Play Play Play   (2011)

Play Play Play   (2011)

2 x vinyl records as ‘double album’: 2 x 2 x sides each containing 20  minutes of ‘atmos,’ recorded consecutively (for a total of 80 minutes), of 20 artists quietly developing individual work, on stage (with an empty auditorium) at the The Eric Harvie Theatre at the Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada, on 8th December, 2011.
Two outer record sleeves with inkjet prints and pen, two inner sleeves and 2 pairs of labels for each side of vinyl.

The two vinyl records are unique, existing as a single pair in one copy only. The original digital recordings that were transferred to vinyl were deleted.
They are exhibited with a record deck, amp and speakers so that the audience at any exhibition can choose to play either disc, on either side, at any point and therefore create a false ‘atmos’, or ambient sound, for the exhibition space. The subtle degradation of the vinyl as a result of this participatory action creates a new addition to the work, adding a palimpsest of new audio from the gallery space as ‘making space’, or place for the play of play, ( the performance of which makes play play play !)
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In 2011, invited as faculty to run a program for artists at the Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada, Chodzko devised; Something in the Water; A Search for the Turn of the Backwash, (November 14–December 9, 2011): By utilising art to explore new ways of relating to each other it’s time to reveal and tamper with the networks that connect individual subjectivity to wider collective and unconscious flows in the world. What unspeakable truth rises to the surface from this kind of looking? It’s a collaboration. Each participant contributing equally in order to create a series of propositions; What are we doing here, right here, right now? Or are we already, in reality, somewhere over there?
As one of the final collective workshops (to explore what might be both a collaborative yet individual practice) for the group of 20 participating artists (including the artist Simon Starling, who Chodzko had invited as program guest) he made the recordings for Play Play Play.

In some notes emailed to the participants beforehand, Chodzko requested:
…undertake quiet-ish individual work but on stage in front of an empty auditorium…. as a sequel to, or repetition of our initial informal action, and especially on a stage in a theatre, it will be, I think, more self-conscious and performative. …The theatre stage as studio and as networked mind.
…Like those sounds in live music recordings when people seem to try and get in a last straggling bit of applause in order to say afterwards whilst playing the CD version…”you hear that last clap? That’s me!!”
I’m after a balance of nearly nothing and nearly something here; inadvertent sound from group ‘silence’ and the traces of collaborative performance within private head spaces joined in creating a collective ‘atmosphere’.

Credited on the record label for Play Play Play are the 20 artists: Cedric Bomford, Matthew Bourree, Celina Carroll, Adam Chodzko, Youki Cropas, Andrew de Freitas, Leanne Eisen, Cathy Gordon, Ruth Hoeflich, Maria Kubysh, Emily Puthoff, Kerri Reid, Emily Rosamond, Valerie Salez, Sarena Sairan, Simon Starling, Carolyn Taylor, Fiona Williams, Sheilah Wilson, Christina Zeidler

7 mins 49 secs excerpt from a section of Play Play Play, side 2, as compressed mp3:

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Play, Play, Play (2011), was exhibited alongside In culo alla balena!   [“Into the ass of a whale!” ] (2012),  New Wing.  A Rehearsal for a Faulty Projector (2011), Meetings of people with stammers to describe a fire    (1999-), and Props. For memorising the gravity of mime objects (2011) in:

In the Belly of the Whale (Act III):
curated by Ariella Yedgar and Rosie Cooper
(with works by Jesse Ash and Cally Spooner / Edwina Ashton / Adam Chodzko / Côme Ciment / Winnie Cott / Jess Flood-Paddock/ Anthea Hamilton / Donna Huddleston / Germaine Kruip / Jacopo Miliani.  And featuring Orson Welles: The One Man Band, by Vassili Silovic and Oja Kodar)
Montehermeso, Fray Zacarías Martínez, 201001, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Araba, Spain

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Related works:

And the City Grew Quiet… (2011)
April – May 2000 Arc Ark   (2010)
Props. For memorising the gravity of mime objects   (2011)
Secretors          (1993 – )
Sowmat    (2007)
Test Tone for Landscape    (2005)