The Art of auto-correct and Warhol hits the stage

On the way home this afternoon, I heard NPR promote a performance scheduled for this weekend at the Experimental Sound Studio in Chicago.  An eighteen minute video of animated art will be shown set to ESS' considerable archive of sound recordings.   A series of related art prints will be on display at the same time.  In the NPR piece, I heard a spoken word performance featuring words remade via auto-correct, a sort of cut-up technique for the iPhone set.  Would be interesting to see the prints that accompany the audio/video.  The one above is from ESS' web site.  I like the montage aspects of it, especially the layering of the piece on the left.

Meanwhile in New York City, a theatrical team called The Gob Squad has managed to excogitate a stage performance based on Andy Warhol's film, Kitchen.  The performance, entitled "The Gob Squad's Kitchen (You Never had It So Good)," takes place as an original interpretation of the Warhol film that featured Andy's muse at the time, Edie Sedgewick.  I must admit, I almost always think of Warhol as a canvas and silk screen artist first, churning out art in his mass production, pop style at The Factory.  What I tend to forget is that he was also a filmmaker, directing movies almost as quickly as he made his other works of art.  I can remember staying up late to watch Night Flight on the USA network and see Andy Warhol's Dracula.  Well, that and the uncensored version of the video for Duran Duran's "Girls On Film."  Ahem.  Excuse me.
The New York Times review has this to say about the stage production:

"It’s a live magic act of sorts, and one of the most enjoyable such feats I’ve ever seen at the theater.  It’s also complicated to describe. After touring the studio on the stage, the audience takes its seats in front of a large movie screen on which the action being filmed behind the screen is projected. At center is the humdrum set of “Kitchen,” where most of the wayward behavior — chitchat, some groovy dance moves, the eating of cake and an existential discussion of its metaphorical meanings (that’s from the Warhol original) — takes place."

I really wish I could see both of these performances.  Alas, time, money, and geography preclude that as a possibility.

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