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John Duncan (artist)
Encyclopedia
This page is about John Duncan the contemporary artist. For the Symbolist artist see John Duncan (painter)
.
John Duncan is an artist who has lived and worked in Los Angeles
, Tokyo
and Amsterdam
, currently lives and works in Bologna
. His body of work includes performance art
, installations
, contemporary music, video art
and experimental film
, often involving the extensive use of recorded sound. His music is composed mainly of recordings from shortwave radio, field recordings and voice. His events and installations are a form of existential research, often confrontational in nature.
to parents of English and Scottish ancestry. He was raised with a strict Calvinist upbringing where self-reliance, hard work and the suppression of emotional suffering were considered virtues, questioning authority was severely punished.
In his teens he studied classical figure drawing and painting, together with psychology and the physics of light. His first contact with experimental music was the Jacques Lasry LP Chronophagie, discovered in the record bins of the Wichita Public Library. In 1971 he applied for and received Conscientious Objector status. At 19 he left for Los Angeles to attend CalArts, where he studied under Allan Kaprow
.
John Duncan has been acclaimed with inventing the well known sound of two radios communicating with eachother and aptly named it 'Feedback Love'; it was this that got his name in the musical hall of fame and together with 'Winrow Productions' he obtained legendary status. He also drives a Nissan Sunny and gets called 'John Duncan the funking vulcan'.
, as well as the cathartic exposure of personal experiences seen in the work of Viennese actionist artist Rudolf Schwarzkogler
and early feminist performance art
.
Several of his early events were held in private or in front of a small number of witnesses. Scare was an encouragement to examine the physical effects of fear. Duncan donned a disguise and fired a blank-loaded pistol at point-blank range at two carefully selected participants, Tom Recchion and Paul McCarthy
, chosen “...because they were close friends who would not expect anything like this to happen to them and who would be able to appreciate the event as I intended it”. Bus Ride sexually stimulated unsuspecting passengers on a city bus with a liquid poured into the ventilation system in order to observe the results. Blind Date, involving intercourse with a female corpse followed by a vasectomy, both conducted in private, was presented as an audio-only event to an audience in a darkened warehouse, a demonstration of how men are conditioned to turn emotional suffering into rage. An untitled character-exchange event with McCarthy was held in private in McCarthy's studio, where Duncan recorded actions to video that McCarthy immediately erased.
Other events were presented to radio audiences, at once separated from each other and too large to gather in one place. No was Duncan's first public performance of a Reichian exercise (later known as bioenergetic analysis
) broadcast live over Close Radio. Happy Homes, his last performance before leaving Los Angeles, was a telephone exchange with radio therapist Dr. Toni Grant
, broadcast live throughout the United States over the ABC radio network. Duncan described several child-abuse cases he had personally witnessed as a Los Angeles city bus driver as he asked the therapist for advice.
His first films were shot in Super-8, silent or with separate audio, intended either as stand-alone works or as elements used in live events. The performance For Women Only is centered around a film intended to erotically arouse the all-woman audience, who were then invited to enter a back room and abuse Duncan sexually. The Secret Film was screened individually to eight viewers before the film itself and the room where it was shown were both destroyed by fire.
Together with McCarthy he co-produced Close Radio, a weekly series of live radio broadcasts over KPFK that provided airtime to artists working in sound, many of them for the first time. The Close Radio archive was donated to the Getty Center
in 2007.
In 1978 he became closely associated with The Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS), working on collaborations with Tom Recchion, Fredrik Nilsen and Joe Potts (artist). His earliest recorded audio experiments were also made at this time, including work with Michael LeDonne-Bhennet, McCarthy, Recchion and Nilsen. His first solo LP Organic was released in 1979. His first solo recordings with shortwave radio were released in 1982 on the EP Creed which also included the complete broadcast of Happy Homes.
and Chris Carter (musician)
, the solo LP Riot and Dark Market Broadcast, led to collaborations with a number of Japanese noise music
artists, including Masami Akita, Keiji Haino
and Hijokaidan
. His solo recordings and live concerts from this period establish him as one of the early pioneers of Japanese noise, the first non-Japanese to work in the genre in Japan.
It was also here that he began to deliberately limit the exhibition of his visual art to public arenas, outside of established art galleries and institutions. His performances centered on Reichian breath exercises conducted onstage and in public, including Cast performed on the floor of the women's public toilet at the 'Second Annual Alternative Media Conference' in Tokyo in 1986. The collage series that he produced for display in strategically selected public men's toilets, The Toilet Exhibition, combined graphic war-damage images from world events with commercial pornography to emphasize links between them, in private stalls frequented by men from government offices (Kokkai-gijidomae), the banking sector (Hibia) and the fashion industry (Shibuya), at moments of absentminded contemplation.
In the mid-1980s he began pirate radio and television broadcasts with portable custom-made transmitters built by Duncan himself, operating (very) illegally from apartment block roofs in central Tokyo and an abandoned US Army hospital near Sagamihara, as well as periodic broadcasts made from his own home. Radio Code broadcasts featured the early live work of musician Keiji Haino
and Butoh
soloist Hisako Horikawa, which were also relayed throughout Tokyo via other pirate radio stations, particularly Radio Homerun in Shimokitazawa. TVC-1 television broadcasts were transmitted from central Tokyo rooftops, over the frequency assigned to NHK 1 after the station had concluded its broadcast day, limited to 12 minutes in order to avoid contact with Tokyo police.
His work in film and video included the Super-8 films Trigger with a solo soundtrack, Brutal Birthday with a live soundtrack performed by Duncan's group C.V. Massage, and a support film for the performance event Move Forward that included images from hardcore pornography and animated technical drawings of nuclear attack strategies.
He also directed a series of commercial adult videos for Kuki Inc.
under the name John See, for which he also wrote the scripts, edited, composed soundtracks and occasionally acted in incidental roles. Several re-edited versions of John See videos were broadcast over TVC-1, also appearing in the 2003 video installation See.
, Thailand
in 1993.
The Kick performance series of Reichian exercises was conducted before live audiences throughout Europe, from 1989 at Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria, to 1993. The final event was held on the altar of the Parochiale Kirche in Berlin, concluding a live solo concert.
His audio installation Stress Chamber consists of three independent motors vibrating the walls of a shipping container at its resonant frequency, remote-controlled from outside. Participants enter one at a time, nude, to be locked inside, allowing the vibrations to move at random around and through the participant's body. Stress Chamber was premiered in Amsterdam at the Absolute Threshold Machine Festival. Initially the festival organizers threatened to cancel the work due to its tendency to vibrate the grounds of the surrounding area to a 90 meter radius, concerned that it would become a 'torture device'. Finally the work was allowed, and the queue it created kept the entire festival open several hours longer than anticipated.
In 1988 and 1989 several of his films were broadcast over Rabotnik TV along with Anthem, a Reichian exercise performed for the Rabotnik TV camera in a derelict building used by heroin addicts. Location sound for Anthem was recorded by Andrew M. McKenzie.
Between 1990 and 1993, Radio Code FM broadcasts continued as weekly programs which he produced and hosted over pirate stations Radio 100 and Radio Patapoe.
The Maze event in June 1995 involved a group of seven volunteer participants, including Duncan and an infant child, locked naked and blind overnight in an Amsterdam cellar in order to directly experience workings of the mind in a situation of unexpected sensory deprivation. The event ended when several participants pried open the exit door with their fingernails and broke it down. The infant child slept through the entire event. A video created from infrared photos taken during the event was produced later that year at Contained in Linz, Austria.
Music from this period includes CD releases Contact with Andrew M. McKenzie, Send with tracks by McKenzie and Zbigniew Karkowski
and The Crackling, composed with Max Springer in 1996 from field recordings made by Duncan at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
. A 1997 review by Rob Young claimed The Crackling rendered the Stanford research facility '...perhaps the largest musical instrument ever created'.
. They were married in Scrutto di San Leonardo in 1998. Their collaborations include Charge Field and Palace of Mind. They agreed to separate amicably in 2005.
Art works from this period include the outdoor audio installation The Keening Towers (2003) for the 2nd Gothenburg Biennial composed with children's voices, played continuously for 90 days over speakers suspended 25 meters above the entrance to the Gothenburg Art Museum, as well as the performance event Voice Contact (1998–2000) where volunteer participants enter alone, nude and blind into an empty room as Duncan, also nude and blind, responds uniquely to each according to their movements within the space. The first Voice Contact event was held in a modified suite at the five-star Lydmar Hotel in Stockholm in 1998.
Video from this period includes The North Is Protected, based on the text with the same title written by Leif Elggren
.
Duncan's work with radio continued and expanded. Cross Radio broadcasts were three-hour live experimental music programs produced and hosted by Duncan, aired weekly from 23:00 to 02:00 over Radio Onde Furlane in Udine
, syndicated over Resonance FM
in London, Radio Autonoma in Madrid, Radio Kinesonus in Tokyo and WPS1
in New York. Over Radio Onde Furlane, each show continued until 05:30.
Audio releases from this period include Crucible, Tap Internal, Palace of Mind (cited above), Nav with Francisco López
, Fresh with zeitkratzer, Phantom Broadcast, Infrasound Tidal from sources by Densil Cabrera, Tongue with Elliott Sharp
, Presence with Edvard Graham Lewis
and Da Sich Die Machtgier... with sources by Asmus Tietchens
.
His first project here was the production of The Error, a 50-page hardbound book measuring 40 x 60 cm. of his writings and photographs, printed by letterpress in an edition of 10 copies. The Error was first included together with a DVD video version of the work in Dialogue 1 at Gallery Enrico Fornello in Prato, Italy, curated in 2006 by Simone Menegoi. Copies of The Error are in the collections of Niklas Belenius, Leif Elggren, Piergiorgio Fornello, Paul McCarthy, Giuliana Stefani and François Kaeser, who sponsored the production.
In 2006 he recorded Our Telluric Conversation with Carl Michael von Hausswolff
and Nine Suggestions with Pan Sonic
members Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen. The audio installation The Garden with Valerio Tricoli was included in the 2006 edition of Eco e Narciso held at the IPCA Ecomuseum http://www.provincia.torino.it/culturamateriale/musei/e_cir01.htm in the province of Turin, a deserted factory complex once infamous for production methods that directly caused the deaths of several thousand workers as well as hundreds of residents of the surrounding area. A DVD video The Garden based on the installation and shot at the IPCA site was produced in 2007.
In January 2007 Duncan performed Something Like Seeing in the Dark with Elggren, premiered at Palazzo Re Enzo
, Bologna
for the Netmage 07 festival. In August, his solo audio installation The Tolling was introduced at Smepp: Società Mezzi Portuali at the Piombino dockyards for Piombino eXperimenta 3.
In September, Duncan curated Cross Lake Atlantic with large-scale works by Scott Arford, Gary Jo Gardenhire, Kim Gordon
and Jutta Koether
, Brandon LaBelle, Teresa Margolles and Fredrik Nilsen at Gallery Enrico Fornello in Prato. In October, three pieces from The Plasma Missives, with texts written in Duncan's blood, and three pieces from his Distractions series, with his blood used as paint, were exhibited together with work by Elggren at Gallery Niklas Belenius in Stockholm.
In 2008, he began teaching Audio Art at l'Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna.
. On 20 and 21 June 2008 she premiered the solo dance Purging at Ottomax in Rome with a soundtrack by Duncan.
In February 2008 Duncan's audio installation The Gauntlet was held at Färgfabriken in Stockholm: a series of anti-theft alarms with infrared sensors, turned on at ten-minute intervals and triggered at random by visitors moving blindly through the darkened hall.
In June 2008 Ensemble Phoenix performed interpretations with acoustic instruments of Phantom Broadcast, scored and conducted by Duncan, in live concerts held at Gare du Nord in Basel and Dampfzentrale in Bern. The Dampfzentrale concert was recorded for broadcast in Switzerland over DRS2.
In May 2009 Ensemble Phoenix performed a modified interpretation of Phantom Broadcast in a live concert again conducted by Duncan, held at Teatro San Leonardo in Bologna for the Angelica 2009 Festival. In June, Duncan and Pasut performed an early version of their dance duet An Open Area Inside the Mountain at Teatro Dimora in Mondaino, Italy. 24 hours later, he and C.M. von Hausswolff performed Nocturnal Denizens in a concert for the Cut & Splice festival sponsored by the BBC
held at Wilton's Music Hall
, London.
2009
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1991
1990
1988-89
1986
1985
1984
1983
1980
1979
1978
John Duncan (painter)
John Duncan was born in Dundee, Scotland in 1866. His father was a cattleman, but John was disinterest in the family business over an interest in visual art. By the age of 11 he was a student at the Dundee School of Art, then based at the High School of Dundee....
.
John Duncan is an artist who has lived and worked in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
and Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, currently lives and works in Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
. His body of work includes performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
, installations
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
, contemporary music, video art
Video art
Video art is a type of art which relies on moving pictures and comprises video and/or audio data. . Video art came into existence during the 1960s and 1970s, is still widely practiced and has given rise to the widespread use of video installations...
and experimental film
Experimental film
Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...
, often involving the extensive use of recorded sound. His music is composed mainly of recordings from shortwave radio, field recordings and voice. His events and installations are a form of existential research, often confrontational in nature.
Early years
Duncan was born in Wichita, KansasWichita, Kansas
Wichita is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas.As of the 2010 census, the city population was 382,368. Located in south-central Kansas on the Arkansas River, Wichita is the county seat of Sedgwick County and the principal city of the Wichita metropolitan area...
to parents of English and Scottish ancestry. He was raised with a strict Calvinist upbringing where self-reliance, hard work and the suppression of emotional suffering were considered virtues, questioning authority was severely punished.
In his teens he studied classical figure drawing and painting, together with psychology and the physics of light. His first contact with experimental music was the Jacques Lasry LP Chronophagie, discovered in the record bins of the Wichita Public Library. In 1971 he applied for and received Conscientious Objector status. At 19 he left for Los Angeles to attend CalArts, where he studied under Allan Kaprow
Allan Kaprow
Allan Kaprow was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the "Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as their theory. His Happenings - some 200 of them - evolved over the years...
.
John Duncan has been acclaimed with inventing the well known sound of two radios communicating with eachother and aptly named it 'Feedback Love'; it was this that got his name in the musical hall of fame and together with 'Winrow Productions' he obtained legendary status. He also drives a Nissan Sunny and gets called 'John Duncan the funking vulcan'.
Los Angeles
In the mid-1970s, his Los Angeles performances, events and installations were influenced by the 'Poor Theatre' of Jerzy GrotowskiJerzy Grotowski
Jerzy Grotowski was a Polish theatre director and innovator of experimental theatre, the "theatre laboratory" and "poor theatre" concepts....
, as well as the cathartic exposure of personal experiences seen in the work of Viennese actionist artist Rudolf Schwarzkogler
Rudolf Schwarzkogler
Rudolf Schwarzkogler was an Austrian performance artist closely associated with the Viennese Actionism group that included artists Günter Brus, Otto Mühl, and Hermann Nitsch....
and early feminist performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
.
Several of his early events were held in private or in front of a small number of witnesses. Scare was an encouragement to examine the physical effects of fear. Duncan donned a disguise and fired a blank-loaded pistol at point-blank range at two carefully selected participants, Tom Recchion and Paul McCarthy
Paul McCarthy
Paul McCarthy , is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, California.-Life:McCarthy was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and studied art at the University of Utah in 1969. He went on to study at the San Francisco Art Institute receiving a BFA in painting...
, chosen “...because they were close friends who would not expect anything like this to happen to them and who would be able to appreciate the event as I intended it”. Bus Ride sexually stimulated unsuspecting passengers on a city bus with a liquid poured into the ventilation system in order to observe the results. Blind Date, involving intercourse with a female corpse followed by a vasectomy, both conducted in private, was presented as an audio-only event to an audience in a darkened warehouse, a demonstration of how men are conditioned to turn emotional suffering into rage. An untitled character-exchange event with McCarthy was held in private in McCarthy's studio, where Duncan recorded actions to video that McCarthy immediately erased.
Other events were presented to radio audiences, at once separated from each other and too large to gather in one place. No was Duncan's first public performance of a Reichian exercise (later known as bioenergetic analysis
Bioenergetic analysis
Bioenergetic Analysis is a form of body psychotherapy , based upon the work of Wilhelm Reich, but adding a number of innovations...
) broadcast live over Close Radio. Happy Homes, his last performance before leaving Los Angeles, was a telephone exchange with radio therapist Dr. Toni Grant
Toni Grant
Toni Grant is an American psychologist and talk radio host. She was one of the first licensed psychologists to have her own radio talk show, and a pioneer in the advice-giving genre.-Personal life:...
, broadcast live throughout the United States over the ABC radio network. Duncan described several child-abuse cases he had personally witnessed as a Los Angeles city bus driver as he asked the therapist for advice.
His first films were shot in Super-8, silent or with separate audio, intended either as stand-alone works or as elements used in live events. The performance For Women Only is centered around a film intended to erotically arouse the all-woman audience, who were then invited to enter a back room and abuse Duncan sexually. The Secret Film was screened individually to eight viewers before the film itself and the room where it was shown were both destroyed by fire.
Together with McCarthy he co-produced Close Radio, a weekly series of live radio broadcasts over KPFK that provided airtime to artists working in sound, many of them for the first time. The Close Radio archive was donated to the Getty Center
Getty Center
The Getty Center, in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, is a campus for cultural institutions founded by oilman J. Paul Getty. The $1.3 billion center, which opened on December 16, 1997, is also well known for its architecture, gardens, and views overlooking Los Angeles...
in 2007.
In 1978 he became closely associated with The Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS), working on collaborations with Tom Recchion, Fredrik Nilsen and Joe Potts (artist). His earliest recorded audio experiments were also made at this time, including work with Michael LeDonne-Bhennet, McCarthy, Recchion and Nilsen. His first solo LP Organic was released in 1979. His first solo recordings with shortwave radio were released in 1982 on the EP Creed which also included the complete broadcast of Happy Homes.
Tokyo
Duncan left the United States for Tokyo in 1982, where he continued his performance work, and expanded his experiments with recorded shortwave broadcasts and film. The music he produced in this period, including Kokka (National Anthem) with Cosey Fanni TuttiCosey Fanni Tutti
Cosey Fanni Tutti is best known as a performance artist and for her time in Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey....
and Chris Carter (musician)
Chris Carter (musician)
Chris Carter was born on January 28, 1953 in London, England and educated at the Friern Barnet Grammar School. He is best known for being a synthesist and member of Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey...
, the solo LP Riot and Dark Market Broadcast, led to collaborations with a number of Japanese noise music
Noise music
Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
artists, including Masami Akita, Keiji Haino
Keiji Haino
Keiji Haino born May 3, 1952 in Chiba, Japan, and currently residing in Tokyo, is a Japanese musician whose work has included rock, free improvisation, noise, singer-songwriter, solo percussion, psychedelic, minimalism and drone styles...
and Hijokaidan
Hijokaidan
Hijokaidan is a Japanese noise and free improvisation group with a revolving lineup that has ranged from two members to as many as fourteen in its early days. The group is the project of guitarist Yoshiyuki "Jojo" Hiroshige its one constant member, who is head & owner of the Osaka-based Alchemy...
. His solo recordings and live concerts from this period establish him as one of the early pioneers of Japanese noise, the first non-Japanese to work in the genre in Japan.
It was also here that he began to deliberately limit the exhibition of his visual art to public arenas, outside of established art galleries and institutions. His performances centered on Reichian breath exercises conducted onstage and in public, including Cast performed on the floor of the women's public toilet at the 'Second Annual Alternative Media Conference' in Tokyo in 1986. The collage series that he produced for display in strategically selected public men's toilets, The Toilet Exhibition, combined graphic war-damage images from world events with commercial pornography to emphasize links between them, in private stalls frequented by men from government offices (Kokkai-gijidomae), the banking sector (Hibia) and the fashion industry (Shibuya), at moments of absentminded contemplation.
In the mid-1980s he began pirate radio and television broadcasts with portable custom-made transmitters built by Duncan himself, operating (very) illegally from apartment block roofs in central Tokyo and an abandoned US Army hospital near Sagamihara, as well as periodic broadcasts made from his own home. Radio Code broadcasts featured the early live work of musician Keiji Haino
Keiji Haino
Keiji Haino born May 3, 1952 in Chiba, Japan, and currently residing in Tokyo, is a Japanese musician whose work has included rock, free improvisation, noise, singer-songwriter, solo percussion, psychedelic, minimalism and drone styles...
and Butoh
Butoh
is the collective name for a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement inspired by the movement. It typically involves playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics, extreme or absurd environments, and is traditionally performed in white body makeup...
soloist Hisako Horikawa, which were also relayed throughout Tokyo via other pirate radio stations, particularly Radio Homerun in Shimokitazawa. TVC-1 television broadcasts were transmitted from central Tokyo rooftops, over the frequency assigned to NHK 1 after the station had concluded its broadcast day, limited to 12 minutes in order to avoid contact with Tokyo police.
His work in film and video included the Super-8 films Trigger with a solo soundtrack, Brutal Birthday with a live soundtrack performed by Duncan's group C.V. Massage, and a support film for the performance event Move Forward that included images from hardcore pornography and animated technical drawings of nuclear attack strategies.
He also directed a series of commercial adult videos for Kuki Inc.
Kuki Inc.
is a Japanese adult video company which has its headquarters in Ebisu Minami in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo. The company is involved in the production and distribution of videos, satellite and cable TV, and a large internet site, X CITY.-Company history:...
under the name John See, for which he also wrote the scripts, edited, composed soundtracks and occasionally acted in incidental roles. Several re-edited versions of John See videos were broadcast over TVC-1, also appearing in the 2003 video installation See.
Amsterdam
In 1988 Duncan moved to Amsterdam, where his work became more introspective, especially following a month-long stay at a Buddhist monastery in Chiang MaiChiang Mai
Chiang Mai sometimes written as "Chiengmai" or "Chiangmai", is the largest and most culturally significant city in northern Thailand. It is the capital of Chiang Mai Province , a former capital of the Kingdom of Lanna and was the tributary Kingdom of Chiang Mai from 1774 until 1939. It is...
, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
in 1993.
The Kick performance series of Reichian exercises was conducted before live audiences throughout Europe, from 1989 at Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria, to 1993. The final event was held on the altar of the Parochiale Kirche in Berlin, concluding a live solo concert.
His audio installation Stress Chamber consists of three independent motors vibrating the walls of a shipping container at its resonant frequency, remote-controlled from outside. Participants enter one at a time, nude, to be locked inside, allowing the vibrations to move at random around and through the participant's body. Stress Chamber was premiered in Amsterdam at the Absolute Threshold Machine Festival. Initially the festival organizers threatened to cancel the work due to its tendency to vibrate the grounds of the surrounding area to a 90 meter radius, concerned that it would become a 'torture device'. Finally the work was allowed, and the queue it created kept the entire festival open several hours longer than anticipated.
In 1988 and 1989 several of his films were broadcast over Rabotnik TV along with Anthem, a Reichian exercise performed for the Rabotnik TV camera in a derelict building used by heroin addicts. Location sound for Anthem was recorded by Andrew M. McKenzie.
Between 1990 and 1993, Radio Code FM broadcasts continued as weekly programs which he produced and hosted over pirate stations Radio 100 and Radio Patapoe.
The Maze event in June 1995 involved a group of seven volunteer participants, including Duncan and an infant child, locked naked and blind overnight in an Amsterdam cellar in order to directly experience workings of the mind in a situation of unexpected sensory deprivation. The event ended when several participants pried open the exit door with their fingernails and broke it down. The infant child slept through the entire event. A video created from infrared photos taken during the event was produced later that year at Contained in Linz, Austria.
Music from this period includes CD releases Contact with Andrew M. McKenzie, Send with tracks by McKenzie and Zbigniew Karkowski
Zbigniew Karkowski
Zbigniew Karkowski was born in 1958 in Krakow, Poland. He studied composition at the State College of Music in Gothenburg, Sweden, aesthetics of modern music at the University of Gothenburg's Department of Musicology, and computer music at the Chalmers University of Technology...
and The Crackling, composed with Max Springer in 1996 from field recordings made by Duncan at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S...
. A 1997 review by Rob Young claimed The Crackling rendered the Stanford research facility '...perhaps the largest musical instrument ever created'.
Scrutto di San Leonardo
In 1996 he met Giuliana Stefani when she posed as a model for Duncan's photo project Icons. Her academic training in mathematics, work in photography and practice of meditation quickly catalyzed a bond between them. In autumn 1996 they left Amsterdam and set up a studio in Scrutto di San Leonardo, a village of fewer than 100 inhabitants in the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia province of Italy at the border with SloveniaSlovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
. They were married in Scrutto di San Leonardo in 1998. Their collaborations include Charge Field and Palace of Mind. They agreed to separate amicably in 2005.
Video from this period includes The North Is Protected, based on the text with the same title written by Leif Elggren
Leif Elggren
Leif Elggren , is a Swedish artist who lives and works in Stockholm.Active since the late 1970s, Leif Elggren has become one of the most constantly surprising conceptual artists to work in the combined worlds of audio and visual...
.
Duncan's work with radio continued and expanded. Cross Radio broadcasts were three-hour live experimental music programs produced and hosted by Duncan, aired weekly from 23:00 to 02:00 over Radio Onde Furlane in Udine
Udine
Udine is a city and comune in northeastern Italy, in the middle of Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, between the Adriatic sea and the Alps , less than 40 km from the Slovenian border. Its population was 99,439 in 2009, and that of its urban area was 175,000.- History :Udine is the historical...
, syndicated over Resonance FM
Resonance FM
Resonance 104.4 FM is a London based non-profit community radio station run by the London Musicians' Collective .The station is staffed by four permanent staff members, including programme controller Ed Baxter and over 300 volunteer technical and production staff.Until September 2007, ResonanceFM...
in London, Radio Autonoma in Madrid, Radio Kinesonus in Tokyo and WPS1
WPS1
Art Radio WPS1.org was the Internet radio station of P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center and the Museum of Modern Art from April 2004 - January 1, 2009. It provided a 24-hour stream and on-demand archive of cultural programming...
in New York. Over Radio Onde Furlane, each show continued until 05:30.
Audio releases from this period include Crucible, Tap Internal, Palace of Mind (cited above), Nav with Francisco López
Francisco López (musician)
Francisco López is an avant-garde experimental musician and sound artist.He has released a large amount of sound pieces with record labels from more than fifty countries and realized hundreds of concerts and sound installations worldwide; including some of the main international museums, galleries...
, Fresh with zeitkratzer, Phantom Broadcast, Infrasound Tidal from sources by Densil Cabrera, Tongue with Elliott Sharp
Elliott Sharp
Elliott Sharp is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer.A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City since the late 1970s, Sharp has released over eighty-five recordings ranging from blues, jazz, and orchestral music to noise, no wave rock,...
, Presence with Edvard Graham Lewis
Graham Lewis
Graham Lewis is an English musician.Lewis is the bassist with punk rock/post-punk band Wire, a band formed in 1976...
and Da Sich Die Machtgier... with sources by Asmus Tietchens
Asmus Tietchens
Asmus Tietchens , who also records under the monikers Hematic Sunsets and Club of Rome, is a German composer of avant-garde music....
.
Bologna
Duncan relocated to Bologna in 2005, setting up a studio near Porta San Vitale.His first project here was the production of The Error, a 50-page hardbound book measuring 40 x 60 cm. of his writings and photographs, printed by letterpress in an edition of 10 copies. The Error was first included together with a DVD video version of the work in Dialogue 1 at Gallery Enrico Fornello in Prato, Italy, curated in 2006 by Simone Menegoi. Copies of The Error are in the collections of Niklas Belenius, Leif Elggren, Piergiorgio Fornello, Paul McCarthy, Giuliana Stefani and François Kaeser, who sponsored the production.
In 2006 he recorded Our Telluric Conversation with Carl Michael von Hausswolff
Carl Michael von Hausswolff
Carl Michael von Hausswolff is a composer, visual artist and curator based in Stockholm, Sweden. His main tools are recording devices used in an ongoing investigation of electricity, frequency, architectural space and paranormal electronic interference...
and Nine Suggestions with Pan Sonic
Pan sonic
Pan Sonic was a Finnish experimental electronic music duo consisting of Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen.-Music:...
members Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen. The audio installation The Garden with Valerio Tricoli was included in the 2006 edition of Eco e Narciso held at the IPCA Ecomuseum http://www.provincia.torino.it/culturamateriale/musei/e_cir01.htm in the province of Turin, a deserted factory complex once infamous for production methods that directly caused the deaths of several thousand workers as well as hundreds of residents of the surrounding area. A DVD video The Garden based on the installation and shot at the IPCA site was produced in 2007.
In January 2007 Duncan performed Something Like Seeing in the Dark with Elggren, premiered at Palazzo Re Enzo
Palazzo Re Enzo
Palazzo Re Enzo is a palace in Bologna, northern Italy. It takes its name from Enzio of Sardinia, Frederick II's son, who was prisoner here from 1249 until his death in 1272....
, Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
for the Netmage 07 festival. In August, his solo audio installation The Tolling was introduced at Smepp: Società Mezzi Portuali at the Piombino dockyards for Piombino eXperimenta 3.
In September, Duncan curated Cross Lake Atlantic with large-scale works by Scott Arford, Gary Jo Gardenhire, Kim Gordon
Kim Gordon
Kim Althea Gordon is an American musician, vocalist, artist, record producer, video director and actress. She has sung and played bass and guitar in the alternative rock band Sonic Youth, and in Free Kitten with Julia Cafritz...
and Jutta Koether
Jutta Koether
Jutta Koether is a German artist, musician and critic based in New York since the early 1990s.Koether was born in Cologne. Her paintings are exercises in colour, line, form and pattern and often feature text. Her solo show at Pat Hearn Gallery in 1997 featured a soundtrack by the artist,...
, Brandon LaBelle, Teresa Margolles and Fredrik Nilsen at Gallery Enrico Fornello in Prato. In October, three pieces from The Plasma Missives, with texts written in Duncan's blood, and three pieces from his Distractions series, with his blood used as paint, were exhibited together with work by Elggren at Gallery Niklas Belenius in Stockholm.
In 2008, he began teaching Audio Art at l'Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna.
Recent work
In 2007 he began living and working together with dancer-choreographer Melissa PasutMelissa Pasut
Melissa Pasut is a dancer and choreographer specializing in contemporary dance, with particular focus on contact improvisation among dancers and the inclusion of musicians onstage as active participants in the movement...
. On 20 and 21 June 2008 she premiered the solo dance Purging at Ottomax in Rome with a soundtrack by Duncan.
In February 2008 Duncan's audio installation The Gauntlet was held at Färgfabriken in Stockholm: a series of anti-theft alarms with infrared sensors, turned on at ten-minute intervals and triggered at random by visitors moving blindly through the darkened hall.
In June 2008 Ensemble Phoenix performed interpretations with acoustic instruments of Phantom Broadcast, scored and conducted by Duncan, in live concerts held at Gare du Nord in Basel and Dampfzentrale in Bern. The Dampfzentrale concert was recorded for broadcast in Switzerland over DRS2.
In May 2009 Ensemble Phoenix performed a modified interpretation of Phantom Broadcast in a live concert again conducted by Duncan, held at Teatro San Leonardo in Bologna for the Angelica 2009 Festival. In June, Duncan and Pasut performed an early version of their dance duet An Open Area Inside the Mountain at Teatro Dimora in Mondaino, Italy. 24 hours later, he and C.M. von Hausswolff performed Nocturnal Denizens in a concert for the Cut & Splice festival sponsored by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
held at Wilton's Music Hall
Wilton's Music Hall
Wilton's Music Hall is a grade II* listed building, built as a music hall and now a more general-purpose performance space in Grace's Alley, off Cable Street in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets...
, London.
Discography
2011- There Must Be A Way Across This River / The Abject LP w/ Michael EspositoMichael EspositoMichael Esposito is an experimental artist and researcher in Electronic Voice Phenomena .-Biography:Michael Andrew Esposito was born in Gary, Indiana in 1964. He is a descendant of Alfred Vail who invented the Morse Code and several early telegraph devices with his partner Samuel Morse...
and Z'EVZ'EVZ'EV is an American poet, percussionist, and sound artist. After studying various world music traditions at CalArts, he began creating his own percussion sounds out of industrial materials for a variety of record labels...
released by Fragment FactoryFragment FactoryFragment Factory is an independent record label based in Hamburg, Germany, founded in summer of 2009. The label is operated by the sound artist Michael Muennich and specializes in releasing Experimental music in the broadest sense, including Electro-acoustic music, Noise and its several...
, DE
2009
- John Duncan Live - Brussels CDr released in limited edition by Allquestions, IT
- The Nazca Transmissions LP released by Alga Marghen, IT
2007
- Untitled CD released by Die Stadt, DE
2006
- Our Telluric Conversation CD w/C.M. von Hausswolff released by 23Five, USA
- The Garden CD w/V. Tricoli released by Eco e Narciso, IT
- John Duncan: Work 1975-2005 Monograph w/CD published by Errant Bodies Press, DK
- John Duncan: First Recordings 1978-1985 3xLP and DVD released by Vinyl On DemandVinyl On DemandVinyl On Demand is a record label that targets vinyl collectors of 1970's and 80's minimal synth, industrial, and avant-garde music. Along with sales to distributor, Vinyl On Demand has a very successful subscription business...
, DE - The Keening Towers (excerpt) 2xCD released by Institute of Contemporary Art, USA
2005
- Conservatory CD w/P. Parisi released by Allquestions, IT
- Nine Suggestions CD w/M. Vainio and I. Vaisanen released by Allquestions, IT
2004
- Presence CD w/E.G. Lewis released by Allquestions, IT
- Tongue CD w/Elliott SharpElliott SharpElliott Sharp is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, and performer.A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City since the late 1970s, Sharp has released over eighty-five recordings ranging from blues, jazz, and orchestral music to noise, no wave rock,...
released by Allquestions, IT
2003
- Phantom Broadcast CD released by Allquestions, IT
- Infrasound-Tidal CD released by Allquestions, IT
- The Keening Towers CD released by Allquestions, IT
- Stun Shelter CD released by Galleria Nicola Fornello, IT
- The Gossamer Dispatch EP released by Die Stadt, DE
- Da Sich Die Machtgier... CD released by Die Stadt, DE
- The Scattering CD w/Peter Fleur released by edition ..., USA
2002
- Fresh CD w/zeitkratzer released by Allquestions, IT
2001
- Palace of Mind CD w/G. Stefani released by Allquestions, IT
- Nav 2xCD w/Francisco LópezFrancisco López (musician)Francisco López is an avant-garde experimental musician and sound artist.He has released a large amount of sound pieces with record labels from more than fifty countries and realized hundreds of concerts and sound installations worldwide; including some of the main international museums, galleries...
released by Allquestions, IT
2000
- Tap Internal CD released by Touch, UK
1998
- Seek CD released by Staalplaat, NL
- The Elgaland/Vargaland National Anthem EP w/Z. Karkowsky released by Die Stadt, DE
- Crucible CD released by Die Stadt, DE
1997
- Split Second track on 5xCD Tulpas released by Selektion, DE
- The John See Soundtracks CD released by RRRecords, USA
1996
- The Crackling CD released by trente oiseaux, DE
- Home: Unspeakable CD w/ B. Guenter released by trente oiseaux, DE
- Change track on CD The Mind of a Missile released by Heel Stone, DE
- Charge Field track w/G. Stefani on 2xCD Antiphony released by Touch, UK
- Hymn track on 3xCD State of the Union released by Atavistic, USA
- Trinity track on 2xCD A Fault In the Nothing released by Touch, UK
- The Ruud E. Memorial Choir / Psychonaut EP released by Robot Records, USA
1995
- Incoming CD released by Streamline, DE
1994
- The John See Soundtracks LP released by RRRecords, USA
- Send CD released by Touch, UK
- River In Flames / Klaar 2xCD released by Staalplaat, NL
1993
- Chapel Perilous and Kick tracks on Anckarström Live CD released by Staalplaat, NL
1991
- KLAAR CD by Extreme, Australia
1990
- Dark Market Broadcast CD released by Staalplaat, NL
- Mirror Pulse Cassette released by Extreme, Australia
- Riot / Brutal Birthday Soundtrack CD released by Dark Vinyl, DE
- Contact CD w/A.M. McKenzie released by Touch, UK
1988-89
- Radio Code Cassette released by AQM, NL
1986
- Phantom Track on Video=Aleph Video Casette released by Kakuseikobo, JP
1985
- Dark Market Broadcast Cassette released by Cause & Effect, USA
- Purge track on 4x cassette Journey Into Pain released by Beast 666, JP
- Riposte Track on Morality cassette released by Broken Flag, UK
- Probe Track on Assemblée Generale 4 cassette released by PPP, Paris
1984
- Riot LP released by AQM, Tokyo
- Pleasure-Escape Cassette/book released by B-Sellers, Tokyo
1983
- Kokka EP released by AQM, Tokyo
1980
- Creed EP released by AQM, Los Angeles
1979
- Organic LP released by AQM, Los Angeles
1978
- No Cassette released by AQM, Los Angeles
- Station Event Cassette w/M. della Donne-Bhennet and T. Recchion released by AQM, Los Angeles
- Two Solos Cassette released by AQM, Los Angeles
External links
- http://www.johnduncan.org
- http://www.ensemble-phoenix.ch
- http://fargfabriken.se
- http://www.accademiabelleartibologna.it