John Duncan (artist)
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| John Duncan | |
.jpg) Photo by Giuliana Stefani |
|
| Born | June 17, 1953 Wichita, Kansas, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Field | Performance Art, Video, Installations, Experimental Music |
| Training | California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles |
| Works | Scare, Blind Date, The Crackling, The Keening Towers, The Error |
John Duncan (born 1953) is an artist who has lived and worked in Los Angeles, Tokyo and Amsterdam, currently lives and works in Bologna. His body of work includes performance art, installations, contemporary music, video and film, often involving the extensive use of recorded sound. His music is composed mainly of recordings from shortwave radio, field recordings and voice. His events and installations are often confrontational in nature, a form of existential research [1].
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[edit] Early years
Duncan was born in Wichita, Kansas to parents of English and Scottish ancestry, both from generations of European nomads who lived at the extreme edge of efforts to settle the American west. He was raised with a strict Calvinist upbringing where self-reliance, hard work and the suppression of emotional suffering were considered virtues, questioning authority was severely punished.
In his teens he studied classical figure drawing and painting, together with psychology and the physics of light. His first contact with experimental music was the Jacques Lasry LP Chronophagie, discovered in the record bins of the Wichita Public Library. In 1971 he applied for and received Conscientious Objector status from the ultra-conservative Wichita draft board, supported by letters from several of his instructors. At 19 he left for Los Angeles to attend CalArts, where he studied under Allan Kaprow.
[edit] Los Angeles
In the mid-1970s, his Los Angeles performances (For Women Only, Every Woman) and installations (Bus Ride, The Black Room) focused largely on urban social situations and were considered by critics as aggressive, at times threatening, at others bordering on self-destructive. His most famous and most extreme performances from this period are Scare in which he donned a disguise and fired a blank-loaded pistol at point-blank range at carefully selected participants to examine the physical effects of fear, No involving Duncan's first public performance of a Reichian exercise (later known as bioenergetic analysis) broadcast live over Close Radio, and Blind Date in which he had intercourse with a female corpse and then had a vasectomy as a demonstration of how men are conditioned to turn emotional suffering into rage[2].
His first films were shot in Super-8, silent or with separate audio, intended either as stand-alone works or as elements used in live events. The performance For Women Only is centered around a film intended to erotically arouse the all-woman audience, who were then invited to enter a back room and abuse Duncan sexually. The Secret Film was screened individually to eight viewers before the film itself and the room where it was shown were both destroyed by fire.
Together with Paul McCarthy he co-produced Close Radio, a weekly series of live radio broadcasts over KPFK that provided airtime to artists working in sound, many of them for the first time. Duncan has continued to work in radio ever since. The Close Radio archive was donated to the Getty Center in 2007.
His earliest recorded audio experiments were also made at this time, including work with Michael LeDonne-Bhennet, McCarthy, Tom Recchion and Fredrik Nilsen. His first solo LP Organic was released in 1979. His first solo recordings with shortwave radio were released in 1982 on the EP Creed which also included Happy Homes, a telephone exchange with radio therapist Dr. Toni Grant broadcast live throughout the US that was Duncan's last performance before leaving Los Angeles.
[edit] Tokyo
Duncan left the United States for Tokyo in 1982, where he expanded his work with recorded shortwave broadcasts. In the mid-1980s he began pirate radio and television broadcasts (Radio Code, TVC 1) with portable custom-made transmitters, operating (very) illegally from apartment block roofs in central Tokyo and derelict buildings as well as periodic broadcasts from his own house. Radio Code broadcasts that featured early live work of musician Keiji Haino and Butoh soloist Hisako Horikawa were relayed through other pirate radio stations, including Radio Homerun in Shimokitazawa.
His work in film and video included the Super-8 films Trigger, a film for the performance event Move Forward and a series of commercial adult videos that he directed for Kuki, Inc. under the name John See, for which he also wrote the scripts, edited, composed soundtracks and occasionally acted in incidental roles. Several re-edited versions of John See videos were broadcast over TVC-1.
His audio releases in this period include Kokka (National Anthem) with Cosey Fanni Tutti and Chris Carter (musician), the solo LP Riot and the audio cassette Dark Market Broadcast.
[edit] Amsterdam
In 1988 Duncan moved to Amsterdam, where his work became more introspective. His best known works from this period are the audio installation Stress Chamber, performances Kick involving the execution of a hyperventilation exercise developed by Wilhelm Reich in front of live audiences, and Maze, in which a group of volunteer participants including Duncan were locked naked and blind in a basement room overnight to directly experience workings of the mind in a situation of unexpected sensory deprivation.
Several of his films were broadcast over Rabotnik TV along with Anthem, a Reichian exercise performed for the Rabotnik TV camera.
Radio Code broadcasts continued as weekly programs over pirate stations Radio 100 and Radio Patapoe.
Music from this period includes CD releases Contact with Andrew M. McKenzie, Send with tracks by McKenzie and Zbigniew Karkowski and The Crackling, composed with Max Springer in 1996 from field recordings made by Duncan at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.
[edit] Scrutto di San Leonardo
In 1996 he met Giuliana Stefani. Their first collaboration, Charge Field, was released that same year. That autumn they left Amsterdam and set up a studio in Scrutto di San Leonardo, a village in the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia province of Italy at the border with Slovenia. Married in 1998, they collaborated again on Palace of Mind, which premiered at Le Lieu Unique in Nantes, France on 31 January 1999 in a concert timed to end exactly at midnight. A recording of the concert was released on CD in 2001. They continued to collaborate closely until 2005 when they agreed to separate; Stefani's photographs document most of Duncan's work during this period and are seen on the covers of a number of Duncan's CD releases.
His best known works from this time are the outdoor audio installation The Keening Towers (2003) for the 2nd Gothenburg Biennial composed with children's voices, and the performance event Voice Contact (1998-2000) where volunteer participants enter alone, nude and blind into an empty room as Duncan, also nude and blind, responds uniquely to each according to their movements within the space.
Video from this period includes The North Is Protected, based on the text with the same title written by Leif Elggren.
Cross Radio broadcasts were three-hour live experimental music programs produced and hosted by Duncan, aired weekly from 23:00 to 02:00 over Radio Onde Furlane in Udine, syndicated over Resonance FM in London, Radio Autonoma in Madrid, Radio Kinesonus in Tokyo and WPS1 in New York. Over Radio Onde Furlane, each show continued until 05:30.
Audio releases from this period include Crucible, Tap Internal, Palace of Mind (cited above), Nav with Francisco López, Fresh with zeitkratzer, Phantom Broadcast, Infrasound Tidal from sources by Densil Cabrera, Tongue with Elliott Sharp, Presence with Edvard Graham Lewis and Da Sich Die Machtgier... with sources by Asmus Tietchens.
[edit] Bologna
Duncan relocated to Bologna in 2005. In 2006 he recorded Our Telluric Conversation with Carl Michael von Hausswolff and Nine Suggestions with Pan Sonic members Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen. The audio installation The Garden with Valerio Tricoli was included in the 2006 edition of Eco e Narciso held at the IPCA Ecomuseum in the province of Turin. In January 2007 Duncan performed Something Like Seeing in the Dark with Leif Elggren, premiered at Palazzo Re Enzo, Bologna for the Netmage 07 festival. In August, the audio installation The Tolling was introduced at Smepp: Società Mezzi Portuali Piombino S.p.a. at the Piombino dockyards for Piombino eXperimenta 3. In September, Cross Lake Atlantic, curated by Duncan with Scott Arford, Gary Jo Gardenhire, Kim Gordon and Jutta Koether, Brandon LaBelle, Teresa Margolles and Fredrik Nilsen was held at Gallery Enrico Fornello in Prato. In October, three pieces from The Plasma Missives, with texts written in Duncan's blood, and three pieces from his Distractions series, with his blood used as paint, were exhibited at Gallery Niklas Belenius together with work by Leif Elggren.
[edit] Recent work
In February 2008 Duncan's audio installation The Gauntlet was held at Färgfabriken in Stockholm.
[edit] Bibliography
Monograph:
- John Duncan: Work 1975-2005 (Errant Bodies Press, 2006) with contributions by Daniela Cascella, Leif Elggren, Cosey Fanni-Tutti, Mike Kelley, Brandon LaBelle, Paul McCarthy, Tom Recchion, Takuya Sakaguchi, Giuliana Stefani and Carl Michael von Hausswolff.
Critical and scholarly studies:
- Kristine Stiles, Uncorrupted Joy included in "Out of Actions: between performance and the object 1948-1979" (1998) p. 240-241
- Daniela Cascella, John Duncan: From noise, installations, shortwave radio, field recordings, one of the masters of experimentation of the last 20 years, "Blow Up" November 2000
- Jim Haynes, Shock Treatment, "The Wire" May 2001
[edit] Discography
2007
- Untitled CD released by Die Stadt, DE
2006
- Our Telluric Conversation CD w/C.M. von Hausswolff released by 23Five, USA
- The Garden CD w/V. Tricoli released by Eco e Narciso, IT
- John Duncan: Work 1975-2005 Monograph w/CD published by Errant Bodies Press, DK
- John Duncan: First Recordings 1978-1985 3xLP and DVD released by Vinyl-on-Demand, DE
- The Keening Towers (excerpt) 2xCD released by Institute of Contemporary Art, USA
2005
- Conservatory CD w/P. Parisi released by Allquestions, IT
- Nine Suggestions CD w/M. Vainio and I. Vaisanen released by Allquestions, IT
2004
- Presence CD w/E.G. Lewis released by Allquestions, IT
- Tongue CD w/E. Sharp released by Allquestions, IT
2003
- Phantom Broadcast CD released by Allquestions, IT
- Infrasound-Tidal CD released by Allquestions, IT
- The Keening Towers CD released by Allquestions, IT
- Stun Shelter CD released by Galleria Nicola Fornello, IT
- The Gossamer Dispatch EP released by Die Stadt, DE
- Da Sich Die Machtgier... CD released by Die Stadt, DE
- The Scattering CD w/Peter Fleur released by edition ..., USA
2002
- Fresh CD w/zeitkratzer released by Allquestions, IT
2001
- Palace of Mind CD w/G. Stefani released by Allquestions, IT
- Nav 2xCD w/F. López released by Allquestions, IT
2000
- Tap Internal CD released by Touch, UK
1998
- Seek CD released by Staalplaat, NL
- The Elgaland/Vargaland National Anthem EP w/Z. Karkowsky released by Die Stadt, DE
- Crucible CD released by Die Stadt, DE
1997
- Split Second track on 5xCD Tulpas released by Selektion, DE
- The John See Soundtracks CD released by RRRecords, USA
1996
- The Crackling CD released by trente oiseaux, DE
- Home: Unspeakable CD w/ B. Guenter released by trente oiseaux, DE
- Change track on CD The Mind of a Missile released by Heel Stone, DE
- Charge Field track w/G. Stefani on 2xCD Antiphony released by Touch, UK
- Hymn track on 3xCD State of the Union released by Atavistic, USA
- Trinity track on 2xCD A Fault In the Nothing released by Touch, UK
- The Ruud E. Memorial Choir / Psychonaut EP released by Robot Records, USA
1995
- Incoming CD released by Streamline, DE
1994
- The John See Soundtracks LP released by RRRecords, USA
- Send CD released by Touch, UK
- River In Flames / Klaar 2xCD released by Staalplaat, NL
1993
- Chapel Perilous and Kick tracks on Anckarström Live CD released by Staalplaat, NL
1990
- Dark Market Broadcast CD released by Staalplaat, NL
- Mirror Pulse Cassette released by Extreme, Australia
- Riot / Brutal Birthday Soundtrack CD released by Dark Vinyl, DE
- Contact CD w/A.M. McKenzie released by Touch, UK
1988-89
- Radio Code Cassette released by AQM, NL
1985
- Dark Market Broadcast Cassette released by Cause & Effect, USA
- Purge track on 4x cassette Journey Into Pain released by Beast 666, JP
- Riposte Track on Morality cassette released by Broken Flag, UK
- Probe Track on Assemblée Generale 4 cassette released by PPP, Paris
1984
- Riot LP released by AQM, Tokyo
- Pleasure-Escape Cassette/book released by B-Sellers, Tokyo
1983
- Kokka EP released by AQM, Tokyo
1980
- Creed EP released by AQM, Los Angeles
1979
- Organic LP released by AQM, Los Angeles
1978
- No Cassette released by AQM, Los Angeles
- Station Event Cassette w/M. della Donne-Bhennet and T. Recchion released by AQM, Los Angeles
- Two Solos Cassette released by AQM, Los Angeles
[edit] References
- ^ Haynes, Jim "Shock Treatment: John Duncan", The Wire, Number 208, May 2001
- ^ Kristine Stiles, Uncorrupted Joy included in "Out of Actions: between performance and the object 1948-1979" (1998) p. 240-241
