AUTOPSIES: THE AFTERLIFE OF DEAD OBJECTS

Andy Warhol collected boxes of daily ephemera, as you no doubt know, and these 600+ boxes, or time capsules, are being unpacked, archived, displayed. I could not help but think of some of the dead stuff in these when I saw your site – and film was such a huge part of his and his followers' work. The Warhol Museum here has daily showings of many of his 275 film works:
http://www.warhol.org/collections/film_video.asp

Warhol collected stuff, including all kinds of 50s kitsch and the museum did an exhibit 4 years ago of a lot of it. Among those things were items we no longer use (or recognize).

You can read about the show here:
http://www.warhol.org/whats_on/pdfs/PR_Time_Capsules.pdf

Here's an example of a virtual exhibition of one of the Time Capsules:
http://www.warhol.org/tc21/

--Jann's friend Paul

The British government hopes to turn off the UK's national and local analogue radio by 2015. When this happens, the layers of hiss, crackle and white noise will be lost, and the push of the button will replace the twist of the dial. The performance of John Cage's Imaginary landscape No.4 (1951) and Radio Music (1956) at Tate Britain's event "Late Night Radio" on Friday, 7th August thus had a peculiar nostalgic potency. Musicians lined up behind their radios, and following Cage's score and conductor Robert Worby, played their radios like musical instruments. Twisting the dials and manipulating the volume, the musicians filled the North Duveen's of the Tate Britain with the curious noises that lie between radio stations. When Cage's pieces were first performed, audiences were experiencing some of the first electronic music concerts. When analogue radio is finally switched off, these pieces of music will become impossible to perform. Imaginary Landscape No.4 and Radio Music highlight how the music of the radio lies in the transitions between tunes and voices. They remind us that when the turn of the dial no longer whirls the listener through an array of incomprehensible sounds, the emblematic experience of radio will be lost.

For further information on Tate Britain's 'Late Night Radio' see

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/aug/06/john-cage-symphony-for-radios

   --Karolina Kendall-Bush

Cinema gets very sentimental over the things it films and their passing, see Wenders (in 1987, answering the question 'Why do you make films'):

'Balazs talks about the ability (and the responsibility) of cinema "to show things as they are". And he says cinema can "rescue the existence of things". That's precisely it. I have another quote, from Cézanne, where he says: "Things are disappearing. If you want to see anything, you have to hurry." So back to the awful question: why do I make films? Well, because... Something happens, you see it happening, you film it as it happens, the camera sees it and records it, and you can look at it again, afterwards. The thing itself may no longer be there, but you can still see it, the fact of its existence hasn't been lost. The act of filming is a heroic act (not always, not often, but sometimes). For a moment, the gradual destruction of the world of appearances is held up. The camera is a weapon against the tragedy of things, against their disappearing.'

I know the Autopsies project should be distinguishing between things and objects, but I thought WW's comments might be useful.

(Incidentally, where exactly did Cézanne say: 'Tout disparaît...', what were his exact words?)

Roland-François

3 août 2009 23:49