architecture, DISPATCHES art, music, architecture, film, shoPPinG, news and thinGs to maKe and do… art, music, architecture, film, shoPPinG, news and thinGs to maKe and do…
under the influence
Kim Gordon on Performance
portrait leiGh johnson
ThroughouT my career i’ve been interested in the
relationship between performer and audience, and the
unspoken power that a performer has. for example,
you sometimes have more power if you’re vulnerable;
there’s a certain amount of trust that the audience
gives you and they want you to come across for them,
or they want you to be the performer that maybe they
want to be. You can be up on stage in front of so
many people, and on the one hand it’s about being
an exhibitionist, but it’s also about feeling you
could reveal something incredibly emotional and that
you can only do it in front of an audience, which is
different to being an entertainer in the American
Idol, las vegas show business side of the mainstream
music industry – the arena of grand gestures that
symbolise emotion.
these different relationships really struck me
yesterday, for example, when i took kids from
my daughter’s class to new York to see the shins
(they’re passionate about the shins). i was standing
to the side, separate from the main throng, and
i felt like i had this whole different view to
when you’re on stage and you’re plugging into the
technology of the club and the Pa and the lightshow,
and the atmosphere that creates. if you’re standing
on the side as i was, and you don’t hear the Pa, you
have to get something a little more from the band –
of course, even though you don’t get the full effect
of the illusion of the technology, you can tell
if it’s a good or bad gig, if it is authentic or
inauthentic.
i thought about this kind of alternative perspective
when i was doing a series of recent watercolours
that depict audience members from the point of
view of being on stage. i was trying to see how
abstract i could make them and have them still look
like faces. i used metallic inks to give the effect
that i was turning the lightshow on the audience.
i was trying to reverse the idea in my head that
the audience were the performers, and the performer
is the audience.
the artist jutta Koether and i had done something
similar with Reverse Karaoke (2005), an installation
where the audience was invited to make music to my
prerecorded vocals. i don’t really consider myself
a musician. i came to music from post-punk rock,
taking up a big pick and double-strumming – the
idea of demystifying the process. there’s the idea
that it is important for the audience to believe
in somebody. it’s like religion (obviously!).
and yet is music really about a performer or is
it about being in with a group of people together?
when you’re making something, and if you’re playing
music, you get into a real flow and you can
actually really concentrate. the situation we set
up with Reverse Karaoke provided an opportunity
for people to go in and make music. some people
Kim Gordon is an artist and musician, and foundinG
were self-conscious, but it was important for them
member of the band sonic Youth. her watercolours to experience that moment or that flow.
are available throuGh electra Productions, london,
www.electra-Productions.com
ArTrEvIEw 30
Dispatches_K.I.M.indd 30 2/1/08 12:45:07
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