Tormented Tables

TITLE : Tormented Tables
DATE : 1999
Sound sculpture with automation
MATERIAL : record players, selected objects, copper, lamp, MIDI controller, computer.
DIMENSIONS : object :190 cm X 190 cm X 80 cm (75 in. X 75 in. X 32 in.)
PHOTO : Paul Litherland & Diane Landry
VIDEO : Diane Landry

VIDEO

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2008
2002

2001
2000
1999
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- Musée d'art de Joliette (Quebec).
- Argos Festival 2002, 'Pitch' - Mutating Turntables, Argos, Brussels, Belgium.
- Machines festives, L'Oeil de Poisson, Quebec city.
- Latinos del Norte, organized by Inter/Le Lieu, X'TeReSa, Mexico city, Mexico.
- Anna Templeton Centre, during Sound Symposium, St.John's (New Foundland).
- Machines festives, La Centrale/Powerhouse, Montreal (Quebec).
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«Tormented Tables extends the acoustic, perhaps narrative, potential of the record players' circularity, by re-using the merry-go-round idea, but with a certain critical irony. On the top platforms of the 20 “turntables” (the play on words given by the common expression referring to the record players is essential to grasp the current irony in the title), red plastic animal figures are arranged and, dragged along by the rotation, they transmit vibrations into the common brown wrapping paper that covers the structure. [...] The paper vibration and the peculiar cracking we hear urge us to look under the “table”, to discover a merry-go-round peopled by slaughterhouse animals. [...] On the same principle as in “The Clandestine Sedentaries”, the “turntables”, which compose most of the structure, are supported by 80 copper rods lying on the ground on lead pencils. Fragile because it is supported in a precarious manner, the whole sculpture vibrates and quivers as if swept along by its own movement, animated by the quaking of turning animals, and making the paper vibrate and crackle. As the title suggests, this world not only turns like a “round”, but, as it turns, it torments as well.» (from a text by Marie Fraser, extract from the catalogue : Les sédentaires clandestions, Musée du Québec, 2001).