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Get Off Show

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Installation Photographs from the Get Off Show at Off the Preserve, Napa, CA
One Million Watt Karoke Elvis on Viagra started out slowly. There was substantial flirting with materials, a long courtship with concepts, prolonged foreplay with formal issues and repeated fumbling with the massive wiring and crossovers. In the end, this piece resembles a 25 foot long slingshot dragster, mounted to a tufted red velvet king sized headboard. The oversized racing motor (a blown big block) is fabricated from 40 speakers and is driven by a 200 watt stereo amplifier. A cd player provides constant playback of the audio portion: a purring kitten; every 8-10 minutes the recorded sound of a real dragster motor abruptly explodes through the purring but only lasts a minute or so, while the purring kitten continues. The karaoke element is accessible via the gear shift microphone through a separate 100 watt amplifier and a 14" public address horn. It is big, loud and gaudy! I like to tell people that I successfully bid on the headboard on Ebay and that it is reportedly from Graceland. I even convinced myself that the greasestains on the velvet are none other than Elvis'. To believe this, is the key to understanding the title of this piece. After considerable neglect on my part to go by the Catholic Thrift to "look at this unbelievable headboard", it arrived; purchased by my wife and given to me to use in a sculpture. "Can't you do something with this?" she asked. I spent a considerable amount of time with the headboard in my studio before deciding to fabricate a very long, tapered frame from tube steel. The design was to resemble a sixties era, slingshot dragster. I used another part from a previous but unfinished sculpture from several years back. I started some drawings and designs the big motor from pre fabricated speaker units for cars, trucks and vans when Kevin Radley joined the project. For the next couple of months Kevin and I built this massive motor and worked out all the details for the completion of this piece. Every attention to detail, shape, form and design of a real drag racing motor was given. Speakers were researched for quality, shape and scale so that they could work together as components to the motor's shape without compromise. We used 40 speakers in all: 24 tweeters, 14 midrange, 1 subwoofer and one 14" PA horn. The difficult and challenging crossover and wiring diagram was designed by one of the guys at Zackit Electronics in Vallejo, California. The 2" tube steel frame was fabricated with the help of Scott Forsman in his mountain top shop. Two UC Berkeley Art students, assembled the initial audio soundscape. Kevin and I debuted this piece in the Worth Ryder Art Gallery as our collaborative contribution to the UC Berkeley Department of Art Practice's annual faculty show in January of 2003. For its most recent outing at OFF THE PRESERVE, Napa, CA oct/nov 2003, Kevin created and installed a new audio soundscape. The premier of this audio CD coincides with this showing in GET OFF - Off the Preserve, Hussong & Radley, a teamwork project for 2003.