I do performances with sound, and it’s more sculptural than musical; it has to do with space, filling the space or changing the space, changing the architecture of the space with sound.
                                                                                                 — Terry Fox, 1979 

Brooklyn Bridge, 1976, color video, 33:04 minutes
Canal Street, 1976, color video, 32:37 minutes

In 1976, artist Terry Fox (1943–2008) made five unannounced sound performances over the course of one week at different public sites in lower Manhattan. Using a rosined violin bow, Fox played a metal bowl and steel plow disc to create droning resonances within the urban environment. He conceived the works as site-specific responses to these spatial and acoustic situations, which shaped the performances as much as the performances shaped them.

In this summer edition of Performance Tapes, Pastelegram will screen two videos from Fox’s series, Lunar Rambles: one filmed at the Brooklyn Bridge and one on Canal Street. The videos provide loose documentation of the performances, as the camera wanders among Fox and other points of interest around him. This intentional distraction foregrounds the videos’ processes of mediation and prevents any illusion that what they show are the events themselves. Instead, as distinct artworks closely connected to Fox’s performances, the videos present strangely mesmerizing portraits of place and time.

Sean O’Neill and Junior Williams will introduce the videos and provide an informal Q+A discussion after.

Sean O'Neill is a sound artist working with found materials, field recordings, and various digital/analog components.

Junior Williams is an occasional-performer and historian of late modern and contemporary time-based art.

PERFORMANCE TAPES is a screening series dedicated to recordings of performances and other live art events from the 1960s to today. It brings together Austin’s film and art communities by looking at how performance, film and video have come together in the past. At each screening, a local artist, art historian, filmmaker or writer introduces the recording and opens the floor for discussion after, providing a space for people to meet and share ideas.