Photo courtesy of Mofo
Always hogging the AUX cord at house parties? Spend your spare time thinking up catchy yet culturally relevant aliases you’d use if you were a DJ? This interactive sculpture created by French artist Mathieu Briand might appeal to your dreams/hopes/aspirations.The Spiral—which will appear in Hobart at Mofo this weekend—is sort of like a pop-up recording studio. It features five turntables, mixing desks, and vinyl-cutting machines surrounded by seating in a spiral formation. Records play samples on a continuous loop, but it’s up to you to get in there and mess with the looped sounds to create your own mix. The best bit is that your track will be simultaneously recorded and pressed to vinyl.While the thought of walking away with your own vinyl is undeniably cool, there are also some larger ideas at play here beyond simply rollin’ and scratchin’. This work carries on with Briand’s concern about making the audience active participants in the artwork, rather than just passive viewers. Briand raved his way through the 80s, and the same ideas—about equality and freedom—that underpinned those free, underground parties, are also present here.“The Spiral is a liberating thing,” Briand told The Wire in a July 2007 interview. “You can come in, go out. There are no obligations. You can sit and watch. I am more interested to propose a free space. For me, it is my participation to the spirit of the techno music and the free parties.”The Spiral has traveled around the world and appeared at the Tate Modern in London, and will also travel to Carriageworks in Sydney this June.
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You can check out The Spiral at Mofo this weekend. For more info head here.Related:Mofo 2016 Lineup: The Flaming Lips, Kate Miller-Heidke, Evelyn Glennie & More[Exclusive] Talking Stage Spectacles, Side Projects, Art & Miley Cyrus with The Flaming Lips[Video Premiere] First Look at Nonotak’s Sugar Mountain 'Mirrored Infinity Room' InstallationA photo posted by MONA FOMA (@monafoma) on Jan 13, 2016 at 2:53pm PST