A Constructed World

The development of a voice

a cura di / curated by Sergio Armaroli, Steve Piccolo

Erratum: what is the place for sound art?

Viale Andrea Doria 20, Milano

Mostra a cura di / Exhibition curated by Sergio Armaroli, Steve Piccolo

3 - 7 dicembre / December 2024

Inaugurazione 3 dicembre, ore 19 / Opening 3 December, 7 pm

The work of A Constructed World (founded Melbourne 1993, based in Paris) consists in an expansive project of making-speech-material, proceeding-without-knowing, and the use of the ready-to-hand in performances, installations and events.

The duo enjoy the company of others and often invite friends and colleagues to participate in works and conversations in an attempt to counteract the narrowing discourses and tedious processes that currently pervade the space of contemporary art and politics.

The development of a voice

A Constructed World looks to find a place for all kinds of voices and sounds: pleasant and unpleasant, safe and unsafe, so that nothing is neglected. Over decades, by finding a use for everything and giving everyone a role to play, an archive of gestures shows a fabric whose warp and woof engages those that-can’t-sing, those that-can’t-play with highly professional musicians and composers. This is enriched by the wide shared collective memory of songs, musical events and incidents.

Not-knowing has been a fundamental part of the thirty year practice of A Constructed World: not-knowing about art; not-knowing about theory, philosophy, drawing, dancing, singing, playing instruments and more... Since before the internet ACW have been exploring theUnthought , what-we-know-when-we-don’t-know. Music is a particularly interesting resource because of the rich passive repertoire that groups have already collectively acquired.

Geoff Lowe, as part of A Constructed World, has been inserted into the career of a singer urging and riding with the group. Unwittingly by avoiding the urge to be conspicuous, a volitional intuition has emerged, over time, as an impassioned voice, calling and imploring.

With a very minor talent he assumes the role and the ass captaining the ship. The ass then has become the arse that sings: the ass transmutes into the arse. The arse talks and sings and breathes out of itself.

What does the arse produce? This arse/mouth breathes, blows wind, defecates and vomits like everyone does. This breath, crap and puke are always a part of life and speech, always in private but utterly known and familiar. These actions, over time, represent a growing group of people who-don’t-know-themselves-very-well.

Music that has a legendary capacity to transform and heal suddenly becomes a material dead weight, a map of the loss that haunts us, yet we still need this capacity, this driving potential that speaks-before-it-knows.

Even when it doesn’t know what it is saying, in being done-badly, mal-fait, it releases the

onerous obligation to what has gone before and will come next to hear, to listen to the manner in which we collectively don’t-know.

Through this positioning in an archive, in contemporary art, in liveness: these voices and their development become objects.

*The Hole

And (I) sing as best I can

I offer these words to those I embarrass

Having a go and doing this song

It’s the Hole

You ain’t heard nothing yet

Let me tell you about it

I picked up my receiver

You can scream but you can’t blow

It hides there and you can’t even see it

endangered

It’s the waterhole

It’s covered up

You hear all the voices

What I’m getting at

Via those means

It’s a Floating Conversation

Creates disturbance in your mind

That relies on us

It’s endangered

The loud speaker spoke up and said

And the loud speaker spoke up and sai

Gone back to

Then back here

Everybody’s crying

Feeling like I was

How come I don’t know this

They Come up with Their own version based on this

Dancing ground

Takes you somewhere else

The telephone hasn’t been invented yet

Telepathy is never true

THE HOLE

They gonna tie yo' hands

They gonna tie yo' feet

They gonna gag your throat

Where you can't holler at all

An cryin' won't help you none

Set you in the water

Even though you paid for it

Yeah, the bubbles comin' up.

Whoa

Rrrrrrr

You read between the lines

We're gonna have a deal

They gon' take you right down

By the riverside

Now four is goin' down

Ain't but three comin' back

Who used to be

They said they saw a

They gonna tape you up

And burn it

Rrrrrr

It’s the hole

Could be an talking machine

Could be an breathing machine

Hue her herrr herr

Could be the hole

The spinning hole

Its moving

hoh ho ho ho ho ho ho

Could be the origin

the origin of the world

Could be an anal machine

right where we’ve all seen it

Could be , all pussy there

Could this painting with holes

Where … comes to see her

Could be the screen

Hear it scream

Like Santa Claus

ho ho ho ho ho

It’s the economy

It goes into a hole and comes out –

but when you go down and you never quite

come back up to where you started

ho ho ho ho ho

way down in the hole

we’re gonna go through the hole

I’m lookin’ at the hole in my amplifier

Im speaking thru a hole

In the little hole of my telephone

In the little holes of my landline

yeah the ho ho ho ho ho ho

way down in the hole

like a tunnel

it goes in and out of the hole

The hole

Im in my own hole

I’m whole

Im in your hole

Im in you ho ho ho ho hole

ho ho ho ho ho ho

Rabotaroom

Via Sansovino 27, Milano

Concerto / Concert ACW

4 dicembre 2024, ore 21 / 4 December 2024, 9 pm

con / with Steve Piccolo, Sergio Armaroli, Michele Robecchi e / and special guests

Curated by Oxana Maleeva, Rabotaroom is a research gallery in the field of contemporary art and design, whose ambitions extend far beyond the confines of a simple exhibition space, producing new works and concepts.