[Harp-L] Replication of sound honors late blues musician Harmonica Slim

[Rooty Baegga <rootybaegga@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://barometer.orst.edu/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/04/27/426fb5afa4b24

Artist brings contemporary exhibit to campus

Replication of sound honors late blues musician Harmonica Slim

by Tara Sullivan
The Daily Barometer

The Audio-Visual Realization exhibit in Fairbanks -- a combination of 
sound, imagery, shadow, light, and old and new technology -- is a tribute 
to Harmonica Slim, friend of guest artist John Wilson.

The exhibit consists of a keyboard set up to trigger sounds, lights and images.

In the day and a half it took Wilson and five OSU art students to 
reconstruct the installation, several pieces broke, but Wilson didn't mind. 
"It's always different from what you think it's going to be," he said.

While others might have become frustrated, Wilson enjoys putting the pieces 
back together. "It really gets me in touch with the piece," he said.

"Afterward, you're only left with your intention, not your ambition," he said.

"A lot of my work is really personal -- it's a personal process to get a 
reaction from people and from myself," he said.

Wilson realized his need to get a reaction out of people a few years ago. 
While shopping at Target, he decided to set every alarm clock to go off at 
the exact same time.

He waited and listened while no one stopped them.

"I realized there was this really interesting thing happening. In my work, 
I just want to see what will happen, what people will do," he said.

The pieces used for the exhibit are constructed at home, then 
deconstructed, transferred and reconstructed.

Wilson likes his work to be part of an intricate machine, rather than one 
tangible item that can be placed anywhere and remain the same.

"You have to create the world instead of it being a two-dimensional 
object," he said.

Wilson admits that he is not an artist.

"Because I don't draw or paint, it's just not who I am. For me, this is the 
only way I can express myself," he said.

In this installation exhibit, the pieces breaking and falling apart are 
symbolic. The man commemorated in the exhibit spent his life trying to rise 
above falling apart.

When he was young, Wilson became a fan of the late blues musician Harmonica 
Slim, and would go see him perform in Fresno, Calif.

Wilson used to joke that one day the two would do a record together, and in 
2000 that joke became a reality.

"He let me cut up his vocals and play around with them," Wilson said.

He produced two records with Slim and named the entity "Pig in a Can," 
after one of Slim's dinner staples.

Sometimes while recording, Wilson would ask Slim to say something, and 
since he couldn't read or write, he would often mispronounce the words, 
creating a better result, according to Wilson.

The most interesting part of working with the sound pieces from Slim, 
Wilson said, was that they worked anywhere.

"I could put it to a slow tempo or a fast tempo and it would always work," 
he said. "This is absolutely unheard of."

Though not overly obvious, the exhibit is Wilson's final tribute to Slim.

Film footage was taken at a friend's house on the last few days before Slim 
died.

"It's like walking into Harmonica Slim's house in the last two days of his 
life," Wilson said. "What are you faced with the last two days of your 
life? If you're going to build something for the last two days of someone's 
life, how would you build it?"

For this piece, it was important for Wilson to use old and new technology, 
old and new ideas.

He also likes to use personal pieces in his work.

Some of the doors used are from his wife's old house.

"They were the doors I used to climb over to go to her house, so it has a 
romantic significance," he said.

Wilson also tried to recreate Slim's life by making sounds that replicate 
the creaking boards of his house.

"I would try to incorporate pieces from his time. Something he might have 
come across but now is withered and has seen 100 years of age," he said.

Wilson added that he would rather be in the background, working anonymously.

"I want to slowly show the fragment of what is going on in life without 
imposing myself on it too much," he said.

"I've done a lot of things in the context of something else," he said. 
Wilson often does background music for other people's exhibits or plays.

Wilson, who received his bachelor and master's degrees from the California 
Institute of the Arts in music composition and new media, has been working 
with art and music since his childhood.

In his 20s, he was a member of the band Meat Beat Manifesto, which gained 
national recognition for bringing avant-garde experimental music into pop 
music.

Wilson became an art collector and dealer to step away from music and 
appreciate art on a different level.

"This helped me learn how to see things, because for the longest time I 
just put emphasis on hearing and not seeing," he said.

Julie Green, an associate professor of art at OSU, is thrilled to have 
Wilson's exhibit in the West Gallery.

"I find John's work to be a wonderful interdisciplinary approach to the 
sound and music history of Harmonica Slim," she said. "The whole 
environment he has created is very whimsical."

"We're very isolated from the center of contemporary art in Corvallis," she 
said. "We're very fortunate that he is able to show his work and increase 
the students' awareness of the current direction in contemporary art."

Tara Sullivan, staff writer

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