by Laura Parsons
A dinged-up, mustard-colored dryer. A salmon-red electric
typewriter. Black and red vinyl LPs. A portable TV. You might expect to
find such things at a secondhand store— or the dump— but probably not
assembled at Second Street Gallery, where the musical group Invisible
gives new meaning to “garage band” with its installation, “Rhythm 1001.”
At May’s First Friday opening, Mark Dixon, the green t-shirted
impresario behind the plugged-in everything-but-the-kitchen-sink
collection, slouched in a straight-back chair and talked about his
background in sculpture as well as avant-garde composer John Cage’s
influence on his approach to music. His collaborators, Bart Trotman and
Jonathan Henderson, sat in identical chairs on either side of him,
listening and nodding.
After explaining he finds meaning in “an instrument of tasks turning
into an instrument of music,” Dixon and Trotman stood up, turned their
chairs around, and began playing the seat slats with small mallets.
Hidden beneath the seemingly mundane chairs, organ-like pipes provided
resonance. Meanwhile, Henderson jammed on a bass-like instrument
incorporating trashcan lids.
The trio eventually shifted to the hodgepodge of wires, keyboards,
vises, monitors, cylinders, and unlikely percussive items (think
service bells, think TV antennae, think plastic picnic cups) arranged
on the east side of the gallery.
Trotman sat down at the “Selectric Piano,” a Dixon invention that
enables typewriter keys to play notes on a partially deconstructed
piano. As Trotman tapped out sardonic reflections on the state of the
world, a tiny video camera affixed to the carriage projected the words
in real time onto the wall, flashing insights like “If someone’s
fashion offends you, doesn’t that make you a fashionist?” or the
hilarious, “No typoes. No typos. No typos.”
Nearby, Dixon, looking like a mad scientist in safety goggles,
manned a large metal wheel drilled with concentric circles of tiny
holes, in which he arranged and re-arranged hundreds of bamboo pegs
(made from barbecue skewers). As the wheel turned, the pegs triggered
instruments made from plywood, bright blue electrical tape, screws, and
repurposed junk to beat out orchestrated rhythms, all powered by
salvaged hard drive motors.
Henderson, for his part, played mostly straightforward bass guitar
and keyboards, but he initiated and responded deftly to the
ever-changing loops of layered sound. By the end of the performance,
the three musician-artists stood triangulated in the middle of the
visually dizzying installation, building beats to a frenetic,
crowd-grooving climax.
A must-see, Invisible is out of sight!
Invisible will perform at Second Street Gallery May 8 at 5pm, May 29 at 4pm, and May 30 at 4pm. (An
additional concert date is also in the works.) The installation,
“Rhythm 1001,” is on view through May 30. 115 Second St. SE. 977-7284.
