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This Catacombs
of Yucatan
was made to accompany the Catacomb Memories installation but is
presented here with a sound
track
by the same name to enable a sense of the original 1995 installaton
in rural Minnesota. Using very low tech methods, the video was
created by playing back the original Catacomb
of Yucatan Sound and Video Installation video interviews on a monitor while
reshooting it with a second camera. It is mostly in-camera edited.
The original intention wasto simply provide color and cast light
over the top of a field of 24 micro-tuned paper tube drums that
were being hammered by 24" pendulums while presenting a
suggestion of the faces of the interviewees who's voices are
also sounding within the installtion.
This piece
chronicles two events, one leading to the commercialization of
a remote limestone cave and associated dance hall during the
depression of the 1930s, and the other glimpsing a sound and
video installation which took place in the same location in the
Autumn of 1995. Using the stories of nine people who once worked
at what was called "The Catacombs of Yucatan", the
piece consists of an interweaving of the spoken word as accompanied
by the instrumental sounds of my sculptural instruments. Both
the spoken and instrumental sounds were part of a cave installation
called The Catacombs of Yucatan Sound and Video Installation.
The video was developed as an abstraction of the video interviews
presented in the '95 installation and consist of images shot
off the installation monitors.
Inspiration for this piece developed directly from the pleasure
of manipulating the spoken, instrumental, and video materials.
For this reason, none the recorded stories have been altered;
I have only arranged them to make narrative sense while pleasing
an esthetic sense as a composer. (On the other hand, I have let
these stories be told and am fully aware of their political,
historical and social ramifications.) The instrumental sounds,
however, are sectional, systematically derived and come from
4 of my sculptural instruments: a pendulyre (light pizzacato
sounds); a two-string pendulyre (sounds like an out-of-tune piano);
a penduling (has ringing and percussive sounds); and, a Shmoos
Harp (long tones) which is heard as interludes to the other instruments.
The non-Shmoos instruments are driven by identicial pulse scores
(subaudio pulses drive weighted pendulums in each of these) and,
therefore, because the they reacte differently to the scores,
exist as variations here. The Shmoos Harp is performed as an
improvisation and arranged with the other instrumental sounds,
to fit an overall duration of 27 minutes, a length established
by the video and spoken materials. Simultaneities occurring bewteen
the spoken and instrumental and video levels happen by distant
chance, a fact to be considered in appreciating the esthetic
underpinnings of the piece. Therefore, if a meaningfulness arises
from this piece it will do so mostly on its own.
The Catacombs of Yucatan music video has been preceded
by a sound only version for radio which was commissioned by the
1996 KUOW Radio Arts Festival in Seattle. While the sound
track for this music video version differs from the radio festival
version, it may be played without the video; a CD or DAT is available
for this.
This piece was made possible in part by grants from the McKnight
Foundation of Minnesota and KUOW of Seattle.
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