No Boundaries: The Art of Dan Senn by Andrea McNeely, Pandemonium!, Newsense Intermedium, Tacoma, July 22, 1994
It is a rare experience in Tacoma to experience an event that pushes the perimeters of what is commonly defined as art. Dan Senn's multimedia performance accomplished that push with wave after wave sensory and intellectual assaults mounted with video, voice, and strange resonant instruments created with cast-off metal utensils.
A collection of disparate pieces that combine video shots close up, taped readings, computer generated slides, poetry, and eerie sounds of instruemnts called Thin Lips, Scrapercussion #9, and Shmoos Harp made up the show.
Each part had its own mood an effect, and each raised its own questions about the choices human society has made. Trucker Sex showed close up images of an abandoned truck, fucusing on textures and colors so that each frame could have stood alone as a still photograph. The images sped up and intesified as the video progressed, accompanied by hoarse sound from the Shmoos Harp thate created the frantic effect of sexual climax.
Watching Gifted Kids Watch Freaky Me was a piece [that] dominated Senn's poetry. He read in a voice that rose with anger and fell with frustration. It dealt with education's emphasis on creating "geniuses" that only perpetuate accepted schools of thought.
Out to Dry, the last piece in the show, was created from independently developed works. It was a barrage of distorted images of Senn's face and natural scenes of weeds and flowers displayed on two [video] screens. Accompanying the visual was an interplay of ringing drone and taped text. The text was a fascinating description of one man's termination from an undefined institution. It captured the confusion and endless hopeless nonsense of bureaucracy, reminiscent of Franz Kafka's The Castle.