Vex
(1995)
Installation (840 razor blades, audio) based on a performance with Kim Dawn and Lukas Pearse at the Khyber Center for the Arts, Halifax. Saturday April 15, 10am-midnight (840 minutes),1995.
First presented as an installation for Trou, solo survey exhibit at Galerie de l’UQAM. 0ctober 20 to November 25, 2006.
The performance is based on Erik Satie’s Vexations of 1893. Satie’s instructions for the piece are: “to be repeated 840 times, you must prepare yourself beforehand in the utmost silence, by some serious immobilities.” This version of the piece included emptying tea bags (Kim Dawn), reel to reel tape splicing (Christof Migone) and filling and lining up bottles (Lukas Pearse).
The reel to reel tape splicing was done 840 times with 840 razor blades for 840 minutes (14 hours). There were two reel to reel players and two identical recordings of a voice counting to 840 along with a closed groove version of Satie’s Vexations which repeated the last note of the composition. The recording had been done live on Danger in Paradise at CKUT-FM in Montréal in 1993. On one player, the recording was being taken out 840 sections (once a minute), on the other the recording was being spliced in the 840 sections from the other.
Note: The audio from this performance does not appear on the Vex CD. The two are related in name only (by way of Satie).
