This piece was featured at the Madison Civic Center’s “Statics and Dynamics II” performance art showcase in 1987. It featured a 10’ x 10’ painting, which was imbedded with speakers (behind the red dots), two, wired for sound, mobile painting elements (myself, and friend/artist, Lance Wilson), and a Painter (friend/artist, Brian Frink). I wanted to do a work about the space between an artwork and its audience, and the physical exchange that occurs in such a space. Power Chords was a twenty-minute, interpretive look into this exchange, through the use of performance, sound, painting, and dialogue. The painting’s speakers broadcasted guitar power chords, over a bass funk groove, while the crawling painting element’s wired eye-speakers, played scrambled recitations of Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham. At five minute intervals, the music would drop, and the Painter would come out from behind the painting and ask the audience, point blank, about certain musical subtleties, or how they liked the performance so far. Then the music would be brought up, and the mobile painting elements would resume their interaction with the audience. The performance finished with the Painter signing the canvas.
Power Chords
