APPLICATION OF CENTRIFUGAL PUMP

St Maarten, Philipsburg.
Car park of the Cultural Center.
Sound System Version II, 2001 - ongoing
PHOTO - DEBORAH JACK



Music: a sound collaboration by Christopher Cozier, Robin Foster, Sheldon Holder & Martin Raymond (with sound sequences by Chantal Esdelle, Christian Campbell & Yvette Grey). DJ Outkast and Friends in St Maarten.

"My friend's name is Shane and his car is a 2007 Suzuki Swift and the jeep I had was a 2002 Ford Escape. Both cars were both set up by The 187 Boyz which is the name of my crew...." Dj Outkast

Funding for this project was provided by the Prince Claus Fund of Holland.

This current version of Sound System, developed for the Stenersen Museum in Oslo, to be part of “Equatorial Rhythms” in 2007 ( curated by Selene Wendt ) was done in the standard “white box” space. I did the first version, this way also, in Rotterdam and Iowa City. However, in the Caribbean, I wanted to do a version in another public domain, therefore outdoors and in the street - the place where I got the idea. I arranged with two Dj’s with cool and very loud sub-woofer systems in their cars to pull-up in the car park behind the exhibition space and to play the sequences. They also mixed in other stuff of their own when they felt like it. This was my contribution to DVG’s ( Diaspora Vibe Gallery ) workshop in St Maarten 2008.
I was hoping that this attempt would inform and thus enable people here to see other ways of working with activities from their everyday lives such as the stereo systems in their cars and on the street rather than within a “white box” or an attempt at “having one too” in an island. These are things we already know but the class system in each island tells us that we must paint and do other things to become serious artists or viable ones. Ayana Jolivet Mccloud , one of the US based artists, indicated that, in her own practice, she preferred to work directly with an “actual experience” rather than to simply render it with conventional mediums. In one of the discussions, this was her apt response to the standard question about the absence of conventional craft skills traditionally associated with artistic merit. I came with just my Cd and was willing to walk around trying to get someone to work with me. The limitations, or to be less judgmental, the way the location or context shapes my response, always creates an exciting moment. The project and its process began through the resulting conversations and negotiations - that is the content of this work. This process is about adaptation, improvisation and negotiation.

Every day, regardless of the weather, a woman stands at the entrance of the parking garage of the super jumbo Space 9 during busy shopping hours cordially waving her hands while simultaneously saying something into an ear mounted microphone to the approaching vehicles.

This is a strange to me.

The women who do this wear uniforms and seem like ambassadresses. The hand waving is visually captivating. I wonder if they have to go to school to learn how to twirl their hands or if they have hand-twirling try-outs before getting the job.

What purpose or function does this job serve? Presumably the women get paid to do this but what are they actually doing? They don't speak to anyone inside the cars and I doubt occupants could hear them with the windows rolled up and music playing. So who are they helping / serving? Are they sophisticated eye candy?

Another piece of this strange puzzle of Korean customs is the American music like Eminem and MC Hammer that blasts out of nearby speakers (in department stores and restaurants too). Many times I have been walking back from the grocery store and hear, “… Mother Fucker …” being pumped out into the wide open airspace. There is something really funny about seeing a bunch of Koreans walk past a speaker bellowing out curse words and crass lyrics – the majority of them, if not all, are oblivious and carry on with their day without filing law suits or calling up the Christian Coalition. *giggle*