrinsically exotic, > rare or top secret ) was akin to his compulsive bulk purchasing of > 'ordinary' Jockey Y-fronts, the boxes of which he wouldn't even open. His > film EMPIRE STATE, the reels of which could be shown in any order, for as > long as you like ( and you're not expected neccessarily to sit and watch it > ) is also similar in that it takes the ordinary and through the very act of > its re-presentation by WARHOL becomes interesting. Duchamp of course had > done this with ready-mades and what-not, but Warhol took it a stage further > by saying not simply 'this is art because I say so' but rather 'this is art > because I, ANDY WARHOL, say so', instantly giving it his brand signature > without even the use of his trusty marker pen. > > Put crudely, Warhol fans will listen to, watch, collect and admire any 'old > shit' that this guy churned out, recorded or collected, simply because he > created a party of ONE that no-one could quite get in to, thus creating one > of THE 20th century myths/icons in himself. And that of course was his whole > point and life's work. > > Valerie Solanas, the woman who shot him in 1968, may have missed the point > but perhaps she hit upon something too, because she did something OUT OF THE > ORDINARY and he was a purveyor of the ordinary. I would not say though that > he was a particular FAN of the ordinary, I just think he had an insatiable > urge to say LOOK, LISTEN, LOOK AT ALL THIS STUFF ! > > And so busy was he doing that, that he never had time to review or archive > it all. That's for us to do. > > Similarly, I saw a short film of Jonas Mekas' at a festival. It was just a > home movie of his. But it featured Jackie O and Warhol, albeit fleetingly. I > have no doubt that this film would not have been shown otherwise. So what is > it that makes Warhol's audio tapes interesting ? The company he kept and the > fact that he actually DID it, as he was talking about doing it. > > Oh, and yes, I do think he was scared of death, but maybe more accurately > disappointed. From his book, the complete chapter on 'Death' is simply this: > > A: I'm so sorry to hear about it. I just thought that things were magic and > that it would never happen. > > ........................................................................ > > Do read Valerie Solanas' SCUM manifesto, it's great > -http://www.ai.mit.edu/~shivers/rants/scum.html ) > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. > > ------------------------------------------------- > a m b i t : networking media arts in scotland > post: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > info: send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > and write "info ambit" in the message body > ------------------------------------------------- -- Ben Woodeson http://www.woodeson.co.uk ------------------------------------------------- a m b i t : networking media arts in scotland post: [EMAIL PROTECTED] info: send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and write "info ambit" in the message body -------------------------------------------------
