undo

(1997 – present)

Christof Migone &
Alexandre St-Onge

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

undo. delete. efface. do not.

2013
• Performance as part of the Burn Down the Capital Showcase curated by Tad Michalak at the Music Gallery, Toronto, Saturday June 8.

• Presentation by undo (Christof Migone & Alexandre St-Onge) titled “Turn, turn, turn: undo’s dizzy tactics in des tournages” at the Tuning Speculation: Experimental Aesthetics and the Sonic Imaginary conference, November 1-2, at Arraymusic Studio, Toronto.

2008
• des tournages. CD release of 2002 work.

2003
• disclosure, documentation of 2001 performance for Surface Tension, book + compilation CD, Errant Bodies Press, Los Angeles 2003.

2002
• des tournages. version performed at Galerie l’Oeil de Poisson, Québec, Fall 2002. released as a CD in 2008.

2001
• Vito Acconci’s undoing. CD with Vito Acconci.

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

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

• étranglement. performance with Eric Letourneau at Casa Del Popolo, Montréal.

• performance at Experimental Intermedia, New York (curator Phil Niblock).

• performance at the No Music Festival, London, Ontario. excerpt of the live performance released on the 6xCD Box set documenting the festival.

from the No Music Festival 2000 cd booklet:

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. (Christof Migone)

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 aocomplished by the work itself. (Alexandre St-Onge writing and quoting a writer’s paper about another writer in a book he bought during the No Music Festival)

1999
• performance with Sam Shalabi at a room under the stairs, Montréal.

• performance with Michel F. Côté at the Salle Multi, Méduse, Québec.

1998
• performance at Musiques Fragiles, Constellation Room, Montréal.

• performance at Le Navire Night, Radio Canada, Montréal.

• performance at Théâtre La Chapelle, Montréal.

• performance at Hotel2Tango, Montréal.