undo

(1997 – present)

Christof Migone &
Alexandre St-Onge

undo is a duo which, since its inception in 1997, explores the barely perceptible, the unacceptable, the forgettable.

in 2022, for its final act of deception, undo decided to undo itself.

undo. delete. efface. do not.

undo est un duo qui, depuis sa création en 1997, explore l’imperceptible, l’inacceptable, l’oubliable.

en 2022, pour son dernier acte de déception, undo a décidé de se défaire.

ne faire. supprimer. effacer. ne pas.

Scroll down for REVIEWS.

2023
•
Publication, CD + booklet, My Body Doing Its Best Without Me, And Then You See The Mouth Open As If It Wanted To Say Something, Squint Press

1.        l’étranglement (22:09)
2.        Vito Acconci’s undoing (10:30)
3.        seize me by the horns (9:04)
4.        Disclosure (14:16)

2022
•
Publication, CD, undoundone, Ambiances Magnétiques

1.        The Music In Which Everything Is Each Time Risked (18:11)
2.        Néon aléatoire dans le hasard inessentiel (3:49)
3.        Neutralité inexigeante et fragile (4:01)
4.        Lost That Avatar (2:30)
5.        Dehors le tango des choses (8:56)
6.        Slackens Into Gong Law (2:03)
7.        Automatisme d’ignorance au théâtre (3:26)
8.        We Two Alone Without Night (16:24)
9.        Le Wash Up Worlds Over Words (13:17)

2021
•
Presentation as part of the online 12-hour -And- event on December 12 of four never before seen video documents of performative gestures by undo centered on orality in its blunt physiology, contingent spatiality, tense viscosity, and emergent animality. Performed twenty years ago, digitized and edited in the summer of 2021: seize me by the horns (2000) 10:57, Disclosure (2001) 14:04, Vito Acconci’s undoing (2001) 11:00, l’étranglement (2000) 23:57.

2013
•
Performance, untitled, at the Music Gallery, part of Burn Down the Capital, curated by Tad Michalak, Toronto, Saturday June 8.
•
Presentation, “Turn, turn, turn: undo’s dizzy tactics in des tournages“, at the Tuning Speculation: Experimental Aesthetics and the Sonic Imaginary conference, November 1-2, Arraymusic, Toronto.

2008
•
Publication, CD, des tournages. Release of audio component of 2002 performance (see below).

•        des tournages (18:23)

2003
•
Publication, Book+CD, disclosure, performance documentation (audio, images, text) for Surface Tension, Errant Bodies Press.

•        Disclosure (5:57)

2002
•
Performance, des tournages, at l’Oeil de Poisson, Québec, Fall 2002. Released as a CD in 2008 (see above).

2001
•
Publication, CD, Waterways: Four Saliva Studies, includes the soundtrack to Vito Acconci’s video, Vito Acconci’s undoing, squint fucker press, Montréal, squint 00A.

•        Vito Acconci’s undoing (21:51)

•
Performance, disclosure, for FADO, Toronto. Published in Surface Tension, book + compilation CD, Errant Bodies Press, Los Angeles 2003.

2000
•
Publication, CD, un sperme qui meurt de froid en agitant faiblement sa petite queue dans les draps d’un gamin, squint fucker press, Montréal, squint 00A.

•        narrow the field of research (1:44)
•        born of a wet dream and dead before morning (6:34)
•        weary of pleading an incomprehensible cause (7:19)
•        pas dans un ventre non plus (3:24)
•        avec un écoulement de menaces et promesses (12:02)
•        it would smack of bodysnatching (3:34)
•        quelques débris d’entendemen au milieu (4:48)
•        seize me by the horns (13:14)
•
Performance, étranglement, with Eric Letourneau at Casa Del Popolo, Montréal.
•
Performance, untitled, at Experimental Intermedia, New York (curator Phil Niblock).
•
Performance, seize me by the horns, at the No Music Festival, London, Ontario. Excerpt of the performance plus artist statements published in the 6xCD Box set documenting the festival.

Christof Migone: There is something about small conservative cities that engenders a kind of resistance to the kind of provincialism one would assume would stem from it. In London the resistance was and remains straightforward, capitalized, shouted a vociferous “NO!” undo is less emphatic, in fact, it’s resolutely lowercase, nevertheless it shares the same resistant strain. We are both resisting arrest, both heeding Beckett’s warning “The thing to avoid, I don’t know why, is the spirit of system.” undo is stuck in the ‘I don’t know why’, on stage we stuffed canned snails into our mouths, we mined our bucal cavities for fluid sonorities, we deranged our electronics. London did not know what to do with us, we don’t know what to do with ourselves. It was a success.

Alexandre St-Onge, writing and quoting a writer’s paper about another writer in a book he bought during the festival: Two mouths open toward the wide-open nothing were saying “no” in its affirmative movement of excess. Stuffed by dead snails, these two mouths were not even able to speak, saying “no” by being unable to say a word—a silent speech present through its absence. Through the week, different extreme gestures were implicitly saying destroy –softly, tenderly, absolutely. A word— an infinitive marked by the infinite—without a subject; a work – destruction – which is accomplished by the work itself.

1999
•
Performance, untitled, with Sam Shalabi, at a room under the stairs, Montréal.
•
Performance, untitled, with Michel F. Côté, at the Salle Multi, Méduse, Québec.

1998
•
Performance, untitled, at Musiques Fragiles, Constellation Room, Montréal.
•
Performance, untitled, at Le Navire Night, Radio Canada, Montréal.
•
Performance, untitled, at Théâtre La Chapelle, Montréal.
•
Performance, untitled, at Hotel2Tango, Montréal.

REVIEWS
•
The Wire (September 2000, Issue 199), review by Phil England.
On his third solo album The Death Of Analogies, Christof Migone updates the fast edit, low tech musique concrete he developed in his works for campus radio CKUT-FM in Montreal. Migone delights in audio detritus–the kind of details others leave on the cutting room floor In its intimacy, his debut Hole In The Head was reminiscent of Adam Bohman’s home dictaphone recordings in the way it featured his own voice or body sounds, the voices of callers to his radio show, and sounds from domestic life. Death uses much the same sources as Hole but strips them of any character that might identify them, somewhat blunting his idiosyncratic edge and pushing him towards the overpopulated area of electroacoustic music. If he has subjected his latest sonic miniatures to greater computer intervention, they nevertheless retain the dirty, visceral quality of his earlier album: glitch done ugly. The slightly longer explorations of a new suite called “Post Mortems” nudge his work closer towards musical forms, despite its patina of vinyl surface noise. Less engaging is Undo, Christof’s duo with Alexandre St Onge. Like St-Onge’s last solo record, un sperme features recordings made entirely from inside the mouth. Though this information is not given on the sleeve, it is crucial in understanding these highly minimal explorations. The duo’s variations on the ‘microphone in the mouth’ theme (tape hiss on max, mumbled voices, sub vocal sounds, etc) are like so many shades of grey. Appropriately enough, the track titles are taken from Samuel Beckett’s The Unnameable. And the grey cover is something Beckett himself might have warmed to.