Dan Senn's Scrapercussion, a captivating affair by Rene van Peer, Het Apollohuis, Eindhoven Dagblad, December 2, 1990
Dan Senn's Scrapercussion, computer-generated tape, texts, and computer-generated slides by Larry Graham. The Appolohuis, [Eindhoven, Netherlands] Saturday, February 10, 1990.
A concert from Dan Senn is an extremely varied affair. He plays a sound sculpture built from metal objects which he calls scrapercussion. He plays computer music which moves back and forth between melodious and piercing moments. He reads poetic texts and presents slide-tape compositions. Apparently not much of a unified whole.
This was not the case however. Unifying was the third text Peeping Tom. In it Senn explained how when he was young he was fascinated by one-way mirrors. Not just because of a natural child-like leaning toward voyeurism, but also because of an idea that if a sphere coated with this "one-way mirror stuff" were constructed, it would eventually explode from the collected light.
Senn compared this to a friend who expressed himself in such a way to keep himself from exploding. He does this by writing the music he hears inside his head. Listening to this music Senn once again feels like a voyeur. The text connected very well with the feeling that the entire concert evoked. Through the incidental linking of very different components, the loose associative structures appeared as if you were witness to the train of thought in someone else's mind.
Because of this, the concert received an intimate character, even though Senn's interactions were seemingly minimal. This was most apparent during the first presentation of Larry Graham's slides. The slide dissolve blended forms and colors while seductive music on tape showed similar developments. The melodious and clearly read texts were special as well, he supplemented an irregular piece of scrapercussion music on tape by throwing small bars against the sculpture at seemingly arbitrary moments, and the strange Pig Whistles piece which was structured on the shape of a police-man's whistle: the computer played tones with minimal differences in pitch and color at a continually faster pace. With every repetition the basic tone becomes microtonally higher and richer. Runs, whirls, chords, faltering rhythms, and twisting interference tones were created which reel around in your ears.
Not all pieces were at the same niveau and the concert as a whole gained surplus value through the insight that Senn gave on the role of the public as voyeur looking at the thoughts of the artist. The text was precisely about a public insight shared at an unexpected moment. That gave unity to the loose structure and made the concert an unusual experience.