CROSSTALK POOL John Duncan 23 - 25 January 2009 Entry courtyard Cineteca Lumière Bologna Included in Film d'artista series Curated by Lelio Aiello Four channel audio installation with speakers mounted at various points on the roof of the complex, projecting sound to reflect off the walls of the enclosed courtyard below. Audio sources include shortwave radio transmissions, both natural and modified, mixed with voices recorded by researchers at sites reputed to be haunted. CROSSTALK POOL turns the entire entry courtyard of the Cineteca Lumière complex into a vortex of surreal, cryptic voice messages, a chorus filtering through a constantly shifting haze of radio static.

Photo © Hitoshi Kojo

THE GAUNTLET John Duncan 2 February - 2 March 2008 Main Hall Färgfabriken, Stockholm Audio installation with seven anti-theft alarms activated at intervals by infrared sensors. Visitors navigate the total darkness via handheld penlights. Curated by Daniel Daboczy. 50-page catalogue designed by 1:2:3, produced by Färgfabriken and Gallery Niklas Belenius Only when standing in a pitch-dark room you realize that you actually start to see. Even in the perfect darkness there is always some kind of light. --Daniel Daboczy Video interview by curator Daniel Daboczy Radio interview by journalist Mårten Arntzén Review by journalist Meredith Snyder

Poster design by 1:2:3

THE COURTYARD John Duncan 5 December 2006 - 10 January 2007 Included in OPEN / CLOSE with Giovanni Morbin and Simone Menegoi O'Artoteca, Milano Audio installation with four elements in a specially modified room of O'Artoteca, separated from the gallery, rendered completely dark with a ceiling height of 160 cm. and a carpeted floor. Audio recordings from the O'Artoteca courtyard are modified acoustically and played back in the dark, mixed at random. Visitors remove their shoes at the threshold (photo center) and enter alone. Included in OPEN / CLOSE, exhibition sponsored by O'A.I.R. artist residency program, O'Artoteca. Participants in this edition of the residency and exhibition include artist Giovanni Morbin and curator Simone Menegoi. Produced by Sara Serighelli and Angelo Colombo.

Photo © Angelo Colombo

THE GROTTO John Duncan 30 August ~ 2 September, 2006 Palazzo Appiano, Piombino Audio installation with six elements in a room of the Palazzo Appiano rendered completely dark. Shortwave mixes and a consenting adult couple having long, very satisfying sex. Included in Piombino eXperimenta 2, sponsored by the City of Piombino. Produced by Marco Formaioni. Curated by Gianluca Becuzzi.

Photo © Luigi Turra

THE GARDEN John Duncan and Valerio Tricoli 15 July ~ 24 September, 2006 Audio installation with six elements based on voice and onsite field recordings, mounted inside two buildings of the IPCA Ecomuseum complex in Ciriè, Province of Turin. Included in Eco e Narciso, sponsored by the Province of Turin. Curated by Daniela Cascella and Rebecca de Marchi. Details on the CD catalogue available here IPCA (Industria Piemontese dei Colorante di Anilina) [pdf file]: originally a producer of aniline dyes, operating from the 1920's to the 1980's. Haunted by a cynicism difficult even to imagine...

Photos © John Duncan

	Building 18
Hydrochloric acid is constant inside Building 18. All metal corroding. Workers told to enter in pairs with no protection. When one passes out, his partner drags him outside and returns to the job. Workers never told what they're dealing with. Bicycle tires leave rotting rubber on the road. Surviving family members say over 800 employees died. Toxic waste from the plant hauled away by tanker trucks with "milk" painted on the side. Dumped in the river nearby. Kilometers downstream, rocks a meter below ground stained blue, green, pink. Tankers sequestered as evidence. The company begins to fail. To save it an immense incinerator is built to burn toxic waste. Smoke released directly into the atmosphere. -- John Duncan	Incinerator building

THE ERROR 15 April ~ 17 June, 2006 Limited edition handprinted book and DVD video Included in Dialogue 1 Galleria Enrico Fornello, Prato Curated by Simone Menegoi

Photos © Ela Bialkowska

CONSERVATORY (SAN SEBASTIAN) 12 December, 2004 ~ 20 January, 2005 Audio installation with Paolo Parisi Quarter Viale Gianotti 81 Florence, Italy Curated by Sergio Risaliti Referring to the soundtrack realized for CONSERVATORY (SAN SEBASTIAN) Duncan speaks of 'phantom voices', underlining a line of research he's followed in recent years beginning with PHANTOM BROADCAST (2002), audio work and live performance where he used a shortwave radio transmission intercepted in the course of a single recording: a shadow play that takes on the aspect of bells resonating into infinity, where reverberations and traces of choruses join and fade into emptiness. Duncan's recent works seem to audibly outline the echo of complex choral compositions, blocked from the senses, where we can taste only a reflection that thins out or thickens, as if breathing. Tension is accumulated gradually, without burning in dramatic or conclusive passages -- or better, we could speak of infinite extensions of a single climactic moment, because in the climax this work contains the pure force to unravel in a series in minimal tonal variations. For CONSERVATORY (SAN SEBASTIAN) Duncan uses darker vocal sounds that give form to an elusive audio presence, to an ultimate ghost broadcast at the limits of human measure: again the sound is an impalpable diaphragm and necessary passage until what transcends our normal sense of listening may be perceived here in all its evocative power. Daniela Cascella

Photos © John Duncan

STUN SHELTER 12 September ~ 26 October, 2003 Installation with Carl Michael von Hausswolff. John Duncan's See is a video installation made up of four separate and simultaneous projections of sequences taken from the John See Series, a series of adult movies he directed in 1986-87 during his stay in Japan. On entering the dark exhibition space, the viewer is assailed by immense flashes of images and sound cut-ups... In those moments in which the sound is softer, a voice emerges, whispering Japanese phrases until it is drowned once again by the wave of louder sounds. Carl Michael von Hausswolff's Thinner & Low Frequency Bar / Glue & High Frequency Lounge consists of two bars made of steel and glass on which lie bottles and cans containing volatile substances such as glue and thinner. On the bar two oscillators produce frequencies varying in intensity, whose sound penetrates the ears altering normal perception levels. Both works fill the space perfectly, one by means of strong images (See), the other through the substances shown. The attention level is at its maximum in attempts to grasp the Japanese whispering (See) and the ghost-sounds of the oscillators (Thinner Bar...), defying the threshold of audibility as they act on the unconscious. --Daniela Cascella Nicola Fornello Gallery Prato, Italy Curated by Daniela Cascella

Photo © J. Duncan Photo © E. Bialkowska

THE KEENING TOWERS 24 May ~ 31 August, 2003 Audio installation with sound projected from the tops of two galvanized steel towers, each 24 meters high with separate audio systems, set up in front of the entrance to the Gothenburg art museum, playing parts of a piece composed for the installation from a children's choir conducted by Duncan in Italy. AGAINST ALL EVENS Gothenburg Biennial 2003 Gothenburg, Sweden Curated by C.M. von Hausswolff While [Henri] Chopin was busy exploring the sounds of his own body, composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen were seeing what could formally be done by manipulating existing voices ("Gesang der Jünglinge"). Whereas Stockhausen was a formalist-seeing how far he could push the acoustic technology in the work-the younger composer John Duncan takes a radical turn toward subjectivity and emotion for his installation The Keening Towers. Using audio systems mounted at the tops of enormous steel towers, the source of the piece is a 30-voice Italian children's choir. Duncan states that, "The personal motivation for this project is to make a small gesture to give something back to kids, especially infants, that I've seen in my life who were victims of abuse by adults... I don't think it really matters whether 'The Keening Towers' communicates this aspect to anyone else-I'm satisfied that it works on this level for me whenever I hear the whispers, screams, etc., all made by kids having fun with their voices, moving as if they're coming down out of the wind, at times whispering directly into my ear, at other moments morphing into sexual groans that for several seconds sound as if they're being made by an adult couple hidden behind the museum façade." It's hard to image Stockhausen making such a statement. --Kenneth Goldsmith All photos © Giuliana Stefani

THE KEENING TOWER 17 ~ 29 August, 2004 Audio installation with sound projected from the windows of the tower at Villa Clementi, Malo, playing a piece composed for the installation from a children's choir conducted by Duncan in Italy. Azioni inClementi 2004 Malo, Italy

Photo © John Duncan

SEE Simultaneous video projections on four walls. Images and audio from the John See adult video series surround the viewer, as a voice gives suggestions in Japanese. "SEE works with the elements of chaos and order, silence and sound. The video material is projected on multiple screens by random selection. The pictures and the output of the sound constantly combine together into new collages." -- Elke Moltrecht

Photo by Anezaki

THE FLOCKING 9 September ~ 5 October, 2000 In the main gallery, painted black: A human tooth encased in a lighted plexiglas box, mounted on a pedestal that emits stereo audio. Text of a dream (in English and Italian) and the transcript of HAPPY HOMES on the rear wall. In the basement: A 30-voice children's choir with one soloist, heard in near-total darkness via hidden multichannel audio sources. Main gallery and basement Malacarne Verona, Italy

ACCESS DENIED 16 - 27 June, 2000 Stereo sound coming from behind the locked doors of two separate rooms at the top of the villa's main stairway (one channel per room): a couple whispering, laughing, shouting, having long, slow, repeated sex, with a mixed-shortwave drone in the background, playing back loud enough to echo through the area and be heard from the base of the stairs, encouraging visitors to defy the 'ACCESS DENIED' sign on the staircase steps and go up to hear better. Main stairway and upper floor Villa Venier Sommacampagna, Verona ITALIA Sponsored by interzona

Photo © Giuliana Stefani

THE FLOCKING Sunday 7 May, 2000 A children's choir for 30 voices and one 6 year old soloist An audio installation in near-total darkness Beyond Baroque Los Angeles

VOICE CONTACT 11 December, 1999 - 31 January, 2000 Installation and remains from the event with one participant at a time, entering voluntarily and nude into a completely dark, empty room. Watari-Um Watari Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo Curated by Thomas Nordanstad and Koichi Watari

TEMPLE of the DAZED 27 November - 7 December, 1998 Sitran d'Alpago X Edizione Sitran, Italy Organized by Flavio da Rold, Giorgio Vazza and Gaetano Ricci High-end audio equipment provided by Giorgio Tomasini 4-channel audio, video and halogen light projection, and a frozen butchered horse head set in a 13th Century horse stable to encourage self-reflection. Behind the horse head (installation view, center): Shimmering light reflected off a hidden shallow pool of water. On the floor (installation view, foreground): Video projection of the heads of a crowd of people at a single's bar, shot from above. Behind the black satin curtains (installation view, left and right): Audio drones in continuously shifting 4-channel stereo. Detail view Photo by Giorgio Tomasini

Installation view Photo by Giorgio Tomasini

HALL OF WORDS 1998 Forte di Osoppo Italy Curated by Moreno Miorelli High-end audio equipment provided by Giorgio Tomasini Shortwave Voice 6-channel stereo audio installation Twin chambers with temple-like facades built inside a natural cave. Whispers and shortwave drones heard from invisible sources inside. Audio atmospheres that fade in and out of each other and seem to pass through the walls.

SPECCHIETTO per le ALLODOLE 1998 Forte di Osoppo Italy Curated by Moreno Miorelli Stairway leading to an underground chamber with two rectangular openings in the far wall. Each opening is blocked shut with a wooden box lined with stuffed black upholstery to absorb light and sound. Each box has a small spyhole drilled through it. From the left hole, closeup of the light from an oil-burning lamp. From the right hole, closeup of a clear rotating cylinder lit from inside stained with Duncan's blood.

SWEAT CELL I / II (ZNOJILE CELICA I / II) 1997 TRANSVERZALA UTRINKOV Festival Znojile, Slovenia Two-part solo installation in a mountain village inside storage cells built of stone with dirt floors, using objects and materials found at the sites.

STRESS CHAMBER 1996 Ars Electronica Contained: Rearview Mirror to Reality (photos above) 1995 Solo installation at Contained Voest Alpine Steelmill, Linz. 1993 Absolute Threshold Machine Festival Amsterdam. A shipping container equipped with motors mounted on three sides. Each motor has an eccentric flywheel attached, causing it to vibrate the wall it's mounted on at the container's resonant frequency. Each participant is told to strip completely and enters the container alone, nude. The participant is then locked inside, nude and completely blind. All motors working together, controlled by the operator, create standing waves that the participant can feel as a tangible object moving at random inside the container, around and through the participant's body.

Photo by Giuliana Stefani Photo by Claudia Hutter

MAZE 1996 Narrenturm Museum for Pathological Diseases, Vienna Installation with video projection of MAZE in a cell of the museum, built in the 17th Century as a mental hospital. Viewers are chosen at random from the attending crowd, led into the dark, unventilated cell (originally designed for disturbed patients) and locked inside by the museum director. When the screening is over, the director unlocks the door and allows the viewers to leave.

Photo © John Duncan

ICONS 1996 Macro-closeup photographic prints 4 meters high of the vaginas of six women, shot in infra-red black-and-white film (translating body heat into light) with brush-drawings of the images drawn in Duncan's blood. 1997 ICONS sketch exhibited in Ear as Eye L.A.C.E. Gallery Los Angeles

Photo © John Duncan

THE TOILET EXHIBITION 1985 Selected men's public toilet stalls, Tokyo. Sponsored by AQM, Tokyo. Solo installation of A1 poster-size collage-images of war atrocities and pornography, mounted on the doors inside stalls of mens' public toilets in the fashion, financial, government and entertainment centers of Tokyo: Shibuya, Hibiya, Kokkaigijidomae, Shinjuku.

Image © John Duncan

THE DREAM ROOM 1982 Daily Planet Gallery, Tokyo. Solo installation of 2 meter (6 ft.) high brush-drawings from Duncan's dream notebooks made in sumi-e ink on paper that, except for a single doorway, completely covers all walls of the room. Later destroyed.

THE BLACK ROOM 1980 American Hotel, Los Angeles. One room of a cheap hotel for transients is painted gloss-black. The closet door vibrates violently from an invisible electric sander mounted to it on the inside. Hanging near the window on the opposite wall is a framed, typed page with this text:

We hate you little boy. We hate you little boy. We hate you little boy. We hate you little boy. We hate you little boy. We hate you little boy. We hate you little boy. We hate you hate you hate you hate you hate you hate you hate you hate you hate you hate you hate you hate you hate you hate you hate you hate you hate you hate you hate you. We saw you all covered with our blood. We saw you piss and shit all over yourself. We cleaned you up, put food in your fucked-up little mouth. We kept you alive, you ungrateful little bastard. We gave you our tit whenever you wanted it, you little bloodsucker. We taught you everything you know. We always knew you'd be ungrateful. We always knew you'd be half-human baggage. You're a blight on our lives; we're tired of putting up with you. Ugly little body with the sex exposed. You're utterly disgusting. How can you possibly live with yourself. You're taking up our air, you little grease-spitter. Just look at the mess you've made of everything. Look at all the horror. Every bit of it is your fault. A dog could have done a better job. We should have put a pillow over your face when we had the chance. We always knew you'd be a stunted growth, a walking turd, just like the rest of your kind. Why don't you do everyone a favor and kill yourself. We love a man in uniform. Die, you tit-sucking zombie. Wounded men are so romantic. Go out and blow your head off, prick. We are fed up. Just go out and die. DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE

DESERT LANDMARK, SUCCULENT MAZE 1978 to 1980 Mojave Desert, California. A living monument to women. A 90,000 square foot aerial landmark in the form a labyrinth (image above), formed by planting seeds of Yucca brevifolia (Joshua Trees) at a barren site in the Mojave Desert. Later the seeds grow into a patterned grove of cactus trees, rough or sharp when touched, that produce flowers for a few days each year and provide year-round shade from the intense desert heat. Site selection, seed collection, surveying, ground-breaking and planting is performed by Duncan alone, and completed on 1st January, 1980. Currently growing wild.

Image © John Duncan

BUS RIDE 1976 "Repressed sexual impulses give rise to authoritarian behavior." W. Reich, M.D.; The Mass-Psychology of Fascism A small amount of fish extract is poured into the ventilation system of a Los Angeles city bus shortly before the bus begins its standard route. Set in buses with windows that cannot be opened, the subliminal odor acts as a subtle aphrodisiac on the unsuspecting passengers. Performed twice, 30 days apart: A normally passive commuter kicks a stranger, a pregnant woman, off of the seat they're sharing in order to put up his feet. This causes a fight among the other passengers, half of whom side with the commuter. A group of normally quiet ultra-polite children, going home from a school specializing in disciplined behavior, tear college career ads from the inside of the bus, shred them and attack each other with the scraps (photo).

Photo © John Duncan

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